Mitsubishi plans to introduce Xpander in South America, Africa, and the Middle East

MANILA: The Mitsubishi Xpander has garnered tremendous success in the countries it is already on sale in, including Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. In fact, the popularity of the MPV is so much that in Indonesia alone it managed to get 100,000 orders, thereby triggering the company to introduce it in other markets as well.

This high demand has prompted Mitsubishi to include other countries of Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East too. And going by this scheme, the company is looking to make use of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi joint venture. There has even been a word from the automaker which mentioned that it would be working on increasing the production capacity of the Bekasi facility in Indonesia. Majority of the resources in this plant is dedicated to the Xpander MPV while the remaining small portion is for the Montero Sport in order to meet the local demands.

Apart from just increasing the production capacity, in order to speed up the process, the company will be sourcing in the 1.5-litre MIVEC powerplant from Nissan Motor Indonesia in context to the partnership alliance. This said engine was earlier imported from Kyoto in Japan.

Now, after the engines are sourced to the Indonesian plant locally, the local availability of parts for the Xpander will increase from 70% to 80%. And also, this is will be the first instance when the company will be using engines made by Nissan, who would be supplying 160,000 unit a year.

Interestingly, this is the second time when Mitsubishi Motors has announced to increase the production capacity of the Xpander MPV based on the popularity and demand. Originally, the annual production capacity was 100,000 units, which was later planned to be increased to 120,000. Also, Nissan has confirmed its plans to build its own MPV specifically for the ASEAN countries.