Mitsubishi commuter e-car goes on sale
G-Whiz killer?
Mitsubishi's e-car, the i-MiEV, formally goes on sale in the UK today.
You can read Reg Hardware's review of the electric auto, which we found to be genuinely fun to drive, here.
The car maker has actually been shipping vehicles to Europe since October 2010, with some 2500 of them arriving on the continent. Many are i-MiEVs, but some will sell as the Peugeot iOn and the Citröen C-Zero, both manufacturers having signed up to re-badge the Mitsubishi.
The Japanese company said it plans to expand sales into more European countries - it's focusing on the 15 better-off nations first - and start production over here too.
An no wonder it has its eye on the wealthiest countries. Here in the UK, the i-MiEV will start at £23,900 - and that includes a £5000 subsidy from the Con-Libs.
The i-MiEV has a range of 93 miles, and Mitsubishi claimed you can top up the battery to 80 per cent in half an hour. Not a car for long-distance driving, but it's likely to win converts who commute into towns and cities, especially those with charging posts.
Londoners will be able to avoid paying the congestion charge with one of these cars, which, let's face it, is a far more attractive e-car option than the G-Whiz. ®
COMMENTS
Errr.
You have buses that run on alternative fuel and you already said the magic word... they are more efficient based on the number of people being served.
I agree electric light rail is a better option and if you live well outside of the city, diesel electric trains make better sense than cars.
The one thing about buses over rail is that they can drive anywhere. Even a light rail needs to have tracks laid down... But there's a solution for that... Electric buses which use overhead cables for power. (50's tech) Just go nuke for your power and you're clean... ;-)
Plan now for nukes because it will take 10-15 years to build a power plant and you'll need them if everyone wants electric vehicles...
Costs
This has already been discussed, and the costs presented. However an important thing to consider is London congestion and parking charges. A year's working is something like 220 days, which at £10 per day is a couple of grand a year. If you can also wangle free or reduced parking (depending on the borough) you could easily save £4K per year.
Realistically you should be able to save £500 per year on fuel and £100 per year on servicing. I have no idea how much your insurance savings would be, though.
So, over 5 years you are looking at a cost of something like £16K more for the car than for a small diesel runaround, but offset by savings of up to £22,500, with savings of £15K/£16K being fairly certain. Even assuming that your leccy car is now BER due to the knackered battery against a resale value of a 5 year old small car of about £2-3K the difference looks like a total saving of something like £3.5K, and you get to save the planet.
You do need a real car for long journeys though but as a second family car for the London commute the maths is not as bad as it looks at first. For any situation it is a stupid idea though.
As a disclaimer: I am certainly not an eco-warrior: My car tends to get about 32Mpg for normal use and is in one of the top brackets for emissions.
What do you think traction means?
Of course it's the main battery!
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