Background to the Airtrek, a five-seat SUV with claimed 500km-plus capability, likely explains why it’s a ‘want, can’t have’ EV choice.

STATUS as a co-operative effort with another brand could be a core reason why a new fully-electric sports utility that stands as just the second complete EV out of Mitsubishi will not follow the first, the teensy i-MiEV, into New Zealand.

 Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand has not offered any official comment yet on the 2022 Airtrek, a battery-dedicated medium sports utility reviving a name used on an early crossover product manly seen here as a used import.

Unveiled at a motor show in Guangzhou, China, the five-seater has the look and pricing to sit comfortably with the plug-in electrics MMNZ already has in its product plan – an Eclipse Cross already on sale and a new like-configured Outlander it has just announced for sale from early next year.

Measuring 4630mm long, 1920mm wide, 1728mm high and riding on a 2830mm wheelbase, the Airtrek slots between those other models.

 Pricing for China suggests it will be in the same zone as a mid-level Outlander PHEV and a high-grade Eclipse Cross petrol-electric (at full retail), and so also slightly above the $59,990 tag that the i-MiEV, a battery-driven version of the four-seater urban-pure i-Car, carried when it broke ground in 2011 as the first electric car to be available at retail level in this country. How far we’ve come since then.

Airtrek takes a 70kWh lithium-ion battery, paired to a 135kW electric motor delivering a claimed range on China's CLTC test cycle of 520km.

Mitsubishi has signalled that Airtrek is not for export and won’t, in fact, even sell in Japan. China is the sole market for the moment.

Why? It simply come down to the partnership it has with GAC, a domestic Chinese brand that has long been the Japanese automaker’s vehicle production and sales joint venture there.

The brands have worked together to develop the model and it will be built in a GAC plant.

More than this, some industry observers are suggesting that, rather than being a ground-up new model, the Airtrek is more accurately a restyled, rebadged version of GAC's Aion V all-electric model, although the Japanese carmaker’s press release does not mention anything about that. 

They say that as much as the styling draws links to other Mitsubishi models – with the brand's Dynamic Shield fascia up front, and Outlander-like tail-lights at the rear – the car’s proportions and surfacing clearly reference the Aion V.

The GAC roots continue inside, where there's a large, Tesla Model 3-like 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen atop the dashboard, joined by a fully-digital instrument cluster, incorporating augmented-reality navigation.

Level 2 semi-autonomous driving functionality is also on offer, using nine radars and cameras to accelerate, brake and centre the vehicle within its lane.