Mitsubishi ASX VR-e Is a Foxconn EV With a Diamond Badge

Mitsubishi is selling an electric car in Australia again, and it didn’t design it, develop the platform, or build it. What it supplied was the badge.

The fully electric Mitsubishi ASX VR-e joins the local range in Q4 2026, in LS, ASPIRE, EXCEED, and GSR grades from launch. Shunichi Kihara, CEO of Mitsubishi Motors Australia, calls it the brand’s first BEV since the i-MiEV. He also points to the Momentum 2030 plan for electrifying new models. Price, battery size, range, charging speed, and power all come later.

ASX stands for Active Sports Crossover. The VR-e badge is a nod to the Galant VR-4, a turbocharged all-wheel drive sedan with nothing whatsoever in common with an electric family crossover. The Mitsubishi ASX VR-e joins a Mitsubishi Australia range that includes the Triton and the Outlander.

First BEV since the i-MiEV is true, and it’s a lower bar than it sounds. The i-MiEV went on sale here in 2010 as the first mass-produced electric car sold in Australia. Mitsubishi shifted around 250 of them before dropping it in March 2014. The Nissan LEAF followed in mid-2012, and that’s the one people remember, because it’s done slightly better numbers. Being first and selling 250 cars is barely being first.

The Mitsubishi ASX VR-e Is Built by the iPhone People

The Mitsubishi ASX VR-e comes out of a partnership with Foxtron Vehicle Technologies, the car arm of Foxconn, a contract manufacturer best known for assembling iPhones. Built in Taiwan, this car is closely related to the Foxtron Bria sold in Taiwan,. The Bria is the production version of the Pininfarina-designed Foxtron Model B so has a bit of pedigree. Mitsubishi’s contribution is the front and rear fascia styling, the wheels, the interior trim, and testing and tuning by its global and regional teams.

The petrol Renau-bishi ASX that went on sale here in late 2025 has nothing to do with the Mitsubishi ASX VR-e. That car is a Renault Captur rebadged. Same nameplate, same showroom, different continent, different partner, and not a shared component between them. Nobody in the industry finds that strange any more, which is even stranger.

The Taiwanese Bria gives a rough idea of the hardware, though not a confirmation of Australian specification as yet. The Bria uses a 57.5kWh LFP battery, with either a 171kW single rear motor or 298kW dual-motor all-wheel drive. NEDC range is up to 516km rear-drive and 466km with all-wheel drive, and NEDC cycle differs wildly from WLTP, but neither reflects what drivers get.

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15 Years of Talking Electric Cars Down

Japan spent 15 years tomahawking electric cars at every chance. Projects were cancelled, hybrids were flogged as the grown-up middle ground, and the lobbying went into overdrive slowing the timetable as much as it could. The world electrified anyway, because China went and did it.

China supplied 33,634 of the cars sold here in July, the biggest single source, ahead of Japan on 26,292. Thailand managed 17,604 and Korea 11,622.

Brand	July 2026
Toyota	20,409
BYD	7,857
Kia	6,553
Mazda	6,458
Ford	6,400
Hyundai	5,991
Tesla	4,778
Chery	4,615
GWM	4,518
MG	4,284

Mitsubishi sold 3,062 in July and doesn’t make that list. Geely would have taken tenth on 3,685 had it run on the month rather than the year.

The EU has taxed Chinese battery electrics since October 2024, about 27% on a BYD and 45.3% on anything from SAIC, because it has car factories and car workers to protect. Australia charges nothing. We stopped building cars, so there’s no industry here to shield and nothing to argue about. We only import.

The CEOs Have Stopped Filibustering

Chinese carmakers outsold Japanese carmakers globally in 2025, the first time Japanese brands have been bettered since 2000. Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe visited a Shanghai EV supplier in late February 2026 and came back with “We have no chance against this”. What got to him was a supplier floor operating with no visible workers on it. Honda’s China sales fell from 1.62 million in 2020 to 640,000 in 2025.

Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda called EVs his “biggest fear”, and later said the company must abandon the arrogance of looking down on Chinese rivals. Toyota CEO Koji Sato put it as “We will not survive”, and he wants the Japanese makers to band together against Chinese EVs. Toyota changed CEO in February 2026 under exactly that pressure. No board says any of this out loud until the spreadsheet has already made it impossible to hide.

Then there are other problems to contend with. Tesla and the Chinese brands turn out so many cars fast, by gigacasting aluminium segments, cutting major body parts from 148, to 2. But it can’t be pulled or straightened the way steel can, so structural damage goes nuclear and makes the car unsafe. A cheap cosmetic fix can’t make an unsafe car safe, so it’s a write-off, and the insurer takes the hit. It’s a large part of why so many Teslas get binned, and one of several things weighing on the shift, along with a cost gap the legacy makers can’t close. But, gigacasting makes the cars cheaper. Adding to the woes, vertical integration has nailed the Chinese supply chain to a wall, something Japan can’t repeat. China now owns much of the rare earth mineral refining and soon, much of the chip making as well.

So the scramble is on. The Toyobaru EVs are one strategy that so far has failed to pay off. The fix the Japanese makers reached for is to buy other people’s electric cars and slap their own badges on them. Chinese and contract-built EVs are being rebadged across all of Japan’s biggest brands just to keep them in the frame. The Mitsubishi ASX VR-e is one such example, another car with a diamond on the nose and a Foxconn build plate.

A rebadge like the Mitsubishi ASX VR-e gets you something to sell next quarter, but it doesn’t get back the 15 years legacy brands spent trashing EVs. The Japanese brands survive this only by rethinking how they design and build cars from the ground up. They need to step up the pace with more partnerships or by outsourcing production, because if sales continue to slide there’ll be nothing left to ponder.

Sources: FCAI VFACTS, Electric Vehicle Council.

More Mitsubishi Stories

• Australia’s Car Market 46% Electrified in May
• Mitsubishi Brings Pajero Back but has the World Moved On?
• Mitsubishi Triton Raider Price Gives Premcar Ute A $74,990 Tag

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