Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) starts European sales

The first Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) has gone in sale in Europe after production started in Japan in August.

The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV landed officially at the Paris Motor Show in 2012 – preceded by a number of concepts before Mistubishi was happy – as a plug-in hybrid from Mitsubishi.

Mitsubishi had promised the Outlander PHEV would go on sale in 2013 so, by the skin of their teeth, they’re starting to roll it out in European markets with the Netherlands up first followed by the Nordic countries – and the UK somewhere down the list.

With 12,000 orders for the Outlander PHEV in Europe already, Mitsubishi are assured of a decent level of sales for their PHEV SUV, although those sales are driven by the daft tax breaks on offer for ‘green’ cars more than anything else.

Yes, the Outlander PHEV does offer the ability to run in pure EV mode for up to 52km, and you can plug it in to get charge in the batteries, but the range in EV mode is designed to be enough to game the official economy tests, attract tax breaks and help Mitsubishi’s average Co2, rather than be a real world EV option.

It’s a complicated setup to achieve silly headline economy (the official figures endow the Outlander PHEV with 172mpg average), but if governments are daft enough to offer tax breaks based on pointless CO2 emissions and useless official economy tests, car makers are going to step up to provide the cars.

Still, if you want an SUV that costs you not a lot in BIK, the Mitsubishi PHEV could be just the car you’re looking for.