Mitusbishi has teased the 2023 Colt, which will be the second Mitsubishi model to be rebadged from a Renault vehicle after the 2023 ASX, which was shown in a teaser in January as part of the roadmap for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance.
The upcoming Colt will be built in Bursa, Turkey, where the Renault Clio is produced, and the Colt will be launched in the northern hemisphere autumn of next year. The return of the Colt nameplate from Mitsubishi will be approximately in the 60th year since its first appearance in 1962.
This is part of the leader-follower scheme as announced by the alliance in May 2020, where commonality is emphasised through the use of share platforms, production sites, powertrains and more. Platform-sharing with the Renault Clio will also bring electrification, as indicated by the Hybrid EV badging on the front door of the Colt in the teaser image.
Here, we can see the Colt wearing a version of the Dynamic Shield signature look, which has the “X” frontal design that extends into the headlamp assembly, while the rear doors also adopt the Clio design of an upwards window line kink and hidden door handle to imply a three-door look.
Being on the CMF-B platform, the Clio E-Tech is the model that the Colt will be based on for its electrified powertrain, and the French branded car packs a 1.6 litre petrol engine with a high-voltage starter-generator and larger electric drive motor paired with a multi-mode clutchless gearbox.
The battery in the Clio E-Tech is a rear-mounted 1.2 kWh unit on a 230 V architecture, and with the internal combustion engine yields a total system output of 140 hp.
For comparison, the Captur E-Tech – which will underpin the next ASX – could use the French crossover’s setup of a 1.6 litre petrol engine with two motors in series-parallel configuration for a total system output of 160 hp, with electric drive coming from a 9.8 kWh battery pack as part of its 400-volt electrical system.
In electrified form, the Clio E-Tech which the Colt will be based on is capable of fuel savings up to 40% compared to an internal combustion engine of a similar size on an urban cycle, if it is driven on city roads 80% of the time in purely electric mode, according to Renault.
2020 Renault Clio E-Tech
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