Mitsubishi had a strong 2024, offering affordable cars that the market wanted to buy, including hybrid crossovers. A closer look at how dealers performed, however, shows that the boost in sales wasn’t necessarily a huge boost to dealers. Even worse, a new electric platform might not be the Mirage replacement everyone wants.
A big thanks to Thomas for helming The Morning Dump earlier this week while I was traveling/attending an ad tech conference. I’ll have a little update on that at the bottom of TMD.
I want to talk about electric cars today because there’s been some interesting news on that front. From Mitsubishi, we’ve learned that a new vehicle is coming that’ll be similar to the new Leaf. Is that a good thing? It’ll depend a lot on how much it costs. Tesla continues to struggle in China, where it’s losing market share to companies like BYD. Lucid missed its earnings expectations, but narrowed the amount of money it’s losing per vehicle as it expands production.
Does all this talk of electric cars bore you? Congrats, I’m ending the week with the good news that one of the coolest car events anywhere is coming to the United States.
Mitsubishi Dealers: A $40,000+ EV ‘Won’t Work’
Mitsubishi is still associated with Nissan, in spite of all the merger/sales talks, and the company’s product roadmap includes a small electric car based on the upcoming and entirely redesigned Nissan Leaf. It’s possible this is going to be a great car, but for budget-oriented Mitsubishi dealers, the most important thing is that it be an affordable one.
Even though the company reported a sales increase of 25% year-over-year to about 110,000 vehicles last year, not all of those deliveries were normal retail transactions for dealers. In fact, according to a new report, only about 66,000 of those vehicles were retailed through Mitsubishi’s U.S. stores. With about 320 retail stores, that comes out to about 17 vehicles per dealer per month. With high costs of vehicles last year, I’m sure a lot of Outlanders ended up at rental counters.
Here’s what dealers are telling Automotive News:
Mitsubishi financial data provided to Automotive News showed that average net profit per store plunged by nearly half from the pandemic’s start in 2020 to $434,199 last year. Average dealership net profit as a percentage of sales slipped to 0.92 percent last year from 2.2 percent in 2023.
A Mitsubishi dealer welcomed the lineup expansion, but tempered expectations in a product information vacuum.
“If we get an EV that’s $40,000-plus, that won’t work,” the retailer said, requesting not to be identified. “We need affordable vehicles. That’s where the market is.”
Absolutely. All of these expensive two-row electric crossovers are fighting over a relatively small market, whereas there’s a huge opportunity for cost-effective electric vehicles, hybrids, and gas-powered cars. It’s why the Chevy Equinox EV and Honda Prologue are selling so well. If this re-imagined Nissan Leaf can come in at an affordable price, then maybe Mitsubishi will have something, although I can’t imagine it’ll be a replacement for the bargain basement Mirage.
The brand already has affordable PHEVs, so I’ll reserve judgment until I see pricing.
Tesla Is Running Out Of Excuses
Another day, another story about Tesla sales dropping in a key market it used to dominate. This time it’s China, where the automaker continues to face intense competition from new car companies.
Tesla Inc.’s vehicle shipments from its China plant declined for a seventh consecutive month, exacerbating the carmaker’s early-year slump.
Elon Musk’s automaker shipped 58,459 Model 3 sedans and Model Y sport utility vehicles from its Shanghai factory last month, 6% fewer than a year earlier, according to preliminary data released Wednesday. China’s Passenger Car Association didn’t yet offer a breakdown of domestic sales and exports.
China-wide wholesales of new-energy vehicles — which include electric cars and hybrids — are estimated to have risen 42% to 1.14 million units for April, the PCA data show.
Tesla, as a company, has started to note that CEO Elon Musk’s political activities have harmed sales in places like California and Europe. Those political concerns seem like they should be less of an issue in China, where strong competition has led the American company to increasing declines in a country where it was once thriving.
The company’s global switch to a refreshed Model Y, as well as the Lunar New Year, have been used as an excuse for why deliveries might be down in China in the past. That’s no longer in play here, which means that any decrease in sales going forward is probably just demand.
Could politics eventually play a hand, though? China and the United States aren’t exactly playing nice with one another right now. I’ve yet to see Musk or anyone else at Tesla try to explain concretely what’s happening.
Lucid Misses Earnings, Which Isn’t That Terrible
Sales and financials at electric car startup Lucid weren’t great, but they were better, and better seems good enough for a company sitting on a Scrooge McDuck-level pile of Saudi cash. Sensing that Tesla was weak and having, generally, the best-performing electric cars on the market, Lucid’s strategy has been to drop prices and increase incentives to gain market share.
This seems to be working, with Q1 deliveries of 3,109 vehicles and $235 million of revenue, a little short of the $250 million the market predicted. The company only lost $0.24 per share, which is better than Q1 of 2024, when it lost $0.27 per share.
Here’s what CEO Mark Winterhoff, pictured above, had to say:
“We continued to build momentum in the first quarter as we achieved yet another delivery record, further strengthened our market position, and executed against operational priorities,” said Marc Winterhoff, Interim CEO at Lucid. “Lucid Gravity is beginning to arrive in more customers’ driveways and at our studios, and combined with our progress toward future initiatives, our company is well positioned for future success.”
With the Gravity coming out this year, Lucid expects it’ll produce 20,000, which is a lot of cars for them. While the automaker seems far from profitability, it’s at least closer than it was last year.
Retromobile Is Coming To The United States
For the last two years, we’ve told you that Retromobile is the place to find some of the strangest, most historically interesting classics. For Europeans, it’s a short jaunt to Paris to attend the show; for the rest of us, it’s a bit of a hike.
Sensing we were missing out, Retromobile is coming to New York, and Gooding & Co. will be doing the auctioning. Hell yeah!
Bloomberg‘s Hannah Elliott (who else?) has the skinny:
New York presents a unique opportunity for Rétromobile to infiltrate America, since the city lacks a premier global automotive event like the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in Carmel, California; the Amelia Concours d’Elegance on Amelia Island, Florida; and Formula One races like those in Austin, Las Vegas and Miami. It’s logistically easier to access from Europe than car centers such as Los Angeles, and many of the country’s most fervent enthusiasts house their collections in relative proximity in Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and even Michigan.
But the Big Apple has its own challenges too. The venue for the event, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, is notoriously difficult to access by subway and on foot, and the dates of the American Rétromobile show conflict with the F1 race happening the same week in Las Vegas.
I find Javits relatively easy to get to by the subway, and if you’re coming via Hudson Yards, it’s not that bad on foot. The F1 race issue is real, though.
Between the two, I think I’ll go to Retromobile… assuming they’ll let me in (and I don’t risk walking away with a car).
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It feels like “Monday, Monday” after being out the last two days, so let’s enjoy some music from The Mama’s and the Papa’s.
The Big Question
I went to an ad tech conference yesterday, which is a sentence I never hoped to write. The reality is that, as the publisher, it’s my job to make sure we’re sustainable (I never want to lay anyone off), so it’s important I understand how all of this works. My big takeaway is that the current environment sucks for publishers because everyone says they want more “quality” and yet the market is designed for “quantity.” Our bet is that quality will win out in the long term, which is why we aim to have an advertising load that’s 51% of what our competitors offer.
After doing some soul-searching, we’re now considering turning off display ads for members. If you pay, maybe you shouldn’t have to see an ad (how we deal with the video player, which also has editorial videos, is another question). At the same time, if we do that, we’ll probably have to turn up the ads for non-members a little bit (let’s say to 75% of what the market offers).
How would everyone feel about that? Would that motivate you to become a member?
Top photo: Mitsubishi
To be fair, Mitsubishi dealers make most of their profits from the vape shop side of the business.
I like Mitsu, they offer the best warranty in Canada and their hybrid SUV is hard to beat for value. I truly don’t think paying more for Toyota or Honda for their perceived reliability is worth it these days (as a Honda & Toyota owner).
I wish they would bring an affordable Pajero here (Jimny?) and a midsize pickup (Isuzu Dmax?) with some 2.5-3.0L diesel.
They seem to do well in Australia, would like to see them in NA.
At my gig we’ve moved to only displaying local ads to subscribers, not crap from the exchanges. Something to consider.
Y’all do what you need to do. I’m a member and the ads don’t bother me much. I use the internet, thus I am used to them. If you want to turn them off, cool, but be sustainable first!
Maybe I’m in the minority and I’m, of course, only speaking for myself, but… You can raise my membership by as much as 25% if you turn off ads for me.
Lucid: At work, we have a couple capital projects going on. All were budgeted originally before Covid. And all have completely blown up the schedule and budget.
I work in the nuclear industry. I swear today’s normal capital projects cost and lead time overruns look more like a nuclear program than a non-nuclear program in the post-Covid era.
A lot of these “losses” on cars like Lucid aren’t “losses” but capital investments. They are making new designs, doing work to get them approved by regulators, learning how to make parts, etc. Even on a really established product, Ford “loses” a crap ton of money on the first year or two of making a new generation of F-150s before they can pay off the investment in re-tooling and design and break even and start making money. Since Ford has a lot of different vehicles in a lot of different times in their product cycles, the “losses” on the first year or two of F150s are hidden. But for a company like Lucid that has 1 (is the 2nd one out yet?) vehicle, these Capital Investment costs look like giant losses since they don’t have enough other vehicles to provide cash flow to hide what is happening.
As long as Lucid gets over the hump and starts having a couple vehicles that are popular and profitable, they will be ok. Telsa lost tons of money each car until recently they started making tons of money on each car, until “something happened” which I don’t want to get into.
I think Rivian is close. The R1T and R1S seem to be selling well given their high prices and they seem to be getting close to the R2. Once the R2 is in production, there will be stories about how they are losing stupid amounts of money per unit… until they turn to how much money they are making per unit. Assuming Rivian doesn’t run out of money or make a flop that nobody wants to buy.
My only complaint about the ads is the ad that pops up on side that blocks the notifications regularly when I open them. If that could be moved to the other side of the page, I wouldn’t mind it. Honestly as a non-member, I don’t mind if there was more ads so that you can keep quality content.
I’ll admit to never doing anything on a phone because the ad/trash/annoyance level is far too high.
I am not a member. The current amount of ads don’t bother me. More ads probably won’t bother. I try my best to avoid paying attention to ads. Whether it’s here, YouTube, TV, wherever. Just ignore. I don’t understand how they work? I make enough money to go out and buy whatever is being displayed in front of me…..
Maybe make new tier options for no ads? I have Velour and I’d pay more for no ads.
i would love to introduce you to how the internet works.
Do elaborate.
thats up to you, i dont want to undermine the revenue stream of like the only website i go to.. i’m just sayin.. i havent seen an add on the internet for like 6 years.
Yes I know ad blockers are a thing. I’d like to make sure this site stays around by making sure they get paid enough. I’m willing to pay THEM more for an ad free experience because of that.
Mitsubishi dealers are their own worst enemies. Yes Mitsubishi made some very questionable decisions but the dealers overwhelmingly became extra scummy. I only know of 2 to 3 that are reputable in the entire county but I suspect there are a few more. I bet the very sketchy ones get 2 sales a month. It’s a tricky situation more so then just not having a dealer network to start with. I’ve often thought they would just bring Nissian and Mitsubishi dealers together but as many franchise dealers have both it may not make alot of sense for Mitsubishi. I think many dealers are basically turning their Mitsubishi dealers into used car lots while selling new Mitsubishi as well. Maybe they can add vinfast or something else to make them a little more sustainable.
The mitsu dealer right by me is a Monster in used cars.. i have no idea if they even sell new Mitsus.. the lot is just filled with chargers, land rovers, jeeps, you name it.
Yeah it’s pretty common and they put the used cars out front. Kind of a funny situation. It’s pretty common for the big dealers chains to turn something into a used lot when it’s not doing well or tje brand goes away. Alot of the dedicated fiat / Alfa places have turned to that. Some of those are turning into vinfast. Saturn and Pontiac did that too until they figured something else to put in them.
Vinfast will kill Mitsubishi just by association. Mitsus are pretty decent cars. Vinfasts are at the very bottom of the quality hierarchy.
The vinfasts in the US are way overpriced and pretty buggy not sure they are low quality though. With as low as sales have been I’m surprised they haven’t tried to get another franchise.
Spoiler alert. Certain ad blocking things really do work well and all I ever see is “ADVERTISEMENT” in small font where the ad was to appear. Shh, don’t tell the advertisers. I am a member.
Mitsubishi should have electrified the Mirage. It is already a super light car (around a ton or so), so it just needed a small battery and motor, make the plug Tesla compatible, and sell it cheeeep.
I bought a new Mitsu in 2023 and two in 2024. Where’s my check Mitsubishi?
ive got a 93 Pajero.. does this help at all?
I have so many ad networks and sites blacklisted via my edge router… I rarely see any ads show on this site as-is… same for most sites. It’s sad that you have to spend so much time working out these blacklists, but for my tastes, it makes the internet almost useable again. Now, I await my own blacklist from autopian after admitting as much. Maybe they’ll have me over a barrel and I’ll be forced to become a member… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I’m old and I have a few PCs at home with which I can come here online. Nothing here is urgent enough to require immediate use of my phone.
I haven’t signed up yet, per Groucho’s one-liner (which has an unusual number of variations and recipients).
Please, no pop up ads or ads embedded into slideshows or ads that block the content.
These things drove me away from the old site
I don’t subscribe, yet. I will soon when the budget allows.
I don’t run an explicit adblocker, but I do run NoScript because the internet has become nearly intolerable without it. It also happens to block most ads because they’re all third-party server-based scripts.
I’ve never felt particularly guilty about that because I assumed my annual subscription dwarfed the pennies you would get from my ad impressions, but this suggests maybe not? Do you have any numbers on what percentage of revenue you get from memberships versus ad impressions for existing members?
I am generally fine with the level of ads currently on the site and a slight increase or decrease wouldn’t really alter my enjoyment of the site but my experience is 99% desktop/laptop based so I can’t speak to the mobile content.
My only request is that the small video preview advertisement be reformatted to load out of the way of the notifications pulldown menu.
Same. Kill that damn little window.
I’m mainly a desktop user using an ad blocker (sorry about the revenue loss). I’m a member because I want to contribute to what you do. If I weren’t yet a member and used the site on mobile where ad blocking is a lot more challenging, the promise of an ad free experience might push me over the edge to supporting. On the other hand some readers might just get annoyed.
I became an Autopian Member in 2022, and I’m great with the level of ads I see here. This is actually the only news/content website I visit nowadays, so these are the only ads I see really. Keep the ads, please get paid. I want the Autopian to last forever.
As a paying member I’m ok with the current quantity of ads EXCEPT for the full page scrolly ads that feel like a hijack of my device. This only happens on mobile from my experience. And it happens multiple times per article. Super annoying!! If you just get rid of those I’ll be happy.
As for the ads vs no ads for members I say go for it on a trial basis. You have different tiers. Slowly implement it for the human leather members and if it works trickle it down to the other tiers.
I signed up during those discount periods and I think for that price it’s about right. Without the discount I think the cost is a bit high especially since weekend content is a bit thin. I applaud you for giving the writers weekends off though.
I’ve been a member since the early days and don’t mind the current level of ads (aside from the ones that make the page randomly jump). I would, of course, appreciate fewer ads, but not if it comes with a reduction in number of staff, quality of writing, or quantity of articles.
I think that in most states, fleet sale cars still have to be delivered via retail dealerships. And I have to assume that those dealers make a small fee on each of those deliveries. So even if fleet sales are the bulk of Mitsubishi sales, the dealers are still making money.
As a current non-payer (hoping to change that soon), the ads don’t bother me. I always read on my computer so not sure how much different it is on mobile. I don’t have an ad blocker or anything but the only one that really bothers me is the one on the right that is below the bell. If you don’t close that auto-play window down, then you can’t see the notifications.
As a somebody else mentioned below, I say keep the ads as is and increase the rewards to people who become members. Be it more/better product or early access to certain things. Something along those lines.
I would really hate to have the non-paying traffic die off because there is an increase in ads