Mitsubishi Signals U.S. Pricing Intent for i-MiEV with Huge U.K. Price Cut

Mitsubishi Signals U.S. Pricing Intent for i-MiEV with Huge U.K. Price Cut

By John O'Dell, Senor Editor

Offering a pretty good clue as to what we can expect stateside, Mitsubishi has slashed the price of its i-MiEV electric city car in the U.K. in order to remain competitive with the larger Nissan Leaf EV.

U.S. pricing for the i-MiEV, a 4-seat microcar, has not been announced, but a spokesman for Mitsubishi North America told Green Car Advisor today that I-MiEV pricing talks "have been trending down" and reiterated that the company wants to price the battery-electric car at or below $30,000 before a $7,500 federal tax credit is applied.

Some insiders talk about a post-incentive price of under $20,000 in order to give U.S. buyers who might otherwise be interested in the 5-seat Leaf or the 4-seat Chevrolet Volt extended range plug-in, both compacts, a reason to look at the much-smaller i-MiEV.

The Leaf will start in the U.S. at $32,780 while the base price of the Volt has been set at $41,000 - both before the tax credit and any state or local incentives.

The Leaf and the i-MiEV each deliver about 100 miles of range at city speeds on a fully charged battery; the electric-drive Volt is rated by GM at 40 miles on battery power and an additional 300 miles with power from its its gasoline-fueled engine/generator.

The U.S. version of the i-MiEV is scheduled to be introduced in November at the Los Angels Auto Show and we expect it to be slightly longer and wider than the European and Asian models, to accommodate U.S.-required safety equipment and to better fit typically larger U.S. consumers.

Mitsubishi, which appeared to have been pricing the i-MiEV at close to its actual production cost, earlier this year dropped the price in Japan after Nissan announced Leaf pricing, and the company has said it hopes economies of scale as sales volume increases will enable it to cut the retail price even more. Mitsubishi is aiming at a price in Japan by 2013 that's close to the U.S. equivalent of $22,000..

The automaker's U.K. division initially had priced the i-MiEV at a staggering 38,699 British pounds  ($60,390) but said earlier this week it would slash the price by 25 percent to 28,990 pounds ($45,250) for orders placed after Dec. 31.

Makes you wonder why anyone would place an order before then, but Mitsubishi said several orders have been placed in Britain.

Nissan said it would price the Leaf at 28,350 pounds ($44,240) in the U.K, where auto prices typically run much higher than in North America in part because because of stiff taxes (at least some of which won't be applied to battery-electric cars) and direct application of dealer prep and delivery fees that are typically quoted separately by manufacturers in the U.S.

The U.K. prices are exclusive of a government incentive of 5,000 pounds for which both the iMiEV and Leaf qualify.

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.