Mitsubishi reveals future plans under Nissan control

Mitsubishi's future under the control of Nissan is beginning to take shape.

The Japanese brand was taken over by the Nissan-Renault alliance in late 2016 after Mitsubishi was caught falsifying fuel figures in some models.

Nissan installed long-time executive Trevor Mann to the role of chief operating officer and he is preparing a new future vision for the brand that should be ready by late March, in time for the end of the Japanese financial year.

Speaking to Australian media at the 2017 Geneva motor show, Mann was optimistic about Mitsubishi's future despite the turbulent last 12 months. While acknowledging it has a number of key weaknesses, he is also confident it is in a better position than what Nissan was in when it struck trouble at the turn of the millennium.

"If you look at Nissan going back to 1999, Nissan was dead," Mann said. "It had a debt of... I can't remember the exact amount but it was $19 billion or something like that. So Nissan was really, really on its knees. Mitsubishi is not on its knees. It had its problems in the middle of last year but from a financial point of view it has not been so bad. We've been static around one million units, plus or minus, we were making six per cent operating profit margin for the last four or five years, which is relatively healthy. We're relatively cash rich, we don't have debt. So in that respect it's not like Nissan.

"In other respects we need help. We're one million units and one million units for a company today is not really sustainable. Not sustainable means even if you're relatively healthy in terms of margin, the mass amount of dollars you're accumulating doesn't really allow you to re-generate and reinvest in new platforms, new technologies. The compliance you've got to invest in for both safety and environmental. It becomes very, very difficult. Then obviously the new technologies in terms of autonomous driving and this type of thing, it make sit quite difficult for a company of our size.

"With the alliance it means we have all of those things accessible through Nissan."

While Mitsubishi has a strong SUV line-up and the Triton ute sells well in Australia, its passenger cars are ageing and uncompetitive, especially the Lancer. While Mann admits the partnership with Nissan and Renault opens up the possibility of sharing platforms and technology he cautioned against trying to do too much in a short period.

So for the short-term the brand will focus on its SUV line-up that was expanded at the Geneva show with the introduction of the new Eclipse Cross that sits between the ASX and Outlander.

"I think what we've got to do is consolidate where we are," Mann explained. "As you know the world is slowly changing and it is going in one direction, towards SUV type of vehicles which is our strength. So gradually, slowly, country-by-country it is going from passenger vehicles into SUVs. So I think that's where I think we've got to consolidate our strength because a company our size we can't be spread too thin. We've only got finite resources in terms of how much we can invest in new platforms, new technologies, etc. So we've really got to consolidate where we are strong and where we are strong where the market trend is at the moment."

While Mitsubishi is only selling one million vehicles globally at the moment - well behind Nissan and Renault - Mann said the addition of the Mitsubishi models will make the three-brand alliance one of the biggest car making groups in the world.

"What do we bring? We bring another million units which puts the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance number three, potentially number two [in global sales]," he said. "We're just short of 10 million units this calendar year. So if each company continues to grow easily we can be above 10 million units."

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