First Time Fast Charging

Last Friday, I took a quick trip from Santa Monica down to Cypress, CA. to the headquarters of Mitsubishi USA to visit with David Patterson, Chief Engineer, Mobile Emissions Regulatory Affairs & Certification for Mitsubishi's R&D division. He is the guy to talk to about their iMiEV the next EV to hit the U.S. market. Kitty Adams of Adopt a Charger a new non-profit that installs sponsored "fee-free" charging stations throughout the U.S. and Canada, had set up the meeting and accompanied me. Mitsubishi installed the first DC fast charger in southern California at their headquarters, and they were interested in talking to us about installing some under the umbrella of Adopt A Charger. We drove up to their beautifully designed 40 kW solar array under which were several Level 1 and Level 2 charge stations used to keep their fleet of iMiEVs charged. In the middle of these stood the refrigerator-sized EATON 480 volt device, an imposing charger to one used to much smaller. After locating someone with a key to unlock the device (they don’t allow unsupervised use) I locked the large connector into the big port on the front of my LEAF.

The display screen was simple enough, just push start and that was it. It started out pushing 380 volts at 120 amps, a lot of power! While we chatted for a few minutes, the amperage dropped gradually as the battery pack filled and by the time we were ready to go to lunch it was down to about 39 amps. We left it charging while we took one of the iMiEVs for a spin to the restaurant. The iMiEV is a great car!

I reported on a right hand version in February, 2010 after getting a loaner for a weekend. This time, we had a production model made for the U.S. market with the steering on the left side. The ride was every bit as good as the first time, maybe a bit quieter. The interior was comfortable although not as richly appointed as the Volt or LEAF, but still very nice. Acceleration was exactly as I remembered it, I'm guessing 0-60 in about 10-11 seconds. There is an "eco mode", but it's not the same as that in the LEAF. They have it programmed to increase the regen quite a bit, much more than the LEAF, so I liked that.

Kitty took her turn behind the wheel on the drive back and was similarly impressed. David says that Mitsubishi will be selling these by November of this year, so they'll beat the Ford Focus EV to market. Even better is the price. David says they will sell a fully loaded iMiEV for under $30K before incentives. Here in California, that means you could purchase one for under $20K after state and federal incentives. This is great news as it opens up a much larger market for new EVs. I see this as a perfect college car, low cost to buy, very inexpensive to operate, and your kid won't be driving to Vegas, at least until we get those DC Quick Chargers installed:~)

Upon arrival back at the charger, my LEAF was filled to the 80% level, not full. Apparently, and this was news to me, if you start the fast charge with less than 50% state of charge (SOC), the charger will automatically stop at 80%, but if you start with more than 50% SOC, it will take you all the way to 100%, but slowing down as it gets toward full. This is a software feature in the LEAF, not in the charger. Maybe some of the Nissan engineers who read this blog will tell us the reason for this feature. My preference would be to take it all the way to full, even if it has to go much slower for the last 20%.

Think Test Drive

There's a whole new class of small, highway capable electric cars preparing to enter the American auto market. These "City Cars", exemplified by the Mitsubishi iMiEV and Mercedes' Smart car, are designed for commuters who are in need of good, inexpensive vehicles that do the job of transporting to and from work while using a minimal amount of energy.

Norway's Think (sometimes written as "Th!nk") is making a strong push for the American market with their recent announcement that they are building a manufacturing plant in Elkhart, IN near Enerdel, the battery manufacturer they have chosen to supply the 24 kWh packs that will power the cars.

Eight Plug in America members were recently asked to come to the Orange County offices of Think to test drive the latest version of this highly efficient EV. Linda Nicholes, past president of Plug In America, has written a great blog on the test drive, so I won't go into too much detail, but I will say that the Think impressed me with its overall performance and handling. It's very similar to the iMiEV in most all respects, and if both are priced appropriately, i.e., a few thousand lower than the Nissan Leaf, they'll sell very well.

Think isn't ready to announce price yet, but they should by the end of the year. As we get into the era of expensive oil, city cars will gain an ever larger share of the market. Easy to drive, easy to park, and they use minimal energy to get the job done. Total cost of operation will be very low relative to even the smallest of gas burners.

Zan and Paul test the Mitsubishi iMiEV

Last Friday, Chelsea Sexton dropped off the cute little Mitsubishi iMiEV (pronounced I-meev) test car. She and her husband, Bob, had been driving it for a week, and now it was our turn.

This version is a right-hand drive built for the Japanese market. Driving from the right side of a car isn't that hard to get used to, but remembering the turn signal vs. windshield wiper switch took concentration.

According to Mitsubishi, this Smart-sized EV will be aimed at the commuter market which, given the sub-80 mile range, is a perfect fit. The 16 kWh LiIon pack, located under the passenger compartment, keeps the center of gravity low. One of the benefits of having a smaller battery pack is that the overall weight of the car is just a bit north of 2300 lbs.

The driving experience was very good. Acceleration was comparable to our RAV, which is to say, it's not going to beat a Tesla Roadster, but it had no problem accelerating up to speed on the freeway. I particularly liked its cornering ability, and the small size makes it very easy to park just about anywhere. Their engineers must have been listening to us since they incorporated a creep mode into the software. This mimics how a gas car will roll forward when you take your foot off the brake. It's helpful when you're on a hill so you don't roll backward, and it's something you expect, so the experience is very close to what you're used to. The iMiEV is also very quiet, much like the RAV.

There are two modes of regenerative braking, accomplished by shifting into "eco mode". There is no "freewheeling" which will disappoint RAV drivers who like to use this coasting method for hypermiling. When you are in full power mode and lift your foot off the accelerator, the regen is always there at about the same level as that found in a Prius. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I prefer the option to freewheel since I can get better efficiency when driving in heavy traffic.

The instrumentation in this near-production prototype was spare. I want to see a digital readout of my state of charge (SOC), not some approximation from an analog bar. One of the great things about electric vehicles is their ability to travel a predictable distance per kWh. Zan and I don't hesitate to drive the RAV all the way down to the bottom if we need to, because we know precisely how far we can go given we have RAV Info, an after market Palm Pilot program that taps into the RAV's main CPU where all the car's info is. We can see to a tenth of a percent how much SOC we have. All of the EV companies need to adopt something similar, but make it part of the standard instrumentation, not an after market thing.

Charging the iMiEV was simple, we just plugged it into one of our standard 120V outlets in the garage. It's a slow way to charge, but we had the whole night, so that's plenty of time. The Level 2 charging cord set wasn't available, so that's all we could use. Once the car is ready to sell to the general public, we'll see 240V Level 2 charging which is plenty fast for a commuter car.

The iMiEV is a lot roomier on the inside than you would expect from looking at it. Seeing it parked here behind our gas-guzzling Honda Insight, you can see that it's a bit larger than that tiny two-seater. Sitting inside the car, I got the feeling it was even roomier than our RAV.

Pricing is unknown, but rumor has it that they'll be well under $30K. I think it'll sell fast if they can price it about $4K-$5K under the Nissan Leaf. There are millions of people who commute to and from work in huge, inefficient vehicles that are grossly over sized for the task at hand. I think Mitsubishi will get a good share of these people to switch once they get this to market some time in the fall of 2011.
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One very sad note, as I was completing this blog, word comes over the net that a small plane piloted by one of Tesla's chief engineers, and carrying two others, crashed just after takeoff from a Palo Alto airport. From what I hear, all the engineers were working on the Model S program. They were on their way to meet with Elon Musk here in LA. The EV community mourns this terrible loss.