1 day ago
8
The Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross will join the ASX and Pajero Sport in leaving Australian showrooms due to a new regulation surrounding AEB systems – but unlike those two models, no immediate successor has been announced.
Mitsubishi Australia has confirmed three of its five models as victims of the incoming autonomous emergency braking (AEB) mandate for new vehicles: the ASX, Eclipse Cross and Pajero Sport.
Enforced for newly-introduced vehicles on 1 March 2023 and existing vehicles from 1 March 2025, these requirements include reaction time, brake force, an operational speed of at least 10 to 60 kilometres per hour, and other criteria based on the international United Nations Regulation No. 152.
The rule is intended to “avoid or mitigate the severity of rear-end in lane collisions” by requiring a vehicle to slam on the brakes when its sensors detect a potential collision – with a further requirement for vehicle-to-pedestrian detection, called ADR 98/01, due to follow from 1 August 2026.
While Mitsubishi would not confirm the exact reason, at least one of the operational criteria within ADR 98/00 has tripped the models up as the ASX, Eclipse Cross and Pajero Sport do have car-to-car AEB detection as standard, with Mitsubishi electing not to invest in bringing them up to the required standard for Australia.
But while a new-generation ASX – a rebadged Renault Captur – has been confirmed for an Australian launch in 2025, and the next Pajero Sport is expected to arrive sometime in 2026, the Eclipse Cross will be retired without an immediate successor.
Production of the Eclipse Cross – including the Eclipse Cross Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) – concluded for Australia at the end of December 2024, Mitsubishi said in a statement.
The last versions of the current ASX and Pajero Sport were also manufactured in December 2024 to allow enough time for any vehicles offshore to arrive before the rule change is enforced for new vehicles certified in Australia from 1 March 2025 onwards.
It has been confirmed there will be enough Eclipse Cross examples stockpiled in Australia to last until the end of 2025 at the earliest before it departs the Mitsubishi line-up, unless it sells out sooner than forecast.
The Eclipse Cross and Eclipse Cross PHEV will remain available in other markets, including the United States and Canada, where a new safety feature was recently added: a rear seat alert to warn drivers to check behind them for any occupants left behind when the car is turned off.
Mitsubishi Australia CEO Shaun Westcott said the investment required to bring the Eclipse Cross up to the ADR 98/00 standard "was not commercially feasible" based on its current lifecycle, having launched in Australia more than seven years ago.
"As a result, Australian production of these vehicles has ended. This is not unprecedented; we have seen similar situations before, and our teams are well prepared to manage this transition," Westcott said.
"We have worked closely with our dealer partners to ensure each model line will be ordered in sufficient quantities ahead of time," Westcott added.
"This will support our customers while we continue to confirm our future model plans as a core Mitsubishi market. We will announce these future models in due course."
Globally, Mitsubishi has not announced a direct successor to the Eclipse Cross – unveiled in 2017 based on the same GS platform as the ASX launched 15 years ago – but it has confirmed several new models are on the way, including a hybrid small SUV.
In March 2023, the Japanese brand said a new five-seat SUV with available hybrid technology would launch in 2025 – expected to be a similar size to the 4.5-metre Eclipse Cross, slotting below the 4.7-metre five- and seven-seat Outlander – but it now appears unlikely to meet this timeline.
The brand’s European division is set to launch a Mitsubishi version of the 4.4-metre Renault Symbioz small SUV – essentially an elongated Captur, which is the basis for the new Australia-bound ASX – this year, along with a version of the Renault Scenic E-Tech electric SUV.
It appears the announced Mitsubishi-developed small SUV would be the most likely candidate to replace the current Eclipse Cross, while Mitsubishi’s version of the Renault Symbioz – offered in NVES-friendly full-hybrid form with a 2024-tested four-star Euro NCAP safety rating – could be another option for Australia.
The lack of an immediate successor to the Eclipse Cross will temporarily leave Mitsubishi Australia without an entrant in the growing 'small SUV under $45,000' segment, which covered about 12 per cent of the new-car market in 2024 – led by the MG ZS, Hyundai Kona and GWM Haval Jolion.
This is because the ASX will shrink to the same circa-4.2-metre size as the Mazda CX-3 and Toyota Yaris Cross light SUVs as a Renault-based model – rather than the CX-30 and Corolla Cross small SUVs, rivals for the current ASX and Eclipse Cross.
Mitsubishi Australia has reiterated its intention to launch eight new or refreshed models by the end of the decade, with a continued presence in its existing vehicle categories – meaning a small SUV will return to local showrooms in due course.
In 2024, the Eclipse Cross accounted for 9221 of Mitsubishi’s 74,547 sales in Australia, behind the Outlander (27,613), Triton (18,077) and ASX (12,330) but ahead of the Pajero Sport (7306).
Jordan is a motoring journalist based in Melbourne with a lifelong passion for cars. He has been surrounded by classic Fords and Holdens, brand-new cars, and everything in between from birth, with his parents’ owning an automotive workshop in regional Victoria. Jordan started writing about cars in 2021, and joined the Drive team in 2024.
