Mitsubishi to End Car Production in US

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 24, 6:42AM EDT

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24/7 Wall St. predicted Mitsubishi Motors would disappear from the U.S. market in 2014. The process appears to have begun. The company said it would shutter U.S. production, which means the manufacturer is likely to move out of America altogether soon.

In its Ten Brands That Will Disappear in 2014, 24/7 Wall St. said:

While it never had a massive presence in the United States, the niche Japanese automaker has had some success with models like the Lancer and the Eclipse. However, Mitsubishi Motors will soon exit the U.S. market, just as its Japanese rival, American Suzuki Motor Corp., did at the end of last year.

After the announcement, Akshay Anand, analyst for auto research firm Kelley Blue Book, wrote:

Mitsubishi has been struggling in the United States for years now, and production nixing is unsurprising. There haven’t been many sales hits besides the recent Outlander, as introductions such as the i-MiEv and Mirage have failed to take off in the marketplace. Rumors will surely fly about Mitsubishi pulling out of the U.S. market completely. What’s clear is that Mitsubishi needs to introduce stronger products in the right segments of the market if they hope to recapture some of the success they saw years ago.

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Karl Brauer, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book, wrote:

Mitsubishi has struggled to grow U.S. sales for several years, and it’s limited product portfolio means many buyers never seriously consider the brand. It’s hard to imagine how moving production out of the U.S. benefits the Japanese automaker from a cost or logistical perspective. Is Mitsubishi looking to grow, or even maintain, its presence in the U.S. car market? Ending production in Illinois doesn’t support either goal.

Mitsubishi car sales have improved in the United States. However, its market share is only 0.5%. Sales rose 24.9% for the first six months of this year to 49,544. Yet Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold more of its F-Series pickups in June alone: 55,171. Mitsubishi also is plagued by a poor perception of its product. In the recent J.D. Power 2015 U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study, Mitsubishi finished in third to the last place, besting only Fiat and smart. With a tiny dealer network, low regard for its products, and a model line that only includes four cars, Mitsubishi’s presence in the United States is all but over.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.