First drive: Electric i-car heads Down Under

Power play: Mitsubishi's i-MiEV hits New Zealand in February.

We drive the automotive future according to Mitsubishi: the i-MiEV electric car

By JACQUI MADELIN 15 December 2008

Story Source: GoAuto

MITSUBISHI will import two electric i-cars to New Zealand in February, as part of the Japanese manufacturer's preparation for a global roll-out that should include Australia from 2010, making it one of the few countries outside Japan to get examples of the 100 or so hand-built i-MiEV prototypes in existence.

Mitsubishi NZ's general manager of sales and marketing, Peter Wilkins, said the i-MiEV will be officially launched on February 10, with one car going to to power company Meridian Energy, which is billed as NZ's only carbon-neutral power generation company.

Meridian will monitor power absorption during charging and evaluate the impact more widespread use of electric cars would have on infrastructure, providing feedback to Mitsubishi Japan as it goes.

The i-MiEV uses a single-phase overnight charging device, a simple winding charger that plugs into a 15-amp wall socket. Home sockets are 10-amp with an earth pin the same size as the other two. On a 15-amp plug the earth is longer; most switches aren't rated to handle 15 amps, but their wiring is 20-amp, so the only changes i-MiEV owners must make is to their socket.

Cost to 'fill' is rarely discussed, but Mitsubishi NZ's technical services manager Lloyd Robinson says "If you can get people to charge at night it won't need an increase in generation capacity, as most water and wind-generated power produced at night is wasted".

The car can go from empty to full charge at 18.4kW/hour for seven hours on just NZ$4.30 of electricity, based on the current Mercury Energy NZ rate.

That will take the car 160km, while a quick-charge system produces 80 per cent charge in just 30 minutes. Meridian will evaluate these claims and the car's real-world range, and relate that - and a possible electric population explosion - to generation capacity.

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi NZ will run its other i-MiEV through a full program of press, government and corporate fleet drives before both cars return to Japan later in the year. Once it arrives in earnest, Mr Wilkins is confident the i-MiEV will sell.

"We've had interest from government and local authorities, and a few corporations," he says. Some will buy into the new technology to support their market position. Others await the cost, "And we can't yet give it, though we know they'll be considerably more than the standard car.

"Think of the cell phone," Mr Wilkins says. "It was costly at first but now it's almost a throw-away item." Nevertheless, "Our suspicion is we won't be able to meet demand irrespective of price for the first two or three years".

Mr Wilkins has confirmed next year's production numbers at 2000, restricted by the availability of batteries, which will be initially available to power companies and fleets within Japan.

"Our objective is to get a few of the 2009 production if we can as a start point, and by 2010 we should be into the business." He expects 100-plus sales; "It might be 100, it might be 200, it's difficult to say without price.

"If we're going to do it we want to do the job properly, though that's where availability comes in - we would hope to source sufficient to meet NZ market demand."

Those buying an i-MiEV will effectively get a standard i-car, with the same specification - including air-conditioning and airbags - as the petrol version, and in New Zealand the same road user tax that cripples diesel sales, but is levied at the pump for petrol cars.

The differences are hidden. The high-density lithium-ion batteries - with 22 modules of four cells each - fit beneath the floor along with the motor inverter, the charger and control unit. They replace the fuel tank, with the electric motor displacing the rear-mounted petrol engine.

Thus there are no modifications to the bodyshell at all and no changes to passenger or luggage space, though the suspension is certainly different, to cope with the additional 180kg of weight.

We understand the struts remain as per the standard car, but springs and dampers have changed. There's no conventional gearbox; instead there's a final drive and differential gears with diff ratios around 6.1:1 - ie: the motor, which spins up to 8500rpm, revolves 6.1 times for every revolution of the rear wheels.

Though the layout's now fixed, work continues on battery development aimed at cutting weight and increasing range, with batteries currently a joint-venture between GS Yuasa, Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation.

Mitsubishi owns hundreds of patents on the vehicle, its systems and technology, including the electric drive and management.

There's no expectation at this stage that it will sell the technology, says Robinson, though Mitsubishi has signed a technology agreement with PSA Peugeot Citroen in France to work together on electric programs in future.

Drive impressions:

AT Mitsubishi Motor Corporation's Tokachi, Japan test track on other business, we spotted a diminutive i-car with a difference. Forget the in-your-face graphics, it had a socket in place of the fuel flap. This was Mitsubishi's electric i-car, the i-MiEV.

Superficially it's the same as a standard i-car. The same diminutive 3395mm length, 1475mm width and 1600mm height; the same wheels-to-the-corners stance and teardrop shape; the same dinky-toy interior.

But driving it is quite a different experience as progress is silent, but for the whirr of tyres on tarmac.

There's incredible low-down punch from even this modest 47kW electric motor, which like all the breed pulls at its best from rest. So where the standard 48kW/95Nm car feels relatively relaxed, the electric version throws 180Nm at the road, that torque only dropping to equal the petrol's at higher revs.

Claimed zero to 80km/h acceleration is 1.5 seconds faster for the electric i-car, and it's positively perky at round-town speeds, particularly during pulling-from-junction manoeuvres.

Cruising the straights of our test loop, the i-MiEV initially felt just like an i-car on speed. Corners were taken with less confidence, the sweeping bend at the end of our short straight revealing an i-car's fairly average handling abilities - but with less bodyroll.

There's a lot of extra weight beneath our feet, keeping the centre of gravity low even with over-fed motor noters aboard. Down the short straight, curving into esses of cones and a tightening sweeper, the car's handling limitations reappeared.

Just like the standard i-car, this is a city-slicker - not an open-road warrior - and its electric version is even keener to sniff the outside of the apex. All that extra weight clearly makes itself felt, though the effect is predictable and gradual - front-to-rear weight balance isn't available, but the extra heft appears to be evenly spread, the batteries stretching as far forward as beneath the driver seat.

To be fair, buyers aren't likely to sample tightening-radius corners with quite the brio we applied, the understeer is unlikely to be discovered during round-town jaunts and lighter batteries are in the offing.

What could be problematic is the car's silence, for unlike a hybrid there's never a petrol engine at work, so there's nothing to warn pedestrians that the mighty mote approaches.

An NZ Ministry of Transport employee suggested all electric cars should play birdsong noises once they're underway...

Our brief taster of the electric i-car proved it could work - at the right price. It looks like an ordinary car, it feels like one and it's easy to use - just switch on and go, or stop.

If you want you can select "eco" from the gear lever to limit power to the motor, or brake to apply more aggressive regenerative braking on steep descents (further boosting battery power) and that's it.

Once it's on sale sockets will proliferate - as a recent visit to Seattle proved, charging stations will even pop up in commuter car parks. The main problem will be power generation, for running a zero-emissions car will lose its savour if power stations burn fossil fuel to cope with demand.

That said, Mitsubishi says that well to wheel, electric vehicles are five per cent more efficient than petrol hybrids and 15 per cent more efficient than diesel; and boast a quarter the CO2 emissions of a petrol engine.

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Volt to become a Holden

Volt banked: What Holden's Volt should look like. Digital image: Chris Harris

Chev Volt will carry a Holden badge in Oz from 2012 and could even be built here

By MARTON PETTENDY 9 December 2008

Story Source: GoAuto

GM HOLDEN has announced the Chevrolet Volt hybrid will be sold as a Holden in Australia by 2012 – and it could eventually be built here.

Chairman and managing director Mark Reuss revealed the Holden-badged Volt plan at Holden’s annual Christmas address in Sydney on Friday (December 5), when he reiterated the company’s promise to introduce a new fuel-saving technology in Holden’s homegrown vehicles every two to three months from next year.

Holden used October’s Australian International Motor Show in Sydney motor show to announce plans to introduce the Volt in Australia by 2012, but at the time said it was too early to confirm what brand badging the extended-range electric car would wear.

“There has been much speculation as to how that vehicle will be badged. A lot of you asked me those questions in Sydney as we stood next to the car – and I think there’s probably a really good 100 per cent chance it will have a Lion (badge) on the front of it,” he said on Friday.

The Holden boss was more unequivocal during the Melbourne staging of the event the previous night, when he said, “I’m here to tell you tonight that it (the Volt) is going to have the lion on the front of it and it’s going to be a Holden Volt – that's very exciting for us.”

Many industry observers had expected GM’s plug-in hybrid to remain badged as a Chevrolet in Australia, despite the fact it will carry Opel badging in continental Europe and Vauxhall badging in the UK, with some analysts even suggesting it would spearhead a return of the Chevrolet brand here alongside the Holden-engineered Camaro coupe.

Mr Reuss said it was conceivable the ground-breaking General Motors (GM) small car, which is based on GM’s new Delta architecture, could also eventually be built in Australia, following news from the UK that high-level government intervention may see it manufactured at Vauxhall’s Astra plant in Ellesmere Port from 2011.

Asked if the Volt could be assembled at Holden’s Elizabeth plant outside Adelaide, Mr Reuss replied, “Sure”, before cautioning the timeframe for that possibility was unknown “because I can’t tell you the rate of change of development of the manufacturing of the lithium-ion battery”.

“If that’s true, they (Vauxhall) may be doing that, but I think it’s important to know how we’re designing and developing a car like the Volt.

“It is a range-extending hybrid – it is not a true electric hybrid, so we rely on another energy source to charge an electric powertrain that’s always in motion and always powering the vehicle.

“It is very different from a conventional hybrid and the reason why that’s important is because the battery pack that a vehicle like the Volt will take and use is the fundamental source of energy and so we’ve gone to lithium-ion technology in that battery.

“The lithium-ion technology and the storage of a lot of energy in that battery dictates a very strict manufacturing process of that battery. The battery equation itself, to actually power the car and use the car, is very robust within GM (but) the manufacture of that battery is the next frontier of innovation and challenge that we have.

“So to produce the first Volts we want to keep that in our own backyard to be able to develop and understand that technology and to pave the way for a larger manufacturing system that could be done anywhere in the world ultimately, but we want to keep a very tight reign on how that battery is developed and manufactured in the early days of a technology that is very new,” said Mr Reuss.

GM Europe chief Carl-Peter Forster said recently that GM would consider assembling the Volt in the UK if the EU’s upcoming emissions policy made it viable, and UK reports claim GM executives will establish a business plan over the coming months to produce the Volt there.

“We would look at assembling Volt at Ellesmere Port if super-credits were included in the EU CO2 legislation, because this would encourage auto-makers to provide more ultra-low CO2 vehicles earlier and in greater volume,” said Mr Forster.

“While the CO2 policy is close to finalisation, we will wait to see the final policy before making any further decisions.”

As we GoAuto revealed in October, leaks from union sources that claimed Holden is was planning to build a small car in Adelaide have sparked speculation as disparate as a return of the Torana to the release of a homegrown successor to the Astra and/or Viva.

More recently, Holden has refused to comment on a News Limited report that last week claimed Holden was on the verge of announcing a plan to build its first four-cylinder car since the 1980s at Elizabeth alongside the VE Commodore from 2011 and 2012.

Mr Reuss is on record as saying Holden’s manufacturing operation is flexible enough to produce a wide variety of models and that plans for new future products were continuously being developed at Holden.

If it comes to fruition, the Holden small-car manufacturing program would echo a similar move by Ford Australia, which has announced it will produce the next-generation Focus small car at Geelong and Broadmeadows in 2011 for sales locally and exports to the Asia-Pacific region.

Holden design director Tony Stolfo told GoAuto last week: “We’ve made it very clear we’re exploring all options to keep the plant busy.

“Two architectures out of the plant makes the factory more viable. We’re not saying we’re going to do it, but we’re looking at.”

Mr Stolfo said Holden’s situation was more complex than Ford’s.

“If we build Delta, do we do left-hand drive or right-hand drive? It could make more sense to build right-hand drive for the global market – it comes down to complexity and expense.”

Chevrolet’s Cruze, which will be the first GM model to appear on the new front-drive Delta small-car platform, will form the basis of a new low-cost global model to replace existing GM models including the Daewoo-sourced Holden Viva. It will be followed by the next-generation Astra, which will continue to be built by Opel at Russelsheim in Germany.

Holden is likely to continue to sell both models side by side in its range here, but now appears to be in a position to manufacture not only the Cruze in Australia – but eventually perhaps also the Volt.

Holden engineering chief Greg Tyus told GoAuto that until the Volt had reached mass-production stage it was too early to talk about local production.

“You’ve got to create the technology before you can expand it,” he said. “Yes, it (local Volt production) is doable and we’d all like to say ‘yes, we’ll build it here’, but we’re still in phase one.

“If the battery technology has passed phase three (mass production), then you can talk about economies of scale and suppliers making batteries. (But) I’d be surprised if every country we sold the Volt into built its own batteries.”

However, Mr Tyus said that economies of scale could be sufficient enough to produce Volt battery packs here if the vehicle’s rechargeable drive system was adapted to fit Holden’s volume-selling Commodore - and he also suggested such arrangements weren’t necessarily predicated on being immediately profitable.

“If we bring the Volt here and apply the same extended-range technology to Commodore then we could reach the tipping point in terms of viability of cost.

“(But) If it was just (dependent on) a business case, it wouldn’t happen. When did Toyota make money on Prius?”

The Holden boss told GoAuto that, unlike Nissan – which has committed to introducing Australia’s first fully -electric vehicle by 2012 - – his company was not in ongoing discussions with government or electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure enterprise Better Place about establishing a national EV recharging system, because the Volt was not a dedicated EV.

“How can you have infrastructure if there’s no demand? We have serious doubts,” he said.

Mr Tyus admitted his staff has had contact with Better Place, but said the hybrid drive technology GM chose for the Volt, which will come with a 240-volt adapter that will allow it to be charged at home, makes its proposed EV recharging infrastructure and battery pack replacement/subscription system redundant.

“The issue is that everyone has a good idea. For pure electric vehicles it makes sense (but) to charge people for ongoing battery charging may or may not be feasible.

“We (GM) already did EVs. The technology we have chosen (for the Volt) is independent of power supply. Why replace if you can recharge?” said Mr Tyus.

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