Greenwire: Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will more than triple the annual production of its electric car over the next three years to meet higher global demand.
The company will produce 9,000 of its zero-emission i-MiEVs in the coming fiscal year, 18,000 the next year and 30,000 the following year, according to spokesman Yuki Murata.
Mitsubishi sold 1,400 of the cars in Japan and another 250 abroad in 2009, the car’s first year of production. The i-MiEV will enter the U.S. market in the fiscal year starting in April 2011.
The i-MiEV can be recharged from a regular home socket and can go 100 miles on just seven hours of charge. But it is twice as expensive as the Prius hybrid, a problem Murata said the company is hoping to combat in the coming years.
Meanwhile, Mitsubishi’s rival Nissan Motor Co. unveiled its electric car, the Leaf, which will go into mass production in 2012. The Leaf can go 100 miles on a single charge (Shino Yuasa, AP/Detroit Free Press, March 23). – JP