Mitsubishi Motors has slashed the price of its i-MiEV electric car by up to $9,100, aiming to improve sluggish sales of its electric minicar in Japan.
Mitsubishi, which started selling the i-MiEV in 2009, said it was dropping the price of its top of the range i-MiEV by around 25 percent, or 900,000 yen ($9,100), to 2.9 million yen (about $29,000 US).
The top of the range Mitsubishi i-MiEV can be bought for approximately 2 million yen (about $20,000 US) in Japan, after government subsidies.
Japanese carmaker also cut the price of the entry level i-MiEV by 190,000 yen to 2.5 million (about $25,000 US), which with subsidies can be bought for about 1.7 million yen (about $17,000 US).
A Mitsubishi Motors spokesman said: “The main purpose of cutting the price is to strengthen our ability to sell these cars.”
To date, Mitsubishi has sold a total of 36,000 electric vehicles worldwide since 2009. The number include the i-MiEV, its sister cars the Peugeot iOn and Citroen C-Zero, and the Minicab MiEV vans.
Mitsubishi is still betting on the electric powertrain technology and is aiming for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids to account for 20 percent of the vehicles it produces by 2020.
