Mitsubishi's electric car Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is testing U.S. reaction to an all-electric car at this week's New York Auto Show.
The four-door iMiEV can go 80 miles on a full charge. Mitsubishi plans to begin selling the car in Japan to fleet customers in mid-2009 and to the general public in 2010, according to the company's managing director for product development, Tetsuro Aikawa. The car will cost from $25,000 to $30,000 in Japan, or as much as $7,000 more than its high-mileage, gasoline-powered counterpart, the I minicar.
Aikawa said Mitsubishi will consider bringing it to the United States or Europe after 2010 if there is enough demand for a small electric vehicle.
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U.S. sales forecast cut back A leading auto information firm lowered its 2008 forecast for U.S. new vehicle sales by nearly 5 percent to the lowest levels since 1994.
J.D. Power and Associates said that declining consumer confidence and spending, along with turbulence in the financial markets, have driven its revised forecast from 15.7 million cars and light trucks to 14.95 million. J.D. Power said the industry's slow performance in January and February also prompted it to update the forecast it released late last year.
"All of these [factors] aren't new; I think it's the magnitude of them," said Jeff Schuster, J.D. Power's executive director of automotive forecasting. "There was some assumption in the previous forecast that something would ease up. ... All of those things have not improved."
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