THE company behind the second-best-selling car brand in the country, Mitsubishi, is charting future plans to reintroduce the L300 model—now with an environment standard-compliant engine—in two years’ time, while mulling a ‘replacement’ of the Mitsubishi Adventure.
This as Mitsubishi Motors Corp. Philippines (MMPC) begins the phaseout of its two major sales-drivers to make way for the locally produced Mirage and Mirage G4.
“[We’re approaching] the end of the model life of the Adventure and the L300. We’ll be producing these two only until October,” said MMPC First Vice President for Marketing Froilan Dytianquin during the recent MMPC President and CEO turn-over ceremony.
Dytianquin said the company will be maximizing the available time to keep selling the two models, as these are nearing the end of their model life, and amid pressure from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to shift to higher environmental-standard engines.
Mitsubishi is also planning to focus their manufacturing capacity solely on the Mirage and Mirage G4 in participation to a government program.
Dytianquin clarified that even with the higher Euro-4 imposition of the DENR, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has given leeway to manufacturers to register and, therefore, sell non-Euro-IV units beyond 2018.
“From the LTO side, they’re giving manufacturers until the end of December to register all units that have the certificate of stock [COS] report,” he said. “If you have that until December, you can register your car units until January or February, even if you have some inventory, so long as you have this COS, you can sell [units].”
Mitsubishi is currently developing a Euro-IV engine for the L300 and will likely be introducing this to the market in 2019.
“It [L300] will make a comeback and will be sold in Indonesia and the Philippines,” Dytianquin added.
MMPC is eyeing a total production level of 42,500 units this year with half of that already dedicated for compliance with the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (Cars) program of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
The Board of Investments, under the DTI, spearheaded the creation of the CARS in 2013, in a bid to attract investments in the auto industry and make the Philippines an automotive hub in the Asean region.
Currently, vehicles locally assembled in the country face a $1,800-gap in production costs against manufacturers in neighboring countries.
The program aims to boost the local auto industry’s competitiveness by bridging this gap—essentially providing a $1,000-per-unit fiscal support through the Cars program.
The program entails a mandatory local production of body shell and large plastic parts as part of its localization requirement and a 200,000-unit production requirement over the course of the program.
With its local unit focused on producing the Mirage and Mirage G4, the Philippines can become Mitsubishi’s manufacturing hub for the two models.
“This is one of the strategies of Mitsubishi [the mother company]: to find a model specific to each market and look at the opportunity to export from that market. They used to concentrate only on Thailand before,” Dytianquin said. “So we can have that opportunity to export.”
The Adventure, on the other hand, as it’s only being produced for the Philippine market is due for a definite retirement; but a replacement multipurpose vehicle (MPV) may soon be in the picture.
“We won’t be having a model to replace this one with, but we’re launching a new MPV,” Dytianquin added. “It will be produced in Indonesia, and we feel this market will be almost similar to the Adventure.”
In the first half of the year, MMPC has sold a total of 34,549 units—a 13.8-percent improvement over the same period in 2016 when its sales tally amounted to 30,372 units.
MMPC holds a 17.6-percent share in the local automobile market.