June 28: Getting acquainted with the i-MiEV

The i-MiEV was delivered June 28. Quite exciting. New technology with which I will live for three months. I canceled all my other cars and will try to drive just this until September 30. That includes my regular 22-mile commute to work, 22 miles back home, and whatever else I need to do to get around. Longer trips will fall to the family minivan.

What is an i-MiEV? It is the electric version of the i, i being the name of the gasoline-powered mini car of the same body but different powertrain that is sold in Japan. It is in the kei class of vehicle, the smallest they have over there. We here in America have been introduced to B-Class cars like the Nissan Versa, Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris. The kei class is one smaller than those.

The gas i in the Japan market has a rear-mid-mounted 660-cc internal combustion engine. This electric i-MiEV I am driving has a 47-kw permanent magnet electric motor driving the rear wheels powered by a 16-kWh lithium ion battery pack.

The rest of the name, after the lower-case i, stands for Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle. It's pronounced “eye meev,” which means “stinky egg” in German, by the way. Tell a German person you drive an i-MiEV and they'll be aghast. Or maybe they'll laugh, assuming you can find a German with a sense of humor.

The i-MiEV goes on sale here in fall 2011, also known as the 2012 model year. Price will be less than $30,000. Approximately $15,000 of that price is for the batteries. Batteries for this car are astronomically expensive because they're all made by hand right now. Mitsubishi says once a battery factory is built and some automation comes into the process the price will come down.

I would buy one of these if I needed a commuter car. It fits my needs exactly with plenty of excess capability. It can seat four real adults. There is plenty of head and elbow room. The only thing lacking is rear seat legroom but it is not cramped back there by any means. The U.S. spec car will be four inches wider, not because there's any lack of room inside but because it'll have to meet side impact standards and will need that room to do so. To get the four inches Mitsubishi will split it lengthwise down the middle and widen it. There is all the room you need inside this thing right now. I fit no problem and I have trouble sitting upright in many a fine normal car of much larger size, especially if that fine normal car has a sunroof.

The i-MiEV arrived on a flatbed truck, with a full charge. I immediately drove it gingerly 23 miles to Pomona to test it. By the time it got there I had used up almost half the charge. There was one bar above half.

I assumed that a facility like the LA County Fairplex would have a 240-volt outlet so I could plug it in, top it off and then test it with a full charge (it turns out the state of charge, full or half, had no effect on how quickly the car accelerates, so I needn't have been concerned). I summoned the electrician. He brought me to a 220--or was it 240-volt--outlet that was used for “motor homes.” That was where I learned that the i-MiEV uses a 20-amp connector and the Fairplex is wired for 30-amp connectors. The actual plug on a 20-amp connector plug is smaller than that of a 30-amp plug. So no dice. I plugged it into a 120-volt outlet, but who were we kidding? That would have taken about 4 or 5 hours to get back up to full charge. I tried it for an hour at 120 volts and the gauge didn't budge. Like I said, the motor goes just as fast and powerfully with a half charge as with a full, I later found out from Mitsubishi. So I went out and tested on the electric equivalent of half a tank.

I did the whole phalanx of AutoWeek AutoFile long-term-car tests and got the following:

0-60 mph: 11.9 seconds

Quarter-mile: 18.7 seconds @ 72.6 mph

60-0 mph: 159.6 feet

Slalom: 38.3 mph

Skidpad: 0.62 g

Those numbers are nothing to write home about. It's possible to set up an EV for performance, so they're not inherently wimpy. You can also design them for efficiency, as was this one. Even with the old Corbin Sparrow, the Corbin technician told me, you could crank up the amps and go fast, but that the motor on that one-seater was set for more range. Everything is a compromise. Go quicker and you eat range. Slower and you can drive all day. More or less.

The acceleration numbers are way better than a gasoline-powered, 660-cc, three-cylinder Smart ForTwo, though, which went from 0-60 in 14 something. But the i-MiEV is far slower than a Tesla roadster, which is more than twice as quick if I remember.

I must've put about three or four miles on during testing at the Fairplex, including maximum acceleration runs and all that, which was a big drain on the battery I'm sure. It ate up about three or four bars so I was down to about 1/3 charge when I left. I crept along in the slow lane at 90 km/hr or 55 mph for 23 miles to get from the Fairplex to my house. At about 19 or 20 miles into my drive home the gauge was at one bar and flashing at me, but I made it home.

My first recharge! Recharging was about a million times simpler than I'd thought. You don't need a 240-volt Level II or 480-volt Level III “fast charger.” Your car is parked all night, right? So just use 120 volts and charge away at a reduced rate. I plugged it in at 5:30 p.m. that first night. By 10:00 p.m., 4.5 hours later, I checked on it and it was almost half charged. By the next morning it was fully charged, of course.

By Mark Vaughn