2010 Mitsubishi i MiEV First View

Excitement is building as the first 25 full production all-electric Mitsubishi i-MiEV’s arrive at Bristol’s Royal Portbury Docks. Final preparation has already begun before the cars hit the road on December 12th 2009 as part of a West Midlands based government trial.

The i-MiEV’s left Japan by boat six weeks ago and their arrival has been eagerly awaited, especially by the end users and everyone following their progress via Mitsubishi Motors UK’s i-MiEV Facebook fan page.

i-MiEV – Leading The Market

The multi award winning Mitsubishi i-MiEV is a fully electric city car and the first real-life EV with zero tailpipe emissions made available by a mainstream manufacturer. It's a genuine car, ensuring no compromise in cabin space, seating 4 adults and room for luggage.

It has a top speed of 81 mph, a range of 100 miles and can be trickle charged from flat to full in 6 hours at any UK three-pin socket – and it only costs 96p for a full charge.

An Early Sales Triumph

The i-MiEV, on sale in Japan since July this year, has been a sell-out success. The 1,400 units allocated by Mitsubishi for the 2009 Japanese market have flown out the door and an impressive 900 orders have already been placed in Japan from the 2010 build allocation.

European production will begin in October 2010 with left hand drive i-MiEV’s available in markets across Continental Europe towards the end of the year.

Real-World Trials

The cars are taking part in one of the Government’s Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstrator projects, run by the Technology Strategy Board. Through an extensive selection process, members of the public have been selected by consortium partner, Coventry University, to trial the cars for 12 months allowing analysis of driving and charging behaviour.

The West Midlands CABLED (Coventry and Birmingham Low Emission Demonstrators) consortium combines the expertise of Arup – design and engineering consultant and project leader, power provider E.ON, the city councils of Birmingham and Coventry, three academic institutions, and five other car manufacturers, and is supported by Advantage West Midlands.

Mitsubishi i-MiEV begins trials

Mitsubishi's i MiEV Electric Car

The first zero-emissions fully electric city car to be used on the government-funded Technology Strategy Board (TSB) user trials has begun testing in the West Midlands.

The Mitsubishi i-MiEV (Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle), which has a top speed of 81mph, a range of 100 miles and can be trickle charged from flat to full in seven hours, is participating in a UK-wide project to test electric and ultra-low-emission vehicles.

Quentin Willson, one of the i-MiEV drivers participating in the trials, said: ‘The Mitsubishi i-MiEV is a forerunner of a transport revolution that eventually will change the world. At last here’s an electric car that doesn’t look like a church pew, seats four, does 80mph and costs less than a quid to charge.’

Over the next 12 months, keys to 25 Mitsubishi i-MiEVs will be given to test drivers by the Arup-led CABLED (Coventry and Birmingham Low Emission Vehicle Demonstrators) consortium, who are tasked with managing the £25m TSB Ultra Low Emission Vehicle Demonstrator Competition.

The i-MiEV trials are worth £15m and will see 110 vehicles tested on the roads of Birmingham and Coventry. Throughout the UK, a total of 340 vehicles will be tested using funding from the TSB and £2.5m from regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands.

Neil Butcher, Arup’s project leader of the CABLED consortium said: ‘Less than one per cent of the vehicles registered every year in the UK are electric and most of these are currently used in London. We think that by 2020 low-carbon cars will be commercially viable and it’s important that we start to understand the public’s reaction and provide the necessary infrastructure to prepare for this.’

He added: ‘The launch is a landmark occasion for the UK automotive industry and this project will begin to examine the points where the vehicles meet the built environment – energy generation, battery charging and driver behaviour. This is an important first step on our roads to a low-carbon future.’

The consortium will also benefit from a commitment to developing the necessary infrastructure to coordinate the trials from E.ON, Birmingham City Council and Coventry City Council, who will provide electrical charging points for vehicles across the two cities and access to Birmingham University’s hydrogen-refuelling station.

Throughout the trials, Aston University will be analysing and reporting the conclusions from the data generated by the vehicles.

Iain Gray, chief executive of the TSB, said: ‘The journey towards low-carbon transport will not be easy, but the demonstrator programme is the biggest project of its kind to date and is a major step in the right direction.’

Monaco gets four Mitsubishi i-MiEVs

The Principality of Monaco is best known for Formula One cars screaming through the streets every spring and a harbor full of mega-dollar yachts filled with the beautiful people. When those people head ashore, there's a good chance they will be motoring in something very fast and very expensive. This week, however, instead of high-powered race cars, the area around the Prince's palace was silent as four new cars were delivered by Mitsubishi. Prince Albert II was on hand as officials from the automaker turned over the battery-powered i-MiEVs for a test program. The i-MiEVs will be used by the local post office, electric utility, parking services and the Prince Albert II foundation. The goal is to promote low emissions transportation on the sunny Riviera.

2010 Mitsubishi MiEV Drive

Mitsubishi MiEV

Over the past year, the little Mitsubishi MiEV electric minicar has been making the rounds in the U.S. and abroad, with test fleets in the works in a number of countries. And although Mitsubishi hasn't yet announced how the MiEV might be sold or leased to the public in the U.S., it hasn't hesitated to let us in the motoring press sample it.

That includes in the vast Palm Springs area, which seemed a brave venue for the diminutive MiEV—sized between the Smart Fortwo and the Mini Cooper—given the prevalence of ridiculously large vehicles and foggy-eyed red-light runners. Although this editor has driven the MiEV at several locales at parking-lot speeds, and our companion site Green Car Reports posted a full drive report earlier this year, this gave us our first chance to get the MiEV up to highway speeds.

Our right-hook production (Japan-market) MiEV looked almost identical to the 'i' minicar, on which it's based. Just like in the 'i', which we also reported on this past week and drove at this same event, the narrow body is the most constraining part of the experience—you'll be bumping elbows with your passenger—but there's actually adequate headroom and legroom in front or in back. Thanks to the mid-engine layout of the 'i', with the little three-banger normally positioned just under the back seat and ahead of the rear wheels, very little cabin space goes unused yet more space in front and in back can go toward crumple zones.

Packaging for the battery and motor system, as with the 'i', is smart. The MiEV's 16-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack fits neatly with the motor system under the back seat and cargo floor and allows a real-world driving range of about 80 miles. Its motor produces 47 kW, which equates to the 63 horsepower that's the most permitted in so-called kei cars, a type of minicar that's exempt from some taxes in Japan.

Step into the i-MiEV and turn on the ignition, and unlike some electric vehicles you don't hear the whirring of cooling fans in the battery compartment almost instantly.

Moving away from a parking space, we noted that there's almost no—if any—creep when you lift your foot off the brake. With a slight press of the throttle pedal you're moving forward smoothly. Step on it a little more and you'll hear more of a faint whine—and if you haven't driven an electric vehicle before you'll be astonished by the available torque.

Neither the MiEV nor the 'i' that it's based on are downright quick, but the 'i' feels to have the advantage, at least from a standstill up to about 35 mph. We took the MiEV up to nearly 65 mph and at that point it didn't feel nearly as perky; the MiEV is limited to a top speed of 80 mph. At low speeds, the 2010 MiEV is much more in its element, feeling more substantial than the Smart Fortwo.

Also of note is that the MiEV's regenerative braking is very subtle; even by placing the shifter in the 'B' mode, which orders up more resistance, it's nowhere as aggressive as in the Mini E, for instance. There's also an Eco mode that cuts available power, aimed at eking the most out your charge, but in an area of high-speed boulevards it wasn't an option.

The MiEV was also very affected by load, which seems to be the case with most minicars; we noticed that with more weight, ride quality deteriorated.

Charging, as with most EVs, remains the single greatest hurdle. It takes about seven hours to charge with a 220-volt system and 14 hours with a household 110-volt AC outlet. We're still holding out for those special three-phase 220-volt quick chargers to become widely available; with them, Mitsubishi says you can get the battery pack to 80 percent in just 30 minutes.