The tiny Mitsubishi has suddenly turned into a power outlet on wheels. Japan’s smallest carmaker has refreshed the eK Cross EV, and dealerships will roll it out on June 25. The exterior? A tidy little facelift. But hidden inside is the thing worth paying attention to: a household AC100V socket pumping out up to 1,500 watts. A kei car that can run a fridge, a drill and a laptop at the same time.
Pricing now starts at 2,446,400 yen and climbs to 3,214,200 — roughly $15,300 to $20,000. Then the government steps in: a 574,000-yen subsidy (about $3,600) drops the base price to around 1.87 million yen, or close to $11,700. For Japan, that’s a meaningful number. The EV stops being a pricey city toy and starts looking like a proper mass-market product.
Under the skin, there’s no revolution. A 20 kWh battery, 180 km of WLTC range, front-wheel drive, four seats. But Mitsubishi has methodically polished the things drivers actually feel every day: the G trim now gets a heated steering wheel and heated front seats, the P trim adds USB Type-C and Type-A ports, and the car now alerts you if a passenger or bag was left in the back. Small details? Maybe. But these are exactly the kinds of details that make a car feel thought through.
The styling has gone softer and more cohesive. The front end looks cleaner and more unified, the wheel arches and side sills are now body-coloured, and the grille hides an LED accent strip. The palette has expanded to 11 colours — almost a luxury for a kei car.
The main rival is, of course, the Nissan Sakura. They’re essentially the same car with different badges: shared platform, shared battery, shared DNA. But Nissan pushes brand and marketing, while Mitsubishi answers in its own way — a more crossover-flavoured presentation and a focus on practicality. That AC100V socket isn’t marketing fluff: it turns the car into a portable generator for camping, mobile work, or the next unexpected power cut.
180 km of range isn’t the argument for driving across the country. But for city runs, short trips and second-car duty, the eK Cross EV just became noticeably more convincing. And it now has a trump card most petrol rivals can’t match — a button that turns the car into a power source.
