Mitsubishi USA Production History : 1989-2015

The Mitsubishi Eclipse sports car

Like Subaru, Mitsubishi entered car manufacturing in the US in 1989, and likewise did it making cars for someone else as well to get sufficient volume. In Mitsubishi's case, it was with Chrysler US, a company that it had financial links with.

Going back a few years, in the early 1980's Mitsubishi commenced selling cars in the US under its brand name. Then both Mitsubishi and Chrysler agreed to form a 50/50 joint venture to manufacture cars in the US, to get around import limits on Japanese cars. Initially the Mitsubishi Eclipse sports car was made at the plant at Normal, Illinois along with two rebadged Chrysler models of the same car.

A brief run of the Mirage was soon switched to the Galant, which provided better volumes. With Chrysler production - averaging over 60,000 units p.a. from 1989 to 1999 - along with Mitsubishi cars had the plant fairly well utilised.

However, in the 2000's, Chrysler production was falling at the joint venture plant and was ended by 2004. This coincided with a fall in Mitsubishi production, despite the introduction of the Endeavor SUV which wasn't very successful. The Raider pick-up was made for Mitsubishi so wasn't produced at the Normal plant, not that its paltry numbers would have helped.

In recent times, car production was phased out and the Outlander SUV did quite well when it replaced the under performing Endeavor in 2012. Despite that, it was decided to end production in 2015. Unless the Normal plant was to be used for large scale exporting, the maths didn't add up in making cars for local consumption.

The reason Subaru was able to go it alone while Mitsubishi wasn't is down to domestic popularity. In 2016 Subaru sold 615,000 vehicles in the US, to Mitsubishi's 96,000.  It was therefore the right decision, that brought to an end 27 years of production in the US.

	Year	Passenger cars			Light Trucks		Annual
	Model	Galant	Eclipse	Mirage	Outl/End	Raider	Prod
	1989	-	40,900	-	-	-	40,900
	1990	-	58,500	5,400	-	-	63,900
	1991	-	57,900	24,200	-	-	82,100
	1992	-	72,400	10,100	-	-	82,500
	1993	42,900	54,700	-	-	-	97,600
	1994	65,000	57,000	-	-	-	122,000
	1995	55,500	60,700	-	-	-	116,200
	1996	57,000	65,100	-	-	-	122,100
	1997	42,800	67,600	-	-	-	110,400
	1998	45,900	50,700	-	-	-	96,600
	1999	65,000	54,000	-	-	-	119,000
	2000	104,100	79,000	-	-	-	183,100
	2001	94,600	70,500	-	-	-	165,100
	2002	99,900	74,800	-	-	-	174,700
	2003	59,600	39,300	-	47,500	-	146,400
	2004	45,300	11,200	-	21,800	-	78,300
	2005	34,900	28,200	-	22,700	9,600	95,400
	2006	35,400	39,400	-	17,700	4,500	97,000
	2007	32,400	30,400	-	15,900	3,800	82,500
	2008	38,500	16,000	-	4,500	4,500	63,500
	2009	12,100	2,700	-	3,700	-	18,500
	2010	16,600	6,400	-	6,400	-	29,400
	2011	20,200	6,400	-	10,600	-	37,200
	2012	13,700	-	-	23,300	-	37,000
	2013	-	-	-	67,400	-	67,400
	2014	-	-	-	69,200	-	69,200
	2015	-	-	-	50,200	-	50,200
	2016	-	-	-	-	-	0
	Total	981,400	1,043,800	39,700	360,900	22,400	2,448,200
	Average	49,070	45,383	13,233	27,762	5,600	90,674