May 29, 2026
The midterm plan put three moves on one release. Mitsubishi Motors’ official May 29 announcement confirmed the Pajero revival for an autumn 2026 unveil. The jointly developed Nissan-built pickup was announced inside the same midterm business plan, with the truck slated for assembly at a Nissan US factory. The dealer-network rebuild and the brand-strength expansion through off-road models round out a three-part US plan calibrated to a one-third operating-profit hit from tariffs.
The tariff number is the planning anchor. Mitsubishi’s FY25 consolidated financial results put operating profit at ¥75.5 billion for the year ended March 31, down 46% year over year. US tariff payments inside that period totaled ¥47.4 billion, with ¥10.1 billion landing in Q4 alone. Profit attributable to owners fell 75.6% to ¥10.0 billion. Net sales rose 4% to ¥2,896.5 billion. The pickup play is the answer to the line that erased the margin: tariffs on Japan-built finished vehicles.
The Nissan side of the deal is what makes the structure work. Hans Greimel and Naoto Okamura at Automotive News confirmed the truck will be built at a Nissan US plant, with the Nissan Frontier itself scheduled for a 2028 redesign on a new frame-based vehicle architecture that will also underpin the Xterra. Mitsubishi’s pickup will land as a successor or sibling on that architecture out of Canton, Mississippi. Mitsubishi owns no US production today. Nissan owns 27% of Mitsubishi. Building a Mitsubishi-badged pickup inside Canton uses the Alliance’s existing equity stake to clear the USMCA-originating threshold the Japan-built imports cannot.
The CEO’s framing on the strategic sequence was sequential, not parallel. Takao Kato’s plan goes: enhance brand identity through off-road model expansion first, enter new segments through Nissan collaboration second, then bolster the US retail network with urban “satellite shops” third. President Keisuke Sugiura tied the sequence directly to margin recovery: “We will prioritize restoring profitability and work to turn the business around through brand strengthening and product strategies. In the U.S., we will enhance our brand strength by focusing on the expansion of our off-road models, while also entering the pickup truck market for the first time through a collaborative project with Nissan.”
The Pajero revival is the brand half of the plan. The fifth-generation Pajero will be built in Thailand on the Mitsubishi Triton ladder-frame pickup architecture, with model-specific cabin work and bespoke front and rear suspension. Mitsubishi will build a vehicle family around the nameplate the way the Delica van series has expanded. Kato’s quote: “The all-new Pajero has been developed from the ground up as a crossover SUV, utilizing the ladder frame of the Triton pickup truck. In addition to the Pajero launching this year, we will continue to introduce new models as part of the Pajero series.” Mitsubishi’s presentation referenced the vehicle in parentheses as the Montero, the US badge it ran under until the nameplate was dropped after the 2006 model year.
A US Pajero launch is not yet committed. Kato told the announcement audience: “We are currently considering various possibilities, but nothing has been decided yet.” The Pajero was discontinued globally in 2020 and the Sakahogi, Japan assembly plant closed in 2021. The autumn 2026 unveil is the first product the brand has shipped under the nameplate in five years. The decision on US market entry sits inside the same three-part midterm plan but on a separate decision calendar.
The competitive math is unforgiving. Toyota’s Tacoma led the US midsize pickup segment in Q1 2026 at 69,263 units. Chevrolet’s Colorado ran second at 21,596. Nissan Frontier and Ford Ranger followed. Mitsubishi US sales fell 15% to 26,881 vehicles in Q1, with the FY24-25 full-year US sales down 21% to 89,000. The Hyundai and Kia midsize pickup entries on the way add additional segment entrants in the same window Mitsubishi is trying to launch. The Tacoma is the volume target. Capturing 15% of Tacoma volume at steady state would require Mitsubishi to ship roughly 10,000 of the new pickup per quarter, more than the entire Outlander Sport runs today.
The Alliance restructure is what makes Nissan’s capacity available. Nissan is shuttering seven of 17 global assembly plants under its own corporate revival plan. Filling Canton, Mississippi with Mitsubishi-badged volume is a Nissan capacity-utilization play as much as a Mitsubishi tariff-avoidance play. The Outlander PHEV is already supplied to Nissan as the Nissan Rogue Plug-in Hybrid, and Mitsubishi will receive a rebadged Nissan Leaf in the other direction. Kato also confirmed Mitsubishi is in cooperation discussions with Honda Motor Co., without providing detail. The May 29 plan is the Alliance’s most concrete US-capacity collaboration since the Ghosn-era reset.
The global volume target was revised down at the same release. Mitsubishi now targets 930,000 annual sales in the early 2030s, against a prior 1.1 million plan. The company sold 797,000 in the fiscal year ended March 31. The pickup and Pajero are the products that have to close the 133,000-unit gap to the new target. The Auto News reporting confirmed Mitsubishi ranks #7 among Japan’s global automakers at 805,882 units sold in 2025, down 5.7% year over year.
The next data point is autumn. The Pajero unveil is the first hard date Mitsubishi committed to publicly. If the production-spec vehicle arrives on time at a competitive price against Wrangler and 4Runner trims, the brand-revival half of the plan reads credible. The pickup launch window remains undisclosed pending the Nissan Frontier 2028 architecture rollout. The May 29 plan is the framework. The autumn Pajero is the first execution test.
