Mitsubishi stopped building cars in China — the EV shift moved faster than its plan

Mitsubishi Motors operated in China the way every foreign automaker did — through a joint venture, GAC Mitsubishi in Changsha, building local versions of its SUVs for the world's largest car market. For a few years it worked. Then the market changed underneath it: over 2022 and 2023, Chinese buyers moved to electric vehicles and domestic brands faster than any forecast had predicted, and Mitsubishi's lineup had neither.

The company tried the ordinary fix: a new model launched in December 2022. Sales still fell short of plan. By March 2023 the plant had stopped production entirely, officially to adjust inventory. On 24 October 2023 the board resolved to end local production of Mitsubishi-brand vehicles in China for good, transferring Mitsubishi's and Mitsubishi Corporation's stakes in the joint venture to GAC, which keeps the plant running for its Aion EV brand.

The exit cost ¥24.3 billion in extraordinary losses, booked in the year to March 2024. What the company's filing says plainly — that electrification accelerated faster than expected and brand preferences shifted — is the polite version of a strategic miss: Mitsubishi bet its China business on the segments Chinese buyers were leaving, and by the time it responded, the buyers had already gone. After-sales service remains; the manufacturing presence does not.