Mitsubishi i-MiEV Hits Production
Mitsubishi i-MiEV
40 years and billions of yen investment were required to develop an electric car that would allegedly help Mitsubishi out of the global crisis. Meet the i-MiEV the latest electric car to make the conveyor line. The production will start very soon and at least 1,400 units are planned to be supplied to the local government in various regions of Japan.
By 2010 Mitsubishi will start selling i-MiEV to the general public (including exports to Britain and Europe) and by 2012 it is estimated that the annual production volume would hit 15,000 units. I agree, it is not too much, but if you consider that just a couple of years ago an electric car riding along a street was a wild utopia, it is not bad at all!
With a top speed of 81 mph (130 kmh) and a range of 100 miles (160 km) the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is almost like a regular car, only much much greener. The synchronous electric motor will produce 47 kW power and the car will feature a new generation l-ion batteries.
Hats off to Mitsubishi. It is a giant leap they’re taking. They need to sell at least 30,000 per year to start making a tiny profit of the whole project. This means that until 2013 they are going to lose lots of money. Now you see, if a company of a global scope embarks on a project this big, they must be pretty confident there is some strength in electric vehicle market.
Amongst all this positivity, there is something that might interfere with i-MiEV’s plans to become the most popular electric vehicle of the world. Brace yourself for the price - $47,500. That’s even more expensive than a Toyota Prius. EVs got to get cheaper if they are to stand any chance of replacing the gas-guzzlers.
This bit of news fuels the motivation of other car makers too. Tesla, despite of slowing down after an impressive start, still claims it would commence a large-scale electric car production in 2011, Malaysian Proton has an EV project up their sleeve, Nissan, Peugeot and Smart all have electric cars ready to go. With British GoinGreen successfully manufacturing the ingenious G-Wiz for the 3rd year in a row and Mega Aixam filling the gap across the channel, it all looks bright and shiny for the electric car industry.
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