Mitsubishi I-Miev 2012 News

Mitsubishi boss Rob McEniry is making that promise as the company's first two electric cars roll off a container ship in Brisbane. The two Mitsubishi i-MiEV (Mitsubishi Electric Vehicle) models have arrived for an 'education and evaluation process' but not for sale, McEniry says. The vehicles will be issued to media and government officials for evaluation and to "start the public education process of future mobility and propulsion". McEniry says 40 more i-MiEVs will arrive later this year. "Governments will be the first customers in the market," he says. "I can't tell you what the price is yet, but the price of electric vehicles is coming down rapidly and that is why we are cautious of saying the price now. By the time the next batch arrives next year we will be ready to tell." "When it gets into volume production it will be affordable; not much more expensive than comparable sized cars. But running costs will make them cheaper over the whole of the life of the vehicle. I can tell you it will not be as expensive or as big a premium over comparative-sized cars as the (hybrid) Prius." Mitsubishi i-MiEV project manager Ashley Sanders says the car could be fully charged off the mains power supply in seven hours and would run for 160km on one charge. A quick-charge station would charge the battery to 80 per cent of its capacity in 30 minutes, but the infrastructure was not available here yet, he says. The 1080kg city car has batteries under the floor which will last 'the life of the car', or a minimum of 10 years, he says. Sanders says the first evaluation vehicle that arrived here last year for homologation and testing had experienced 'no major problems or battery overheating'. McEniry says the i-MiEV will "not only be able to plug in, but take its power when the grid is at its lowest demand. And the next generation model will be able to put back electricity that it has created into the grid at high demand times". The two cars here for evaluation are Japanese specification, but the models to be sold here will be European production models with higher specification. "They will arrive as one spec first up, but as volume increase, we will offer different specs," McEniry says. Queensland Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones says drivers could get incentives such as cheaper rego, be able to drive solo in transit lanes and get cheap or free city parking to switch to electric cars. The incentives are being considered under the government's new electric vehicle policy to be released by the end of the year. Jones says the arrival of the i-MiEV would draw attention to Queensland's electric vehicle policy. "We will look at a number of incentives for people to switch to electric vehicles," she says. "We are hoping Queensland can be in the forefront of electric vehicles when they hit the road in 2011. I was one of the first to drive a Prius and I still do, and I will put up my hand to drive one of these." She says electric vehicles would help reduce pollution in big cities. "Personal vehicles represent 80 per cent of the transport emissions in Queensland," she says. "If we see a significant shift to electric cars we would see that drop. Therefore we would look at incentives such as cheaper registration ... use of transit lanes as they do in California and I'm sure Brisbane City Council would look at the issue of (discounted) parking. We do not want to go into this without looking at all the issues. We also need to look at the waste products as part of our policy."

The Japanese automaker showed off its tiny electric vehicle in full police livery at the recent National Police Show in the UK. Mitsubishi says it has "inundated" with requests from British police departments to put the vehicle through local trials. The first i-MIEV police package will be used by the West Midlands Police.

Electric vehicles are hampered by limited range and the slow process of recharging their batteries. But rather than wait for the infrastructure to be established, car companies are forging ahead with plans for electric vehicles.In the next couple of years our market will see electric vehicles from Mitsubishi, Nissan and GM.So what do motorists do about charging them? Most batteries take about eight hours to fully charge on 240-volt mains power and have a range below 200km, which means they need recharging almost daily. Even quick-charging high-voltage solutions can take up to 30 minutes to get a battery up to 80 per cent charge.Motorists are used to fuelling the tank on their internal combustion engines at a convenient service station in about five minutes, so having to stop for half an hour would be a huge impost.Nissan, whose Leaf electric hatchback goes into production next year and will arrive here in 2011, believes motorists will have to change the way they live with their vehicle, but can still enjoy convenient motoring.There are several options for recharging electric vehicles such as mains trickle charging, quick-charging stations and even battery replacement facilities. Which solution emerges as the most popular will be much like the 1980s battle between VHS and Beta technology or the current DVD versus Blue-Ray.Nissan global zero emissions business unit general manager Hideaki Watanabe says he doesn't care which option wins, but believes all could succeed and live together. "It will be a race between all the options. There could be some other new solutions for infrastructure as well," he said. "It may depend on which one becomes mature first and which one the customers want."He sees a future with electric vehicles as a blend of these solutions with mains trickle charging at home overnight when electricity charges are low and top-up quick charges in public places such as shopping centre carparks throughout the day. "Some retailers are showing an interest in EV," he said."Malls are interested in providing the infrastructure to keep people shopping longer. Maybe shops will offer discounts on charging if they buy products from them like they do now with parking charges."However, he said the industry also needed government help with establishing infrastructure as well as providing incentives for motorists to go electric such as reduced stamp duty and registration, priority lanes, parking concessions and education of the public. "You have to give some benefits to people to switch to electricity," he said.He isn't concerned with the criticism that vehicles powered by electricity from coal-fired power stations — such as in Australia — only shift the emissions from the street to the factory. "I don't care about how the electricity is generated," he said. "It's like the chicken and the egg. Do we wait for environmentally friendly electricity generation infrastructure or not?"I believe we have a responsibility to introduce a zero emission vehicle now. If we introduced the zero emission vehicle then people and governments and the private sector will do their part to provide zero-emission power."