Mitsubishi i MiEV Review – driving an Electric Car

The Mitsubishi i MiEV has taken the crown as the very first mass-produced electric vehicle to land in Australia and this morning Mitsubishi handed us the keys for a quick test drive.

The light car is based on a petrol-powered model which has been on sale in Japan for some time. The MiEV stands for Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle and signifies the car’s completely zero-emission drivetrain.

The Mitsubishi i MiEV electric car is not the first of its kind from the Japanese giant. The very first of its kind was built in 1971 after the Japanese government asked the company to help reduce smog in Tokyo.

150 of the cars were made but the main problem was the batteries as the units were far too heavy and unreliable. The formula worked out to be that when the battery packs weigh less than 20 per cent of the car it becomes practical to build electric cars. Fast forward nearly 40 years to the enormous advancements in electrical technology and the introduction of lithium-ion batteries and you have the i MiEV.

The full-electric Mitsubishi is designed to be just like a conventional car in the way it drives, feels and looks. Mitsubishi says running costs will be roughly one-third of the petrol equivalent given it requires no fuel, almost no traditional type of servicing and can travel roughly 140-160km on a single tank of fue…. electricity.

It’s also almost completely silent apart from the tyre noise, similar to the Toyota Prius when it’s running in full EV mode. What is not similar to the Toyota Prius is that there is no longer a need for a petrol engine to help the electric engine along.

The main problem with the soon to arrive plug-in hybrid vehicles is that when they are running on full electric mode they are carrying around a heavy petrol engine and fuel tank and when they are running on petrol mode they are carrying around a battery pack and electric engines. It’s not an ideal situation.

What is obvious to all of us inside the car industry is that the car as we know it is going through a period of fundamental change.

According to numerous recent studies, Australia is currently the no.1 producer of CO2 emissions per capita among developed nations. Hearing that should really make you wonder how you’re contributing. No doubt we can keep going after China, USA and India as the sure to be biggest polluters of the next decade but even here in our humble country we are regarded as the biggest individual polluters.

Although there needs to be a greater change overall than just cars, the wave of soon to arrive electric vehicles will do their bit to reduce our carbon footprint.

Mitsubishi representatives were very clear to point out that what their company does is make cars. They are not in the business of making clean renewable energy and no doubt they would love the idea of electricity being produced with less carbon footprint than our current coal powered stations. However they are doing their bit and the rest is up to the energy companies.

The i MiEV takes roughly seven hours to charge from empty but can be recharged at any time just like your mobile phone. Interestingly the car’s batteries are just like a mobile phone’s. In its first modern iteration it stores power using a lithium-ion battery pack consisting of 22 modules of 4 x 3.7v-50Ah Lev 50 battery cells which are produced indirectly by the same company that makes batteries for space shuttles.

That should tell you that it’s not going to be cheap. Although no official pricing has been announced it should retail for around $70,000. Before you start writing a comment about how expensive that is, just remember 40-inch plasma TVs cost $27,000 in 2003 and now you can get one for under $1,000. This same principle of technology coming down in price will also apply to electric cars.

The issue is the batteries, they simply can’t make enough of them and there is a shortage of lithium production (although I hear Bolivia which holds more than half the world’s lithium supplies will soon become the new middle-east given the world’s growing dependence on lithium).

Mitsubishi Australia stands in a unique position having got the very first full-electric car complied and ready for this market. The idea is to get the cars out there as soon as possible to raise awareness and also help pay for the enormous R&D costs involved in its development. As is the case with all first-generation technology the early-adopters fee applies and Mitsubishi is very keen on getting governments and fleets on board.

Developing 47kW of power and 180Nm of torque the i MiEV is the ideal city car, it accelerate a lot faster than you’d expect and it develops maximum torque at all times given its electric power source. There is no transmission as it requires none to deliver the power and it also has no reverse gear in the traditional sense of the word. The software simply tells the engine to drive the motor backwards and away you go (technically you can go 130km/h backwards if you really wanted too).

It comes with a basic charge cable which can plug straight into your household charger. We are actually rather lucky in Australia as most of us have lock-up garages that can recharge the i MiEV. In European and Asian countries not many are blessed with garages.

For all the geeks out there the i MiEV’s total voltage measures 330V and has a total battery storage capacity of 16kWh. The battery and electric motor are located under the seating in the rear of the car and power is subsequently delivered to the rear-wheels (unlike most light cars which are driven via the front wheels).

Technical details and presentations aside it was finally time to drive the i MiEV. There is something relatively momentous about getting behind the wheel of a car that’s all-new, or at least I thought.

Mitsubishi has built the i MiEV to be essentially just a normal car but with an electric power source for an engine, it looks and feels the same in every other way. I was hoping it would be like getting behind the wheel of a futuristic space-mobile. Not so. It’s almost identical to a normal car inside.

So much so that the transmission gear-lever is exactly the same as a conventional car despite being completely computer controlled. So putting the gear in ‘D’ simply sends a signal to the car’s computer to engage forward motion.

There is no technical reason as to why it has to look like a gear-lever except that people are used to it. It would be great to see a simple array of buttons on the dash board as oppose to wasting space with a gear-lever which really doesn’t do much technically.

Maybe I am being unfairly critical here, no doubt keeping costs down meant simply using an already existing platform and interior and producing an electric engine to drive it.

The i MiEV is a proper four-seater city car and it can easily carry four adults around town. It certainly doesn’t lack any power with a full load.

If you flatten the accelerator it will push all that 180Nm of torque (more than a current generation Toyota Corolla) to the ground via the rear-wheels instantly. It’s certainly not shy of getting up to speed. With four adults in the car there was no issue keeping up with traffic or merging on to the highway. It has an electronically (or electrically) limited top speed of 130km/h but can go as high as 160km/h if delimited.

The engine is designed to act exactly like a petrol engine would, if you engage ‘D’ it will slowly move forward and gain momentum as it goes. Technically Mitsubishi could have built it not to do that but to keep a familiar feel it was programmed that way.

The drive consisted of a brief pass through Brisbane CBD and onto Coronation drive towards Toowoong. Other driver’s couldn’t help but to stare at the i MiEV thanks partially to its tiny size and ‘electric-car’ stickers.

After the first two minutes behind the wheel you’ll quickly realise that even though the i MiEV is an electric car, it most definitely feels exactly the same as any other car except that it makes almost no noise and going past petrol stations all of sudden makes you smile.

There are three different driving modes to pick from, ‘D’ which is basically drive, ‘E’ mode which is drive but the engine has reduced power so that you get maximum range and there is ‘B’ mode for brake regeneration which means it will increase the friction on the brakes to allow more recharge for the batteries (acceleration is still the same as D”). To give you an idea, the brake regeneration technology can only currently capture about 10 per cent of the power which is used to accelerate to the speed at which the brake is applied.

As a car the Mitsubishi i MiEV is exactly what you’d expect. Comfortable, easy to drive and park. Loads of instantaneous torque (more than its petrol equivalent) and surprisingly satisfying behind the wheel.

The majority of drivers do far less than 160 kilometres per day, so the i MiEV is ideal. You simply drive it around during the day and charge it up in your garage at night (similar to your mobile phone). There is the possibility of charging it back up to 80 per cent capacity from ‘fast-charge’ stations that deliver 200v and 50kW straight to the battery. That takes only 30 minutes and will give you another 128 kilometres. The fast charge stations currently don’t exist in Australia but are popping up everywhere in Japan.

Mitsubishi has a three-phase process to release the i MiEV here. The first stage is exposure which is why CarAdvice got to drive the car today, the second phase is trials with fleets to showcase the car’s credentials and finally the car will be launched. There is no confirmed time line for when the car will officially go on sale but it could be towards the end of the year.

So what problems do we face with electric cars in Australia? In Europe, France in particular where Nuclear power means emission free electricity, the i MiEV makes perfect sense but what about Australia?

The argument that electric cars pollute more than their petrol equivalents is not a valid one according to Dr Peter Pudney, a researcher focusing on electric cars from the University of South Australia.

According to Dr Pudney Petrol cars can only increase in efficiency but another 30 or so per cent and hence there is no way to make a zero-emission petrol vehicle while electric vehicles are by their nature zero-emission. So the problem is not with electric cars but with creating green renewable energy.

Every single one of us will need to reduce our Co2 emissions by 95 per cent by 2050 if we are to meet the goals set by international committees in reversing climate change. Australia has set a target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020 but that figure seems rather optimistic given the lack of initiative.

Mitsubishi says it doesn’t see the lack of recharge station infrastructure as an issue in Australia given the availability of household power plugs. Nonetheless fleets can purchase the fast recharge stations if the need arises.

The company believes the government can go a long way in helping increase electric vehicle take up. In Japan the federal government is currently paying half the difference between the price of a petrol Mitsubishi i and an electric i MiEV. Some regions go one step further and pay half the remaining half so buying an i MiEV is not much more than its petrol brother.

In Europe some countries have passed laws to allow for special parking for EV vehicles and in France there are recharge stations available for free throughout CBDs. It seems as though Australia is a long way behind but the introduction of the i MiEV might mean a kickstart for the process of change.

Mitsubishi will not be following a battery-swap model for the i MiEV (or any other electric vehicles in the near future) which some companies are currently creating in Australia. Instead the company expects the batteries to last a minimum of 10 years or 150,000km.

Overall it’s actually rather hard to fault the Mitsubishi i MiEV except on price (but that is simply a process which has to take place).

CarAdvice will conduct a road test of the i MiEV in the near future and no doubt as the number of electric vehicles increases we will find ourself behind the wheel of numerous other examples, such as the Nissan LEAF.

A few facts on the Mitsubishi i MiEV:

i MiEV = i (based on Japanese model ‘i’ car) MiEV (Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle)
Zero drive-time CO2 emissions, plug in, all-electric car
i MiEV utilises a large-capacity lithium-ion battery system
A high-output electric motor replaces a traditional gasoline powertrain
i MiEV hits a regulated top speed of 130km/h
The i MiEV has a range of 140 to 160kms from a single charge
A full charge from a domestic household power supply will take seven hours
The i MiEV is whisper quiet
i MiEV produces 47kW of power and 180Nm of torque
Strong acceleration with instant maximum torque
With seating for four people, ample cabin space, and a sizeable luggage compartment in the rear, i MiEV’s smart design maximises space
i-MiEV’s curb-weight is 1080kg
Total voltage measures 330V and total energy output is 16kWh
The compact battery and motor reside under the seating in the back of the i MiEV
Compared with a turbocharged petrol engine, the i MiEV’s electric motor is smaller, produces more torque at low revolutions, is quieter and cleaner
Feasibility studies have been conducted in USA, Europe, UK, New Zealand, Iceland, Canada and now Australia.
i MiEV is a rear-wheel drive with three driving modes: Drive, Eco and Brake
In Japan, a quick charge system is currently in development that will allow an 80 per cent battery charge in 30 minutes
Mitsubishi’s i MiEV is the product of over 10 years of research and development and is now production ready
i MiEV has been on sale in Japan since July 2009

Lagoza

Alborz. Very little written about how it drives and feels, why ?

http://www.caradvice.com.au/ Alborz Fallah

More added in the last 30 minutes, also it was a brief 20 minute drive. It feels just like a normal light car (e.g. Micra) steering feel is similar to a Colt but acceleration is far quicker, lots of pick up throughout the entire range.

RoFlmaTiC

Just a question for the sparkies and engineers… if the batteries hold 16kwh of charge, and the engine is rated at 47kw or so, doesn’t that mean that if you drive this car flat out for 20 minutes it run out of power? Or if you drive normally for 1 hour?

RoFlmaTiC

it will run*
http://www.caradvice.com.au/ Alborz Fallah

The 47kW power is the legal power limit for that size of car in Japan so its more of an artificially imposed limit. I am not actually sure what the engine would be capable of.

http://www.voltmotive.com Mike Evans

Engine? The engine is not in the car. An engine is an internal combustion device. You must mean “motor”. A motor is an electrical device with opposing field coils surrounding a central armature containing magnets that are both repelled and attracted by the electricity in the coils as the armature spins. One moving part. An Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) has a couple of hundred moving parts, all requiring periodic maintenance (i.e. oil changes, tune ups, hoses, belts, gaskets, pumps, filters, etc…) whereas the electric motor only has 1 moving part and requires zero maintenance for its entire serviceable lifespan, which would be about 800,000km.

Shak

Very promising indeed. Both Nissan and Mitsubishi Australia should be lobbying the federal government for subsidies to buy this car and for funding for better place who WILL build the charging infrastructure by 2012.
J

That is correct (16kWH/47kW = 0.34hr, or 20 mins), though it probably wouldn\’t be much different to a normal petrol car consuming its available fuel when held at WOT for same period. Its rare to use anywhere near the max rated power of any passenger vehicle for prolonged periods.

I\’d guess the car would only require about 10kW to cruise at 100km/h for such a light, efficient vehicle, so you\’d get around 160km per charge at that rate (neglecting inefficiencies – will be worse depending on how efficient the drive circuit is). Around town, probably the same as you\’d get the benefits of regen & not have to consume 10kW to push through wall of air like on the highway (might only need, say, 5kW to maintain 60km/h at a guess), its just the acceleration that always consumes lots of energy.
nick

I know that every piece of new technology has to start somewhere but I find it difficult to see why anyone will buy one. Sure, people still paid $27,000 for a plasma TV in 2003 but it was a step forward from CRT screens. The i-MiEV is a step back from where we are today in terms of practicality and I doubt there would be any features to sweeten the $70,000 price tag. One would have to do a lot of driving before it’s paid for itself.

It’s great that Mitsubishi is trying to move ahead but in reality they won’t sell many i-MiEVs until the fast charge technology comes into Australia and the price drops by at least $20k. If one wanted to buy a small car with low CO2 emissions and compromise they’d be better off looking at a Fiesta Econetic.
Paul

Considering it accelerates from 0-100 kph in 9 seconds, and every time you decelerate you’re recollecting 10% via regeneration… how many times can you do that on a full battery? Totally ridiculous question isn’t it????!!!

The specs here are missing it, but energy consumption for the MiEV is supposedly 125 watt hours per km (wh/km) although that gives a range of only 128 km. An MiEV with 160 km range on a 16 kwh pack suggest 100 wh/km although the pack is unlikely to be depleted below 20-30%. Average energy consumption includes regeneration. For comparison a Tesla Roadster uses 110 wh/km….
greenroom

you still need a coal mine to fuel the thing though

Shak

You’ve never heard of solar panels? they are these big black panels you put on your roof, and they heat up and make you car go vroom next morning.

Marcoz

And how are the solar panels manufactured???…..in a big factory that polutes….!!!!

GoHyundai

god here we go again about the ‘polluting our world’ crap,
we’re polluting the world as we live in this earth.

milobob

and yet we still need that coal to distil the various petrols
Lazybones

And you still need coal to pump that petrol stuff into your car

Tom22

I took the ‘electronically limited’ to 130kmh as a pun =P
MJ

Looks like a Tata Nano…I guess most cars will look like this in the future.
Jon Leong

I don’t agree with the suggestion that the i-MiVE price will follow the Plasma TV pricing principle. Yes Plasma do cost $27,000 in 2003, but there are so much chocies of different brand, Huge Supply, and introduction of relatively newer technology (LCD,LED) out there which force the plasma price to go down to below the thousand marks. As far as I can tell in the near future, there is the Leaf, and Volt, and thats about it… No yet any Soniq or DSE home brand making cheap stuff, maybe BYD from China which I am guessing, will die about a week after the warranty expires…

There is also the demand of Electric car… supply & demand always follows the same principle. LOW supply = HIGH price, HIGH demand = HIGHER price. How long will it take supply & demand to become stable, 10-20 year?? By that time, New technology would of already come out (hydrogen fuel cell and so on) Electric cars would become obsolete…

With Plasma, it is still a competitive product when sold along side LCD or LEDs as there isn’t much difference between them. But if Hydrogen Electric car and Battery Electric car are both on sell at the same time, Who is going to go for the Battery one??

Lazybones

I don’t think Alborz is suggesting the price of any electric car will fall 27 times cheaper like a Plasma. But it will fall to at least the sort of price you would pay for a car this size in a petrol version. Even the car manufactures say this. Its a new technology that needs to be phased in slowly. This is a good thing.

The main technology changes in the next 10 years will be a new wave of super batteries which promise more storage, faster charging and vastly cheaper $$ per KWh. Keep your eye on the new Nanosafe battery for example.

svd

I was interested in the reviewers comments re the gearshift. During the 60′s and 70′s we had Chrysler vehicles with push button gear shift for the Torqueflite auto transmission equipped models. Along came Ralph Nader who should never ever have been issued with a license and who killed all that sort of innovation off. He lobied governments to introduce legislation to make all controls on vehicles the same after he wet his pants driving a Chevrolet Corvair.
Hung Low

If the Chinese or Indians made something like this for around $10k in the future(it might happen), I will confidently say every house would have one, mainly as a second car! Only problem I see is that the price of electricity will be enormous by then, so a solar/wind charge station at home will be the only other alternative!
JEKYL & HYDE

nintendo 64…bomberman…says it all…
vid_ghost

a car for the people with money to burn.. i’ll look back into all electric cars in another 5-8 years when we have a price drop
Bezza

Bottom line is we need a far more efficient way of making power. And sooner rather than later would be good.
Reality Check

This just doesn’t make commercial sense, unlike the first release plasma which at least offerred something new, better and more exciting for early adopters.

This is strictly for greenies who can’t do the maths, and for desperate wannabe’s who “have” to be noticed.
Untouchable

For the 99.94% ie the average car buying punter this won’t work

This will be great if they could sell it for $20k, thats all one should pay for a tiny runabout.

How much brown-coal does one need to burn to charge the battery every single day?

Good car for wifey to travel to shops, school etc.

Not something to hook on the caravan and travel to the coutryside though

PRICE will kill it…

Just by a Suzuki Alto, they use bugger all fuel and will cost 1/4 [75%] LESS
Hugo

So, would you pay AU$70,000 for it?

You could have a nicely equipped BMW 325i for that .

Martin

I know what I’d choose… and it’s not the Mitsubishi.

http://www.lukehimself.net Luke

Before commenting on electricity production, read the article…

Mitsubishi representatives were very clear to point out that what their company does is make cars. They are not in the business of making clean renewable energy and no doubt they would love the idea of electricity being produced with less carbon footprint than our current coal powered stations. However they are doing their bit and the rest is up to the energy companies.

At least they’re making the first step, instead of waiting for the electricity companies to change which will take a lot longer.
Martin

A Tesla Model S sedan starts at US$50,000. At the current exchange rate that’s about AU$54,600.

It’s bigger, more practical, better looking, you can go further, it’s faster, etc. You get the idea.

Am I missing something here? Because I’m rather confused. How can this “i MiEV” thing cost so much, where as the overall better Tesla cost considerably less!?

Seems as though Mitsubishi are playing everyone for fools.
Al Juraj

It’s a step forward in electric cars. It now drives like a normal vehicle. But the big issue on battery powered machines is still there. It still needs to be charged occasionally and the traveling distance between recharges is yet very limited. Costing 70K, why would people buy this over a Prius? Sure it doesn’t pollute, but when the batteries die for good, disposing of them would still be bad for the environment.
S01

Re: Hydrogen Cars, 3 main problems:
One: Currently it costs big money to make and build a Hydrogen powered car (500k-1mil). They (Engineers/designers in general) are still struggling to design a cost effective hydrogen car.

Two: Retooling all current petrol stations to distribute Hydrogen for refueling, There are a number of issues around making Hydrogen re-fueling safe, hydrogen is highly explosive(a lot more so than petroleum).

Three: Safety in a crash, cars crash, unfortunately a lot a ruptured Hydrogen fuel cell/tank would be an absolute nightmare to deal with at a crash event (assuming crash didn’t simply cause a big ball of fire on rupture).

What hydrogen does have over electric is range ie we retain the current mechanism of “I’m out of fuel” so I fuel up.

However they (Engineers/designers) appear to be solving battery limitations faster than they are solving hydrogen fuel cell issues.

One; It’s cheap (compared to hydrogen fuel cells) to retrofit current car designs with electric

Two:The distribution network already exists for distributing power and there’s very few additional safety issues with retooling petrol stations to recharging stations (they would need more recharge points and nicer facilities)

Three: New (not the old ones) lithium cells don’t tend to catch fire/explode when they are ruptured

They are solving the charging problems break even point would appear to be a car with a 400-500km range and a 30min charge time you could then drive for 4-5hrs stop for a break (lunch) and proceed on for a further 300-400km after lunch giving you a max day range of 700-900km (more than a single driver should really do in a day)

Sure hydrogen may become viable over 20 years, however were will batteries be in 20 years? Look back 20 years; Lithium cells were just starting to gain market penetration (laptops/computers) with very low capacities and big size, compare that to today’s lithium’s. Advances in hydrogen fuel cell technology seems to have been stagnant (at least in the commercial world) for the past 20 years. ie we’re at the same point we were 20 years a few demo cars and conceptual idea’s, I remember seeing a demo hydrogen fuel cell car on beyond 2000 as a kid, now I’m adult I see demo hydrogen fuel cell cars at motor shows and that’s it. I can however buya petrol/electric hybrid or now a 1st generation electric car, sort fot he equivalent to the first mass produced petrol car (yep old Model T)… I can’t wait for the 2nd generation electric cars.
http://www.theelectricbikecompany.net/ Who42

Mitsubishi i MiEV Review & test drive 12th July 2011
Eagers Mitsubishi Newstead

Over all I thought i MiEV was a good small EV it drove and handled well and had a bit more power than exspected but the price at $48.990 plus on roads add $4000 in August 2011 was way to much in the USA they start at $27.770 and Europe $30.000 USD before any incentives Why in Australia do we nealy pay twice as much as a USA citizen. Mitsubishi Australia are ripping us off again!!
The Realist

An interesting article. What a pity its not based on fact. My mother bought my wife and I a 42 inch Plasma as a wedding present in 2003. It was an LG. We still have it. It cost, with 5 year Harvey Norman warranty, $3490. Not $27,000 as quoted in this article.

But then, I guess the idea is to dump this abortion on the Australian consumer, not get caught up in the reality of the overblown price, lack of range, power and room inside.

http://www.voltmotive.com Mike Evans

Wow, the lack of facts here is simply stupefying. According to NZTA,the average New Zealander only drives 38km per day (go ahead, ask them). Owning an EV means changing the way YOU think. With a petrol car, you fill up ONCE A WEEK, and you get about 450km on a full tank. With an EV, you fill up DAILY and get 130km on a charge, so notwithstanding the EV will travel 650km in a week. Add to that, 35 litres of petrol costs $2.06 per litre today (11/11/11), So that’s $72.10 per week. The EV only takes $1.30 to fill up each day, so that’s only $6.50 per week. An EV costs more up front, because you are buying your next 12 to 20 years’ worth of fuel up front, effectively locking in your transport costs for the next 12 to 20 years. Of course, when you remove the internal combustion engine, you also remove 90% of the maintenance costs of a car. The electric motor requires no maintenance for its entire serviceable lifespan, which is about 800,000km. I know because I actually build EV’s.