Mitsubishi Could Bring a Truck to America With Help From Nissan

Nissan unveiled a sweeping plan last week to sell more cars around the world. Called The Arc, it outlines 30 new vehicle launches in the next three years as part of a long-term plan aimed at transitioning to electric vehicles, all while significantly increasing revenue. Standing out to us amid all the financial talk came word that Nissan and Mitsubishi are pumping up their partnership with new models, including a new pickup truck.

Right now details on the truck are unknown, aside from it being jointly developed between Nissan and Mitsubishi. Automotive News suggests it could ultimately serve as a next-generation Nissan Frontier, but it could also bring a Mitsubishi-badged pickup truck back to the States for the first time since 2009. Back then, Mitsubishi partnered with Dodge to build the Raider, based heavily on the midsize Dodge Dakota. It lasted just a few model years, and the Dakota died shortly thereafter in 2011.

Mitsubishi already has a pretty cool truck: the Triton. But the pickup is forbidden fruit in the States thanks to the so-called Chicken Tax. This tax levies a 25-percent tariff on light trucks imported into the US, but doesn't apply to vehicles built in North America. The Nissan-Mitsubishi partnership would see production take place in Mexico, creating a truck with hybrid and electric powertrains. Thus free of the tariff, Mitsubishi could have a competitively priced pickup to counter Ford, Ram, General Motors, Toyota, and its Japanese partner Nissan.

We contacted Mitsubishi in hopes of gleaning more information about a future pickup truck. A spokesperson told us the automaker is "always considering various collaborations with Nissan" but declined to comment beyond that.

The expanded partnership would also see Mitsubishi utilize Nissan's expanding EV tech to offer more electrified vehicles in its lineup. The Outlander PHEV is already carrying this torch, riding on Nissan bones and utilizing a Nissan powertrain. The partnership on Outlander has been hugely successful for Mitsubishi; the standard model is the brand's best-selling vehicle by a wide margin at 49,182 sales for 2023. Of those, 6,681 were PHEV models.