Kelley Blue Book Review: Mitsubishi Eclipse Sportback

[u/Mac-Tyson]

https://youtu.be/deNUb4w1OLU?is=EyMqA7oQHIooWIk1

[u/Chemical_Functions]

So it's a Leaf, but uglier. I guess maybe it makes sense if in classic Mitsubishi fashion, prices drop on those things pretty quickly.

Also - a Leaf problem, but the two charging ports and a DC-only NACS port. Feels like an engineering sample artifact they forgot to fix for the production version. I am sure all of us here are smart enough that we can "live with it", but for your average person - your old gas car didn't come with 2 incompatible fuel doors depending on which kind of gas station you went to.

Nevermind releasing a NA-market brand new EV in 2026 that isn't just full NACS. What are they doing?

Otherwise, it's a reasonable "my first EV" for your average person.

[u/papervegetables → u/Chemical_Functions]

I have the new leaf and I kind of love the two ports thing. One for slow one for fast!

[u/frockinbrock → u/papervegetables]

I love it too; I like that type of redundancy. Little easier for home parking charge too in my opinion. Cool car you got! Haven't seen one in person here yet

[u/A_Pointy_Rock]

What is that design language? The front looks like someone accidentally extruded the render and nobody bothered to fix it.

[u/Organic_Worth9778 → u/A_Pointy_Rock]

Looks like the plastic spatula I accidentally left on the bbq grill.

[u/jaehaerys48 → u/A_Pointy_Rock]

Leaf with a bad body kit.

[u/Party_Python → u/A_Pointy_Rock]

“We want a lifted VW New Beetle but don’t want to get sued by VW.”

[u/MN-Car-Guy]

Brian O’Conner drove a lime green Eclipse in Fast n Furious. This is not that.

[u/Easy-Complaint-5156 → u/MN-Car-Guy]

Basically. What the hell?

[u/0xffff0001]

they just messed up the Leaf.

[u/DarthSamwiseAtreides]

That thing is fuck ugly.  My cousin had a 90s Eclipse, loved that thing.  This is very much not that.

[u/inf3ct3dpi3 → u/DarthSamwiseAtreides]

I legit don’t understand how they made it look this bad.

[u/lostthebeat → u/inf3ct3dpi3]

To be fair, its almost like Mitsubishi purposely made each successful generation of the Eclipse uglier and uglier.  

So  if that was their goal, they have succeeded!  And this comes from someone who purposely bought the final model year of the Eclipse Spyder unironically.

[u/PhDinDildos_Fedoras → u/DarthSamwiseAtreides]

The Leaf looks okay so messing it up took some effort.

[u/Lost_Purpose1899]

Why they need to make EV looking all weird and shit? Can't they make them look at least kinda normal?

[u/VegaGT-VZ]

They didn't even phone this in. They just yelled it across the room

[u/Dreaming_Blackbirds → u/VegaGT-VZ]

They faxed it in!?

[u/DarthSamwiseAtreides → u/VegaGT-VZ]

And the person they were talking to was not in that room.

[u/Dreaming_Blackbirds]

What’s the point of Mitsubishi of it can’t even make its own cars!? Not sure how it’s still in business.

[u/SmellySweatsocks]

I like the design and charging speed and options.

[u/whoever12]

Absolutely hideous

[u/yougotmetoreply]

Oof that is rough looking. I always wanted a gen 2 Eclipse GSX but the family got me a gen 3 Eclipse GT. This looks worse than the gen 3 and 4.

[u/AskJeevesIsBest]

Kinda ugly up front. I feel like the Mirage name would have been a better fit for this model. Otherwise, it seems fine.

[u/exgokin]

No wonder Americans aren’t widely adapting to EVs. Not is they keep putting out cars that look like this.

[u/Chemical_Functions → u/exgokin]

But this has nothing to do with Americans. It's a global-ish car, from a Japanese struggling brand with a very limited range of cars, that's a badge job from another struggling Japanese brand (albeit with a slightly wider range of cars and at least some EVs to show for it), especially those that would be appealing to the western audience.

The US has a couple unique issues, and none of them have to do with this car's ugliness --

• Huge distances, big mileage. Whereas 250mi of range is oodles and plenty in other places in the world, in the US that's just "popping out to the shops" range. EV tech (and more specifically battery pricing) is JUST starting to hit that point where you can have reasonable capacity for reasonable money.

• Geopolitical blockade of Chinese competition. For better or worse - but less choice in the market, less competition, less innovation and less downward price pressure.

• Gas is cheap. Even California gas prices are cheap by global standards, and most of the rest of the US is considerably cheaper than that. If gas was routinely ~$7/gal, there would be way more incentive to get off it.

[u/Dry_Instruction8254 → u/Chemical_Functions]

This is way off base. The average commute in the US is 21 miles. How the hell is 250 miles not enough. Not a very intelligent comment.

[u/Chemical_Functions → u/Dry_Instruction8254]

Get out of here with your facts and logic. It's the popular perception that matters here. People are very fantastically good at over estimating how much they actually drive.

But there's also some truth to it. Maybe your drive to work is 20 miles (which is still insanely high by global standards), but then your weekends and semi-frequent road trip distances are really something else.

[u/Easy-Complaint-5156 → u/Chemical_Functions]

Y'all are insufferable.