Mitsubishi shares spike on higher i-MiEV forecast

SHARES in Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) rose as much as 7.3 per cent last week after the Japanese business press reported that the company planned to double its output of the i-MiEV electric car next financial year.

According to the Reuters news agency, MMC shares reached their highest level in three months during early trading last Friday after the Nikkei reported that Mitsubishi had doubled its i-MiEV production target to 20,000 units for the year ending March 2012.

The report also said MMC would more than double its output of lithium-ion batteries, which are being manufactured in conjunction with Mitsubishi Corporation and GS Yuasa.

An MMC spokesperson said the company was sticking to its 10,000 target and reaffirmed the initial 2000-unit production run for this financial year. MMC has received requests for almost the full 2000 but these are still to be translated into orders.

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi has begun selling “low-CO2” variants of its Colt light car under a new ClearTec banner in Europe.

Restricted to manual versions with either a 1.1-litre three-cylinder or 1.3-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, the Colt ClearTec variants feature an idle-stop system, low-rolling-resistance tyres, lower final gear ratios (down to 4.158 for the 1.1-litre and 3.842 for the 1.3), a high-efficiency alternator (with “electricity generation control”), low-viscosity engine oil and a number of other minor engine changes.

According to Mitsubishi, the combined result is a best-in-class 115g/km of CO2 for the ClearTec Colt 1.1 – and 119g/km for the 1.3-litre version – which is better than the regular Colt (130/138g/km 1.1/1.3), Toyota Yaris 1.0 (118g/km), Opel Corsa 1.0 (134g/km), Renault Clio 1.2 (133g/km) and Volkswagen Polo 1.2 (138g/km).

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