If it comes to a century-old car company, then Mitsubishi must have a name, from the earliest Model A to the production of Willis Jeep, the later EVO and Pajero's rally legend, Mitsubishi seems to have been the person on the cusp of the storm, but just recently, Mitsubishi sold the Bobcat factory to fully embrace electrification, just recently, GAC Mitsubishi released its first electric vehicle - Atuka, can it take over Pajero's baton and open up its own path for Mitsubishi in the era of electrification?
01
How Mitsubishi embarked on the road to car building
The Mitsubishi Group is actually a huge group, including heavy industry, chemicals, materials, automobiles, ships, aircraft, in other words, small ballpoint pens, large to fighter jets, there are Mitsubishi Group figures, and the origin of the Mitsubishi Group also from the 19th century. In 1870, Yataro Iwasaki founded the Ninety-Nine Chamber of Commerce, although it was a chamber of commerce, but did not have its own goods, and made a living by selling iron buckets, and three years later, the Ninety-Nine Chamber of Commerce was renamed the Mitsubishi Chamber of Commerce, and this name is still used today.
Yataro Iwasaki was actually an official before starting his own business, and had a good relationship with the military and the government, just in time for Japan to advocate the Meiji Restoration, and the Mitsubishi Group was able to flourish. In 1918, Mitsubishi built its first car, the Model A, which sounded like a Tesla product, which was actually a copycat, but the power part was produced by itself. Although the appearance is copycat, it still became Japan's first domestically produced car, but due to the inexhaustible quality, the production of this car was less than 20 units before it was discontinued. It can only be said that this car is a bold attempt by Mitsubishi to start building cars.
Although Mitsubishi made cars at that time, but the construction of aircraft and large ships was quite powerful, especially in World War II, Mitsubishi produced a large number of fighter jets, warships, etc. for the Japanese military, which is enough to reflect its high level of industrial proficiency, but then again, as an accomplice of the war, Mitsubishi's military background is a proper black history.
In 1945, Japan was defeated and the Mitsubishi Group was split into three, with Mitsubishi returning to the automobile business, the first being the assembly and sales business of "Henry J", and in 1953, Mitsubishi contracted the production and sales of Willis jeeps.
As we all know, the three major Japanese off-road vehicles, the Land Patrol, the Tour, and the Pajero all originated in Willis, but there are essential differences between the three. Toyota and Nissan "Cottage" Willys have different situations to build their own off-road vehicles, and Mitsubishi began producing off-road vehicles by acting as its foundry. After this experience, Mitsubishi in the later road to build SUV can be described as a tiger, according to this model, Mitsubishi also developed a number of off-road vehicles, and also laid a solid foundation for the subsequent Pajero. It is not an exaggeration to say that Willys is the origin of the Mitsubishi off-road vehicle. It was not until 1964 that the three separated companies re-merged and officially changed their names to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In 1970, in order to establish a business partnership with Chrysler, Mitsubishi Established an independent automotive division, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation. Mitsubishi Motors kicked off.
02
Mitsubishi relied on racing cars to quickly become famous in the automotive circle
In the 1960s and 1970s, Japanese car companies wanted to gain the recognition of consumers around the world, they would choose to participate in auto racing, expand their global visibility, and Mitsubishi was no exception, in 1962, at the Macau Grand Prix, Mitsubishi used the 500 Super Deluxe model to compete, and won the top four.
This was undoubtedly a great encouragement for Mitsubishi to participate in the first car race, and at the same time won a lot of good reputation for himself, so Mitsubishi hit the iron while it was hot, and won the second and third places at the Malaysian Grand Prix the following year. After winning many victories in the RV field, Mitsubishi set its sights on another kind of motorsport – formula racing.
In 1971 in the Japanese GP, Mitsubishi won the championship and runner-up, which is also the first championship of The Mitsubishi GP career, after winning the championship, Mitsubishi announced its retirement, but still provided engines to some customers, the career of Formula Mitsubishi came to an end, but they opened a new door - rally. In 1974, Mitsubishi used the Lancer 1600 GSR to compete in the Safari Rally, and unexpectedly, it beat Porsche in its first competition and won the championship, which was also Mitsubishi's first championship on the WRC field.
This also opened a new door for Mitsubishi, and in the following years of competition, Mitsubishi became a regular general. After the suspension of the Safari Rally, Mitsubishi naturally participated in the WRC competition, and between 1989 and 1992, Mitsubishi won a total of 6 WRC championships. After 1992, in order to participate in Group A racing, Mitsubishi launched Lancer Evolution, a generation of classics, which began! Later in the story, you probably also heard that legendary driver Makinen drove the EVO to become the first rally driver in history to win four consecutive titles.
Of course, Mitsubishi not only participated in the WRC, but also participated in the Dakar Rally, and the model participating in the Dakar Rally is the soul model in the Mitsubishi SUV series - Pajero. After that, Mitsubishi also completed the Dakar 7 consecutive hegemony with this legendary model, the highlight of which was the 2002 Dakar Rally, in a total of 16 stages, Pajero won the championship in 10 stages, the top 10 in the overall performance list, except for the 9th place is Toyota, the rest are all Pajero. And Mitsubishi's factory team, Nippon Petroleum Rally Team and Mitsubishi Rally Art Team won the top four podiums.
2009 is the last time Mitsubishi participated in the Dakar Rally, after that, with the global economic crisis, Mitsubishi is ready to concentrate resources on big things, so it quit the Dakar Rally, which is inevitable to make people sigh, in fact, at that time, many car manufacturers also began to stop car racing, not only Mitsubishi family has this problem. In fact, in this year's Dakar Rally, Pajero still participated, but participated in the classic group competition, for these "old guys", to be active on the stage of Dakar, it has been very successful.
03
What does Mitsubishi rely on to fight the world?
Then again, in fact, mitsubishi in those years can shine the field and the market reason, in fact, thanks to advanced research and development technology, the most well-known is Mitsubishi's four-wheel drive technology, first of all is used in the EVO S-AWC technology, it is with the addition of this technology, EVO can be invincible in the WRC field, this four-wheel drive system by AYC, ACD, ASC, ABS together constitute a super all-wheel control system, which plays a decisive role is AYC and ACD, ACD is an active central differential, its role is to control the front and rear wheel power output through a limited-slip differential, the active central differential can control the power of the differential slippage in a timely manner, can maintain stability when accelerating braking, respond more quickly when cornering, and can also meet the resistance brought by non-paved pavement. AYC is an active deflection control system, in the fourth generation of EVO has his figure, AYC can make the torque output of the two rear wheels different, according to the actual required torque output, to meet the body's needs for deflection control.
There is also a four-wheel drive system, that is, SS4 super-select four-wheel drive system, it is this system, so that there is no independent girder Ofelo has a very good off-road ability, this super-selected four-wheel drive is different from the ordinary full-time four-wheel drive and time-sharing four-wheel drive, is a more special form, he can achieve full-time four-wheel drive in high-speed state, and retain the time-sharing four-wheel drive distribution box structure, the front and rear axles can be rigidly linked, which can be described as both fish and bear paws, although the structure is very complex, but very reliable.
The most powerful is its 4LLc mode, in which the difference locks, the front and rear axles are evenly distributed and there is no speed difference, and the maximum torque is amplified by 1.9 times, which means that in this mode, the vehicle cannot make normal turns, and can only be used to get out of trouble. As for other 4HLc, 4H, 2H is to provide you with more modes, so that you can always find the most suitable choice for yourself, in addition, the advantages in engine technology are innumerable, MIVEC technology and the legendary redhead 4G63 has no need to repeat, after all, the jianghu, are their legends.
In addition, Mitsubishi has actually been in the pure electric vehicle technology layout very early, as early as 1971, Mitsubishi has begun to study electric vehicles, but at that time the various components are not very powerful, so there has been no major breakthrough, until 2006, Mitsubishi launched iMiEV, canceled the wheel motor, the use of single motor and rear-drive model settings, in that era, iMiEV is very advanced equipped with fast charge and slow charge two charging ports, slow charge the fastest 7 hours, The fast charge can charge the battery to 80% in 30 minutes, and the mileage is 130 kilometers, as a short-distance scooter, this mileage is acceptable to me today. And the car has been mass-produced in 2009 and has been sold to Europe.
And the sales of Outlander PHEV in Europe are also quite good, often ranking in the top three of the new energy model sales list, and often dominate the first place in the hybrid SUV sales list. In 2019 alone, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV deliveries exceeded 30,000 vehicles, and the cumulative delivery is expected to reach 150,000 vehicles. It is the best-selling plug-in hybrid in the UK, accounting for 50% of the total sales of electric and hybrid vehicles. In general, the product strength of Mitsubishi electrified models is absolutely no problem, in that era of battery manufacturing and charging facilities are not perfect, it is not easy to do this degree, and also boldly put forward the prototype of the wheel hub motor at this stage, I believe that in this era, Mitsubishi will do better, can only sigh, up early, but caught up with a late set
04
Riding on the east wind of new energy, can GAC help Mitsubishi' big ship to set sail again?
So if Mitsubishi's technology is so powerful, why did it still end up to where it is today? The reason is very simple, there is no money, although Mitsubishi has been a short glory at the end of the last world, but for various reasons superimposed together, so that it was in the stage of shrinking food at the beginning of this century, take Pajero, V93 is the fourth generation of Pajero, it is a product of 2006, as for its engine gearbox, it goes back to the third generation of Pajero V73 in 1999, which is equivalent to using the powertrain of more than twenty years ago, how to fight with others? There is also interior design, which is not very suitable for today's mainstream aesthetics, and is not friendly to consumers who pursue exquisite interiors, so there is a question in front of us, whether the current GAC Mitsubishi can help Mitsubishi get rid of today's embarrassing situation.
Since the cooperation between the two sides in 2012, GAC Mitsubishi only has SUV models, the fuel models currently on sale are Eurand, Jinxuan, Yige these three models, of which the sales of the handle or the introduction of Eurand in 2016, because the previous Eurand only imported version, so just into the domestic market response is still very good, but after a long time, everyone has a lot of criticism of Outlander, especially its interior design, slightly old, a little unable to keep up with the pace of the times, Jinxuan and Yige also did not set off too much storm, in 2019 GAC Mitsubishi cumulative sales of 133016 vehicles, down 7.64% year-on-year; in 2020 GAC Mitsubishi cumulative sales of 75,001 vehicles, down 43.62% year-on-year; 2021 GAC Mitsubishi cumulative sales of 66,006 vehicles, down 11.99% year-on-year, january to February this year, Outlander's cumulative sales of only 8398 vehicles, from the sales data point of view, GAC Mitsubishi's sales data has declined to varying degrees for three consecutive years from 2019 to 2021.
So now the biggest problem of GAC Mitsubishi is to break the status quo, not to break or stand, to break and then stand. In this situation, GAC Mitsubishi urgently needs an electric car to break the situation. Looking at the entire market, the domestic electric vehicle market can be divided into three time periods, the earliest is the emergence of new car-making forces, such as Tesla and "Wei Xiaoli", followed by domestic independent brands began to enter the pure electrification market, and the slowest may be some joint venture brands, whether they are unwilling to give up their advantages in fuel vehicles or not, or ship difficulties to turn around, these brands can also be in the domestic layout of pure electric vehicles.
Under the details, the influence of Japanese brand pure electric vehicles in the market is very small, most of them are still based on hybrid technology, and this year, Japanese brands have begun to force the pure electric vehicle market, Toyota even launched 15 electric vehicles in one go, it can be said that the first shot of Japanese pure electric vehicles entering the country. Among them, the earliest layout in China is Mitsubishi, which really surprised me.
The new Atuka design adopts the Mitsubishi family-style "Dynamic Shield" family design, which looks very "Mitsubishi", and this design language is also similar to the new generation of Outlander that has been listed abroad.
Artuka is the perfect integration of Mitsubishi's innate racing genes and GAC new energy technology, the two resources are shared, each takes the new products brought by its strengths, and also carried out a large number of localization adaptations, Artuka can be regarded as the first pure electric SUV in China, it also represents the beginning of GAC Mitsubishi, in addition, the Mitsubishi Corporation of Mitsubishi, which holds the shares of GAC, is also cooperating with Bosch to start the test of electric vehicles (EVs), which also lays a certain foundation for the future road.
But GAC Mitsubishi gave this car more mission, in fact, it is still to test the water market, and it is too early to say that Artucus can turn Mitsubishi into profit, this car also needs the test of the market, as for GAC Mitsubishi, it still needs to introduce more Mitsubishi technology and products to be able to compete with other manufacturers.
05
Edit the review
From the beginning of manufacturing Willis Jeep to the manufacture of Japan's first mass production car, and then to the championship in various automotive events, but also to create two hot products in the civilian car market, EVO and Pajero, although today's Mitsubishi is different from the past, but we see Mitsubishi's determination to constantly challenge difficulties, but also see the confidence in the market, I hope that Mitsubishi can regain the uniqueness of the year, continue to create more "Pajero" and "EVO" for us.
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