Mitsubishi Oz to benefit from Nissan

Don’t expect a swag of all-new Nissan-engineered Mitsubishi models Down Under any time soon, but look for “low hanging fruit” as soon as 2018.

That’s the take-out from our first interview with the newly installed co-CEO of Nissan, which now controls Mitsubishi Motors, Hiroto Saikawa.

Saikawa is Nissan’s Chief Competitive Officer and Vice Chairman of the company. His new role sees him charged with the running of Mitsubishi.

The long-time Nissan exec spoke to ASEAN media in a hook-up over the weekend and while he wasn't keen to provide details on any future model collaboration, talked in general terms of the benefits for Australian buyers.

Answering a question from motoring.com.au regarding the potential new model impact on the Australian market, Saikawa-san warned it could be 2020 before any new co-developed Nissan-Mitsubishi models arrived Down Under.

But he said a more timely exchange of existing models or platforms was “low-hanging fruit”.

“Both companies [Nissan and Mitsubishi] have product life cycles and in some markets these [models] are rapidly aging compared to the competition,” he stated.

“It [has] happened to Nissan, it [has] happened to Mitsubishi.

“I cannot give you my assessment of the Mitsubishi line-up in Australia – whether it is old compared to the competition. [But] I can tell you that we are going to see [benefits of the takeover] in two ways.

“One is existing platform or existing models [that] can be exchanged – which we see as low-hanging fruit. Whenever it will make significant sense, it will happen in 17 or 18… This is what we can see,” Saikawa stated.

The other benefit is co-developed all-new models. The timeline for these is more drawn out, he contends.

“If you talk about sharing a platform and technology, and co-develop[ing] and coming to the market -- it will be after [20]19 or [20]20. This is the timeline we can see,” Saikawa-san stated.

Both Nissan and Mitsubishi are heavily dependent on LCV and SUV sales for their respective volumes in this marketplace.

Mitsubishi’s main small car offering, the Lancer, is arguably the oldest passenger car on sale today (certainly in the all-important small car category) while Nissan has recently announced it will step aside from key passenger car segments.

That said, Saikawa says it remains SUVs and LCVs where the main synergies exist. This would almost certainly point to the Triton ute joining products from Renault and perhaps Mercedes-Benz as co-development partners with the next-generation Navara.