I am the first private owner of a I-MiEV in The Netherlands. I drive my EV to work every day driving between 60 and 75 kilometers, one way: 130-150 km on a day. I report on my blog and you read some tweets on @MY_MIEV. I had lots of questions which I am answering for myself and sharing these with you since I think there are more people having doubt whether or not an EV might be suitable for them.
I am a consumer, no car salesman. I am not paid to tweet or blog about my findings. Being Dutch I am straight forward and direct in my critism.
As an ICT consultant I will drive to different locations through the year and will encounter the problem of charging the EV with every new customer. Fortunately I am on a long project now 😉
Do you have questions, reply on the blogs and me or other readers might have the answer to it.
Regards
M.Y. MiEV
My I-MiEV in the Showroom
My Miev 
Hi,
I am thinking about buying an i-MiEV myself and your blog is a great source of information for me right now!
I have lots of questions for you, I’ll start with the following.
1. Does it work to circulate the air without getting mist on the windows?
2. What charging cable do you have (10/16A)?
3. Are you using winter tyres, and if so what did they cost?
4. Did your car come with stereo and GPS?
5. What speed are you usually driving at?
Thanks for a great blog!
Best Regards,
Sven Forsberg
Malmö, Sweden
Hi Sven,
Thanks for the heads up. I will try and answer your question as good as possible and from experience.
ad 1. Since I need the maximum of radius I drive without car air heating, since that takes 20-30km of the radius. They say the battery is much less powerfull in the cold and thats true. I hope to get more radius in spring/summer and hope to be able to use a little airco in the summer and still reach work. I had a little fog on the inside for a while but it did not bother me so much. If you are in much worse weather conditions than I am I do suggest to have a separate battery and car heater installed into the back of the car as I am thinking of… but than again in a few weeks the temperature will go up again…spring is coming.
So I keep internal ventilation, no heater but WITH seat heating on. Thats a nice feeling. But to be hounest, after an hour in the car with a down jacket, a hat on and gloves driving in an icecold car is not really luxery. But its a choice I made. I want to have 4 bars left over when I reach work instead of 1 or 2 with the last 5 km being questionable. I just do not like driving on the last ‘breath’. I rather sit cold, have a little bit more power extra left over for driving than having a warm car after half an hour!
ad2. There is a cable with the car. Its a cable made for 16A. My extension cable I bought ( 40m ) is also a 2.5mm cabled ext. cable that can stand 220V/16A.
ad3. I use the satandard tyres. THe front wheels are smaller than the back side by the way! THe tyres are ‘hard’ as they say to be able to keep resitence low. THats why the tyres are not really silent on the road also.
ad4. No the car does not come with any stereo or GPS. I REALLY suggest you use a GPS or built in or manual stuck to the window since I check every 10-20 km if the radius on the carcomputer is still 20 km more than the distance I need to drive. THat way you can correct your driving style in time to be able to reach your destination. 😉
ad5. Maybe you say a few pictures already from the different trips. There is a power indicator ( how much kW the engine and or system like heater is using ) which if you keep in ECO ( green ) will give me the a radius of 100km when not driving more than 100 km/h.
Route A: city (50), outside city (80) with traffic lights and roundabouts, highway (120), city (50 km/h) . total 62 km
Route B: Highway (120), Highway (100), Highway(120), city (50 km/h). total 75 km
I notice that I can NOT be driving the route B with the speeds I normally would. THat is maximum speed that is allowed. I can drive this route with only the first part 120 but the rest I need to drive 100-110 maximum.
Since route B is 13km less to drive and only 10 minutes more than it would take me on max. speed over the highway ( which I can not… ) I choose to drive through the country side, whatch the cows, sheep and swans and drive normal ( but without heater ) with a good pace and excelleration. Even sometimes spurting away at the traffic lights just to have fun without fear of not being able to reach home.
I now already drove 1000 km in this last week and 2 weekends. And I start trusting the car much better than I started. You really have to get used to the fact that when you are driving on maximum radius you need to trust that when you drive economical you will reach your target.
I hope this will help you a bit.
May I ask:
What are the driving conditions:
1. temperature,
2. distance,
3. altitude differences,
4. charging possiblities
etc,
you will need to drive in?
Here in The Netherlands, there is a foundation that will help us dutch EV drivers get a charging pole in front of there house.
http://www.e-laad.nl
Do you have simular stimulance from the gouvernment in Sweden?
You can follow me on @MY_MIEV on Twitter for some tweet inbetween blogs and such.
Regards,
Edwin