Poor Sales Stall PSA Electrics

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. has stopped making Citroen C-Zero and Peugeot iOn electric city cars because of poor demand for the vehicles in Europe, Automotive News Europe reports.

Both models, which are sold by PSA Peugeot Citroen, are variants of MMC's i-MiEV electric car. MMC has produced about 28,000 of the three models, all of which are made in Japan, since 2009, according to ANE.

PSA aimed to sell 7,000 of the cars in 2011 and boost sales to 30,000 units per year by 2015. ANE, citing data from JATO Dynamics, says demand through the first six months of 2012 totaled fewer than 1,800 vehicles. The cars retail in Europe for about $33,200.

MMC and PSA say the production cut is temporary, but they have not indicated when output would resume. The Japanese carmaker began shipping the C-Zero and iOn variants to PSA in 2010 under a deal to supply the French carmaker with 100,000 units over five years.