The Grandis was launched on 14 May 2003 and sold in Japan, Asia, Europe, Oceania, Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica and South America.

[1] The exterior styling was based loosely on designer Olivier Boulay's earlier Mitsubishi Space Liner,[2] a monobox four-seat concept vehicle with centre opening "suicide doors", first exhibited at the Tokyo Motor Show in October 2001.

[4] It shared its platform with the Mitsubishi Airtrek, minus the increased ground clearance.

DCX's "FC System" uses a fuel cell stack to replenish an array of NiMH batteries from 117 litres of compressed hydrogen storage.

It originally used the 136 PS (100 kW) BSY version of Volkswagen's Pumpe Düse diesel engine; in 2008 it was changed to the 140 PS (103 kW) BWC variant of the same with no declared performance changes.