It’s safe to say that when most motorists think of car brands that have shaped the automotive landscape, they might not immediately call Mitsubishi to mind. That does this company a disservice, though. It has been influential in developing automotive technology that has been copied by other companies more than you might realize.

Looking for a Mitsubishi for sale might appeal if you want a car that’s dependable and comes in at a reasonable price point. If you’re not certain of how this company influenced automotive technology, let’s take a moment to talk about that in detail.

A man driving a car on the highway.

Super All-Wheel Control

To start with, Mitsubishi came out with a technology package that the company refers to as Super All-Wheel Control, sometimes referred to as S-AWC. This is a package that was designed to improve its vehicles’ stability and handling in various conditions. 

You can basically think of it as a vehicle dynamics control system. It serves two crucial functions: distributing power to the wheels and monitoring the car’s movements.

While no other automotive company has come out with a suite of features that is called the same thing, there’s no denying that several of them have installed something similar in their vehicles and normalized it. 

MIVEC

The company also came out with something called MIVEC. It stands for Mitsubishi Innovative Valve Timing Electronic Control.

This is a kind of variable valve timing technology. It was put in place to help the company’s vehicles get optimal valve timing while going at different rates of speed. 

This was considered to be innovative at the time it came out. The result of implementing it was that the company’s cars could get better torque, power input, and improved fuel efficiency. 

Once again, while no other company specifically called attention to the fact that they were starting to use similar technology, it started showing up in multiple other vehicle fleets. Dynamically adjusting a vehicle’s exhaust valves and intake for lift and timing is fairly standard now, but it was really Mitsubishi that popularized it. 

MI-PILOT Assist

There’s one additional technology form that Mitsubishi brought to the forefront of the automotive world that is worth mentioning. That is what it refers to as MI-PILOT.

This is a driver assistance system. It uses both cameras and radar in tandem. The idea of it is to help drivers maintain a reasonable distance from other vehicles so that there is more reaction time if traffic patterns change suddenly.

It is also in place to help drivers deal with fatigue and stay in their lane. It is a combination of lane centering, road sign recognition, traffic jam assist, lane keep assist, and adaptive cruise control.

While it would probably be inaccurate to say that Mitsubishi originated all of these individual concepts, offering them as a comprehensive package standard with many of its vehicles is something this company can say they popularized. You will see something very similar with Hyundai and others, even if they won’t necessarily credit Mitsubishi with the idea.