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| The Outlander PHEV has a hard task in Portugal |
The Mitsu Outlander PHEV didn't impressed me at first and with the early problems it had in the early days, i wasn't too sure of its success, but as production resumed and sales in the Netherlands reached historical numbers, i've started to wonder if those numbers could be replicated elsewhere.
Which they did, and what surprised me most were the strong numbers in BEV-oriented countries. like Spain, Italy or Austria.
When i discovered that the PHEV was selling in Portugal, i did a little of mistery-shopping to see what was Mitsubishi doing to sell it in a country where plug-in hybrids represented just 3% of all plug-in sales made in 2013...
The occasion came during the holidays in Alentejo, a rural area that could be described as The Closest Thing Portugal Has To Texas, with a lot of farms, pick-up trucks and never ending landscapes.
But the big question was: Plug-ins are a very urban experience, would they even be selling the car this far from the tree-hugger Leaf owners and tech-crazy-urbanite BMW i3 owners, that gravitate around the capital Lisbon?
Considering the difficulty i had to get a test drive of certain electric cars (Yes, you, Smart ED), it would seem a bit of a long shot to find a local dealership with an available Outlander PHEV to test drive...
(To Be Continued)
Editors note: I will be offline for a few days, until then i will leave you with this Mitsu novel.
