Mitsubishi i-MiEV deployment begins

By Alborz Fallah | July 15th, 2010

Mitsubishi Motors Australia has today revealed a list of organisations that have signed up to lease one of the very first Mitsubishi i-MiEVs to enter Australia.

The first shipment of the Japanese giant’s electric vehicles, which arrive later this month, will be shipped out to numerous state, federal governments as well as local councils and selected commercial entities.

The arrival of the vehicles will also make Mitsubishi the first volume-production car-maker to sell electric vehicles in Australia.

Only 40 i-MiEVs are destined for Australia in the first shipment, even though the company has had applications for over 100 vehicles. Mitsubishi expects to meet demand with follow-up shipments.

“The last twelve months have seen Mitsubishi conduct Australian trials of the vehicle with hundreds of potential owners, including local, state and federal government bodies, and major fleet operators, and the feedback from these test drives has been very positive. However, the proof of Australia’s acceptance of the electric vehicle comes down to whether people are ready to purchase the vehicle – and there is no doubt that they are. We have three times as many applicants as vehicles at this point. We could not have wished for a better response,” MMAL’s CEO and president, Masahiko Takahashi, said.

The i-MiEV is powered by an electric motor producing 47 kW of power and 180 Nm of instant torque. It can travel up to 160 kilometres on a single charge. Read: Mitsubishi i-MiEV review.

List of organisations:

Federal Government

Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government

State Governments

New South Wales Government
Queensland Government
South Australian Government
Victorian Government
Local Councils
City of Adelaide
City of Brisbane
City of Gold Coast
City of Marion
City of Sydney

Automotive Associations

NRMA
RAA SA

Organisations

Better Place
Carsales
ChargePoint
Energex
Energy Australia
Ergon Energy
ESCO Energy Solutions
ETSA Utilities
GE Custom Fleet
Google
Hume Building Society
Leaseplan
Mitsubishi Australia Limited
Ozgene
Rock Constructions
Roche Products
St George Bank
Western Power

Shak

Google should use it as its Google Earth Car that maps streets from street level.

RK

My knee-jerk reaction would be that that was the idea, since it’s the best way to give the car visibility (and give Google visibility of using an electric car), but the i-Miev isn’t very well suited to spending a whole day mapping streets, you know? It would just have to do a cameo around peak visiblity times every day, and then go back for recharging.

http://www.esteemtrucks.com/ Jack

I think they must plan to launch this one in India too….. India has a larger demand for mini cars…… and mini cars with low price tags are much famous in India and other Asian developing countries……
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This electric vehicle scoring good in each prospect…..nice design concept and good shape……160 km with single charge is good……..

RK

This is not a mini car with a low price tag. It is a mini car with a premium price tag and for which the selling point is mostly environmentalism.

Once electric cars go into serious mass production and the price goes down, they would be VERY well suited to India and reducing the air pollution in crowded Indian cities, but for now I doubt India is very high on the priority list. California, New York, Tokyo, East Coast Australia: these are the sort of places where you’ll find a lot of environmentalists who are willing to buy a small premium-priced non-luxury car. India is not. I could see a demand for the Tesla among well-off Indians, but not much for the i-Miev.
andrew

160km on single charge would be… almost ok. Unfortunately, in real street use the range seems to be less than half of that, as the guys on Fifth Gear found out when they tried to drive that car. A trip that should take a couple of hours ended up taking a couple of days, at which point they run out of patience and loaded it on a lorry.
i-Miev? I call it i-Meh.

milobob

local councils typo! Well not really but it should be a heading
Vibe

Campbell Newman will build a tunnel especially for these cars at the rate he’s going.

But I think it’s good organisations and governments are getting on board.

Bezza

Good to see them grandstanding with public (read ‘your’) monies again. Why buy one of the most inefficient forms of transport available so you can trumpet about being effecient? Oh because we are all modern, politically correct, post-humanist dills is why.

:-I

gary

yeah, A$50,000, are they?

Even though the cost is actually lower for all these organisations, the price tag is still unbelievable.
http://www.gunsofmuschu.com Peter Addison

Not really worth the premium demanded. Makes more sense to buy a small diesel.
http://www.gunsofmuschu.com Peter Addison

and it adds to the power grid load anyway – so you’re effectively paying a bundle for a coal fired motor car.

Get real Mitsubishi