The motor produces a maximum of 63bhp, which is more than 10% greater than the peak output of the petrol engine,

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Mitsubishi's Electric City Car

by David Finlay (31 Aug 09)

Even in standard form the Mitsubishi i city car is an unusual beast, but the MiEV is something else again. Gone are the 659cc turbo petrol engine and four-speed automatic gearbox, and in their place under the rear floor is an electric motor which gets its energy from a battery pack consisting of 88 lithium-ion cells and mounted beneath the centre of the car.

Mitsubishi i 11 - MiEV.

Electric versions of existing conventional cars tend to be comparitively slow, but that's not the case here. The motor produces a maximum of 63bhp, which is more than 10% greater than the peak output of the petrol engine, and although that may not sound very exciting it gives the i quite an impressive turn of speed. Acceleration from rest is sturdy, at least in city car terms, and the top speed of just over 80mph is probably at least as high as you'd be prepared to consider.

In the kind of environment that the i would consider to be its home territory, 63bhp is if anything slightly excessive. Mitsubishi has catered for that by offering an Eco mode, in which the power output is drastically reduced. Before I drove the car I was told that Eco was intended for urban driving, but it also has a place when you're out in the country and simply need to maintain the speed you've already reached under acceleration.

There's a further mode called B (for Brake), which is the same as the normal Drive mode with one important exception. Whenever you lift off the accelerator pedal the i MiEV's motor becomes a generator, recharging the batteries while also slowing the car down, but in B the generation is more pronounced and the braking more insistent. The idea is that when you're descending a steep hill and want to maintain speed, the i MiEV will do this in B mode while also extending the between-charge battery life for free.

Mitsubishi i 12 - MiEV Interior.

Apart from the fact that B mode is slightly awkward to reach via the control lever (which is clearly based on the gear selector of a car with automatic transmission), and may possibly be relocated to a button on the dashboard in the near future, the system works well. In fact the whole car works well. Very well. It's quiet, it handles superbly, and it should soothe the fevered brow of the most critical environmentalist - Mitsubishi reckons that, even if you include the fact that the electricity it runs on may be generated in a conventional power station, CO2 emissions are in the region of 70% less than those of a similarly-sized petrol car.

I'm not sure if I could live with anything as wacky-looking as this for very long, but I did become extremely fond of the i MiEV. There is, however, a problem, which came to the forefront of my consciousness as soon as I asked a Mitsubishi person how much the car will cost. "We need to get it below £20,000," he said, at which point I felt in need of some recharging myself.

More specifically, the situation is this: over the next year or so, Mitsubishi intends to import around 50 i MiEVs to the UK, and the price will be £30,000, though most examples will be leased out in a series of Government trials. From mid-2010 the import rate will jump up to 500 units costing £25,000 each, and if all goes well a year after that Mitsubishi will start importing cars at a rate of 5000 annually, at the previously mentioned price of £20,000, or preferably less. By that time the Government will have introduced its £5000 grant for people who buy electric cars, but that still leaves the customer with a bill in the region of £15,000. And that's a lot for a model whose petrol equivalent seems pricey at £9000.

Of course, the thing about all electric cars at the moment is that they are both ferociously expensive and amazingly cheap to run. Mitsubishi reckons that the electricity bill required to run an i MiEV for 12,000 miles will be just £115 at current rates, and servicing costs will probably be minute compared with those of any car with a proper engine and gearbox because there is so little to go wrong.

Mitsubishi i 13 - MiEV.

The flipside to this is that an electric car still doesn't make economic sense unless you live and work in London and can take advantage of free parking and exemption from the congestion charge. Only then is the i MiEV within hailing distance of being a reasonable purchase, and even at that there's the problem of attempting to charge it from the mains in the street outside your house and having some scamp unplugging it - or worse - while you're tucked up in bed.

But these are issues that apply to all electric vehicles, and there is nothing that Mitsubishi or any other manufacturer can do about them. The i MiEV is not revolutionary in that sense, but it can at least be said to be an extremely good car of its type.

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