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Today I drove around six kilometres around Brisbane without putting one skerrick of pollution into the atmosphere. For a short time I was totally independent, for the first time in my driving life – around 43 years – of the need for petrol, gas or diesel.
Welcome to the new world of the EV. Electric Vehicle ... EV, a term we are all going to hear a lot more of in the coming three to four years. The future is here: the first commercially produced electric car – Mitsubishi's iMiEV - is in Australia for media, fleet and government evaluation. The first media drive was based out of Brisbane with further events to follow in most Australian capitals.
So, what's it like to drive? Basically, no different to any other car on the road. You turn it on, put it in gear, release the hand brake and depress the accelerator and off you go. The only eerie sensation is the quiet. Just a slight hint of wind and tyre noise when you get going. You look at the instrument panel and instead of a fuel guage there's a bar graph telling you how much power is left in the batteries. There's a large speedometer dead centre – which will be needed as the iMiEV is far from slow – and on the right another guage telling you how many kilometres are left in the batteries.
In our short road test through Brisbane CBD and out to Milton and return was enough to draw a few conclusions such as there's more than enough power for city commuting, the car is comfortable and handles nicely, the ride is light, it steers like any other small car and does not have a `dead' feeling like the hybrids.
The iMiEV is a four seat city commuter capable of up to 160 kilometres from a full battery charge from a typical electric plug in your garage at home. If you drive only 30 kilometres then the batteries do not require a recharge. If you decide to charge anyway, then it will take about 90 minutes to get back to a full tank of electricity. To fully recharge after around 160 km of driving will take around 7 hours. In Japan there is currently under development a quick-charge of around 30 minutes to restore around 80 per cent of electricity to the batteries.
The iMiEV is the first of many EV's expected here in the coming two to three years. Mitsubishi Australia is hoping to have the car in showrooms by late this year, but the company admits there are no guarantees about timing. Australia is small fish with PSA – Peugeot and Citroen – putting in an order for 100,000 vehicles to be badge engineered for Europe. The cars can be produced quickly, but not the special large-capacity Lithium-ion batteries.
The iMiEV is based on the Japanese petrol-powered I-car that has the rear situated engine driving the rear wheels and the fuel tank under the central to front floor. In the iMiEV, in simple terms, the petrol tank is replaced by the battery bank and the petrol engine replaced by the electric motor. With it's unusual configuration the `I' car was ideal for the Mitsubishi innovation Electric Vehicle (MiEV) program.
The car is speed limited to 130 km/h, but has a top speed of around 160 km/h. The car produces 47 kW or power and a substantial 180 Nm of torque which is on tap from 0 km/h. This means fast acceleration the second you put the foot down. It is deceptively fast and more importantly is delivered in a seamless smooth way. Those who have driven electric golf carts will understand the smooth delivery of speed ... but not on this scale.
With the iMiEV's motor hidden away the car has a normal sized boot for this small car segment. The exterior design of the vehicle itself reminds us of a Mercedes Benz A-Class. There is good legroom in the rear pew, so there is no compromise for those passengers. The car has a 2550mm wheelbase.
The car has no gearbox or clutch. Having said that there's a traditional-looking gear shifter that includes three driving modes: Drive, Eco and Brake. Drive is a full power mode. E stands for Economy and Brake offers high regenerative braking, which means the car is replenishing power as it runs, particularly down hills. In this mode the also feels more like a conventional car with engine braking.
Like all new technology, the iMiEV will not be cheap. Mitsubishi Australia have not released pricing, but with the car already available in Japan and the US the sums work out to somewhere between $60,000 and $70,000. If the various State Governments and the Federal Government are serious about cutting emissions, then expect some form of government encouragement to buy EVs.
Mitsubishi – and no doubt the many other EV manufacturers – are currently lobby governments around Australia for various incentives. The reason for the sudden development of EVs is mostly to do with improved battery technology. The first EVs used lead acid batteries which constituted up to 60 per cent of the vehicle's weight. They were more battery carriers than people carriers. The next development was nickel hydride, but the recent improvement of Lithium-ion batteries – along with the need to become less dependent on fossil fuel, along with global warming concerns, has made the EV more viable. In the case of the iMiEV, the batteries constitute just 20 per cent of the car's weight.
The fact that commercially-built EVs are about the enter the market will change the language we use in regard to vehicles and our thought processes. As we currently re-charge our mobile telephones as a normal part of our daily lives, the same will apply to the EV. Do we have enough power in the grid for electric cars? The answer is if we all started driving EVs tomorrow the grid would need an extra 11 per cent electricity, according to Dr Peter Pudney, a senior researcher from the University of South Australia. This is dependent on the car's batteries being re-charged during off-peak timing.
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