The Mitsubishi i MiEV Electric Minivan

Very cool. I love my Prius. I'm thinking about trading it for a Camry hybrid.

Sounds like a great commuter car, since most folks drive less than 100 miles per day. Solar panels in the roof are also a great idea. I wonder how much of the energy the car uses is generated by the solar panels.

Danielle - the Camry's hybrid engine is less efficient than the Prius, because Toyota, unfortunately, boosted "performance" in the Camry with the hybrid technology rather than efficiency. This is true also of the Lexus models. Save your money for the plug-in Prius, which Toyota is slated to put on the market in 2010.

Toyota Will Offer a Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle by 2010

SOunds like an interesting car!

wow cool looking too, we drive a lot less and walk more
when William worked he rode an electric scooter to work

interesting

Sounds like a cool idea. Looks a bit like the AMC Pacer.

Thanks for the info Sam, Truly a step in the right direction, I wonder how much it costs? I'll have to do more research on this.

I found some prices for anyone interested , Prices range from ¥1.3 million to ¥1.6 million (about US$11,300 to US$14,000); Mitsubishi is targeting sales of 5,000 units per month.

Thanks for that info, Katherine, I think the i MiEV will be a huge success if sold in this price-range!

Steve: "Solar panels in the roof are also a great idea. I wonder how much of the energy the car uses is generated by the solar panels."

Solar Electrical Vehicles adds solar roofs to hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, Highlander Hybrid and the Ford Escape Hybrid. The image below shows a Prius with a convex panel.



The solar modules are rated at 200-300 watts, and this power is used to charge a supplemental battery and the existing battery pack, giving a Prius an extended driving range of up to 20 miles per day in electric mode, thus improving fuel economy by up to 29%.

The SEV system doesn't require plugging in for charging. It comes with a 3kW supplemental battery pack and a charge controlling system, and costs $2000-$4000. It qualifies for Federal renewable energy tax credits of up to $2,000 or 30% if purchased with a residential solar electrical system, which lowers the net cost of the system and means it can pay for itself in a few years time.

The image below is also from the SEV site and shows an all-electric RAV with such a solar panel. I've also added an image further below showing that most people drive only 25 miles or less per day.





Also interesting to note in this respect is last year's report on foldable solar panels that can reach 80% efficiency rates.

As the article describes, Mitsubishi also added a wireless microwave-based battery-charging system. Wireless recharging of electric cars isn't new, the GM EV-1 electric car was initially charged with an inductive charging paddle, which was inserted into a receptacle on the vehicle. GM and Toyota even agreed on a standard inductive charging interface, called Magne Charge, but abandoned its support in 2002 when the California Air Resources Board settled on a conductive charging interface for electric vehicles in California. [source: Wikipedia]

The technology to transmit electricity without cables has also been known for a long time. Nicola Tesla already transmitted electromagnetic energy without wires. The photo below shows Nicola Tesla quietly reading a book while conducting his experiments at his lab in Colorado Springs. It was taken on December 31, 1899, and is a double exposure to picture the extent of the electrical discharge. A device doing this in your garage would of course not be this sparky. As electric cars become more popular, there could well develop more demand for wireless recharging of car batteries.

I'll add some further electric vehicles that feature solar panels. Above the Venturi Astrolab, a 2-seater tandem vehicle with a carbon fiber body, with 3.6 sqm of photovoltaic cells delivering a yield of 21%, and covered by a film composed of nano-prisms enabling denser concentration of solar energy. Solar power totals 600 W and is enough for 18 km/day. Battery pack weighs 108kg and holds 7kWh, and has an estimated life-span of 2,500 cycles (> 10 yrs). Full recharge can be done in 5 hrs with onboard charger (1.5 kW) from a standard 16A plug. Range is 110 km and top speed is 120 km/h. The Venturi Astrolab is displayed below together with the Venturi Eclectic minivan. Further below more pictures of the Eclectic.

The i MiEV SPORT also uses the airflow passing through the front grille. This is used to complement regenerative braking. The Venturi Eclectic features an optional wind turbine on its roof, to generate electricity in addition to what the solar roof produces.

Thanks for all of the information!

Great images - good message!

Mitsubishi has just released a price figure of $US 37,496 for the iMiev, which is slated for commercial sale in Japan in 2009. Mitshubishi makes some comparisons between the iMiev and a conventional car:
- Even when taking into account CO2 emissions at the power plants that generate the power needed for charging the car, it emits only 28% of the CO2 of a gasoline minicar;
- Cost of electricity to drive the iMiev for the same distance as in a gasoline-powered vehicle is one-third that of the cost of gasoline when charging during the day, and one-ninth when charging at night;
- The iMiev can accelerate from 40 to 60 km/h in 31% less time;
- As the electric motor is free of the vertical vibration associated with gasoline engines, it has less vibration and it runs with 5 db less noise;
- The iMiev also doesn't have the heat and odor that come with a gasoline engine and a gasoline fuel tank.

Another source, Reuters, says that Mitsubishi will offer 2,000 iMiev electric cars in the first year of launch (2009), at a price of 2.5-3 million yen ($23,420-28,100).

Mitsubishi Motors Corp.'s president Osamu Masuko said in a recent WSJ interview on the MiEV cost: "With government subsidies we are looking to sell the electric cars for 3 million yen (about $27,600). After mass production, we will reduce costs and sell it for 2 million to 2.5 million yen." On production plans, Masuko gave the following figures: "In 2009, 2,000 units. In 2010, our plan is to make 4,000 units and in 2011, 8,000 to 10,000."

inductive coupling for wireless electricity supply is described here: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/132/brilliant.html And obviously, if the transfer of electricity is only a few inches, this may not seem ideal for powering or recharging electric cars while they are driving along a public roadway. However, according to the article, the inductive coupling recharge pad is smart enough to know what devices are authorized to receive the power for recharge! so if one needs power, perhaps one would just be charged as needed, via credit card, via inductive coupling in the road surface, so that no interaction with electric cord recharge is needed while going on a long drive in an electric car. (even if the batteries require a long recharge time, this would seem feasible as long as the power input from the inductive coupling is automatically adjusted to cover the current demand plus battery recharge need.) (some power or perhaps all could be provided by solar, wind, or soft-speed-bump-pumped flywheel electric generators at intersections.) if slower driving is needed for on-the-fly electric recharge via inductive coupling, there could be special recharge lanes in which the top speed is lower than in the standard traffic lanes (possibly controlled by the system so that people in the recharge lanes could safely take brief timed naps).

Thanks for commenting, Jay. Yes, I see a great future for wireless battery-charging systems and I cannot wait to have a closer look at the iMIEV's microwave-based battery-charging system.

As I indicated in my article Electric Vehicles for hire in Paris, one of the problems with recharging stations is vandalism, rough treatment and carelessness. Have a look at the photo below, uploaded by austinevan at Flickr on June 5, 2008.



Apart from the lost revenue, the cost of repairing the damage and the inconvenience of equipment being out of order, there's also the risk of electrical shock, when someone tries to pull the cord out of a car that's being recharged. Wireless recharging would avoid such problems to a large extent.

The i-MiEV will go on sale in Japan next month. Mitsubishi expects to distribute some 1,400 i-MiEV models in fiscal 2009 on a maintenance lease basis, mainly to corporations and local authorities. Mitsubishi plans to start sales of i-MiEV to individuals in April 2010 and will start taking orders from next month.

Mitsubishi quotes research showing that the vast majority of cars in Japan are driven for less than 60 km (about 37 miles) daily. Nonetheless, the i-MiEV will have a relatively large battery, i.e. 16 kWh. This is a bit less than the figure of 20 kWh initially given, yet the performance figures for the i-MiEV remain the same (top speed, range and charging times).

The i-MiEV will cost 4,599,000 yen or $47,011 (including consumption tax). A subsidy by the Japanese “Next Generation Vehicle Promotion Center” of up to 1,380,000 yen ($14,092) would bring the price down to 3,219,000 yen or $32,904. Additional tax reductions can also be expected as a result of measures by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

Source and photo credit: Mitsubishi

As said above, the i-MiEV will carry a price tag of 4,599,000 yen (including consumption tax) when it goes on sale next month, while a subsidy of 1,380,000 yen can bring the price down to 3,219,000 yen. Mitsubishi plans to cut the price by more than half to less than 2 million yen ($21,000) as government incentives and tighter emission rules boost demand for fuel-efficient cars, reports Bloomberg. The company will cut the i-MiEV’s price tag by the “mid-2010s”, President Osamu Masuko said at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Tokyo. The price target includes tax breaks and subsidies from the government, he added.