By Daisuke Narahashi and Rina Ukita
Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
Mitsubishi Motors Corp., which currently exports all its vehicles to be sold in the United States from Japan, expects to begin sourcing vehicles locally in the United States from Japanese automakers in order to mitigate the impact of U.S. tariffs, the company's president and CEO, Takao Kato, said in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun.
"We would appreciate having vehicles that we could sell in the United States," said Kato as he gave his first interview to the newspaper after the U.S. imposed additional tariffs on automobiles. He thus indicated that the company could start sourcing vehicles from its partner Nissan Motor Co., as well as from Honda Motor Co., with which it is considering collaboration.
Using Nissan U.S. plant a possibility
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed a 12.5% additional tariff on passenger vehicles imported from Japan, bringing the total current tariff rate on these cars to 15%. For Mitsubishi Motors, which generated half of its operating profit from its North American operations, including in the United States, in the fiscal year that ended March 2025, the impact of these additional tariffs will be significant. In August, the company announced it expected the tariffs to take 32 billion yen out of its full-year operating profit for the current fiscal year.
While passing on the cost of the tariffs by raising sales prices could potentially improve profits, Kato said, "It would be hard to just raise prices when the cars themselves haven't changed."
He also mentioned using a Nissan plant in the United States as a strategy to avoid tariff impacts, saying the company would "very much appreciate" being able to do that.
Regarding EVs, he said: "We are currently beset on all sides by the environmental policies of various governments. Now is not the time for us to invest (in EVs) ourselves." He said the company plans to enhance its product offerings by sourcing vehicles from companies such as Nissan and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., a major Taiwan electronics device contract manufacturer.
'Need to change' management policy
As for its business within Japan, Kato said, "With overseas markets becoming increasingly challenging, we need to change our management policy, and the importance of (domestic operations) is growing."
Mitsubishi Motors previously set a target of increasing its annual domestic sales volume to about 180,000 units by fiscal 2030, a 50% increase from the current level. Kato aims to achieve this target through measures like reviving its "Pajero" SUV, which the company stopped producing for the domestic market in 2019.
Speaking about the company's strategy of narrowing down the primary focus of its product lineup to a certain range including SUVs such as the Outlander and plug-in hybrid vehicles that can be charged at home and elsewhere, Kato noted, "It resulted in an improvement in Mitsubishi Motors' brand image in Japan." He also expressed an intention to expand the company's dealership network going forward.
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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.
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September 25, 2025 22:53 ET (02:53 GMT)
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