Today, 2 years after, the first owned Mitsubishi I-MiEV in The Netherlands will now be driven by Roger. Roger started a blog on http://mymiev2.wordpress.com
I wish Roger all the joy & fun in driving ecofriendly on his solar energy in the i-MiEV.
Regards,
Edwin
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Yes shocking, I know. After many day and night of quite driving my I-MiEV to work and home, its now time to say good bye.
When you live in the Netherlands you can find the add on Marktplaats:
http://link.marktplaats.nl/601424490
My Blog will continue under a new name regarding my the Nissan Leaf, which I will be driving and blogging about. This will be posted here on the blog.
Thank you for following my blogs on driving the I-MiEV.
I hope to add value to the community again on my new blog.
Happy driving elektric!
Edwin
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A new speciality of criminal behaviour. Kicking over chargepoles. Here in Holland I came across this sad site of a chargepole being kicked over. This is the same spot where many times the ‘normal’ petrol cars are parked at the designated EV charging spot. The police does nothing against wrong parking. Will they wake up against this more violent behaviour against chargingpole or will they let this slide too?
Today I saw one of the e-laad chargepole been destroyed.
What is your opinion on how police should act against this distructive people.
What punishment do you think is fare against breaking (public) things.
I would like to hear your opinion.
Feel free to comment your own ideas
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I just posted part 2 in the Nissan Leaf Big Turn On Testdrive.
The English version will follow soon !
Here is the Dutch version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF4FnA1nEW0
What would you like to know about the Nissan Leaf? Let me know by commenting the video on youtube or here in the blog.
Edwin
Do you know the classic “Summer Time” it goes like ” …and the living is easy”. Well in the summer time driving an electric car is EASY, WONDERFULL and full of JOY. Let the music of Gershwin play in the background when you drive a day in the Nissan Leaf for FREE* . I did so myself a few weeks ago.
If you see me driving in the Netherlands in my Mitsubishi I-MiEV and would like to get a ride, don’t hesitate to give me a tweet @MY_MiEV
* Participating countries in Europe can be found here
Hi guys, I am invited to be on the radio. I scared shitless !
SO DON’T listen to the internet broadcast on http://www.trafficradio.nl at 16:00-19:00 CET ( GMT + 1 ) since you will possibly hear me stutter or blabber about how much I like driving my EV…. in dutch.
Blog you later.
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“Using my car navigation systems in the electrical I-MiEV gave me disappointments… “
When I bought my Mitsubishi I-MiEV last year november, I asked for the best navigation system for my EV. A suggestion was made for the Pioneer Avic F20BT so I accepted that option.
I soon found out that this system is NOT ready for electrical vehicals.
Navigation systems in general
Ofcourse the Navigation system in this Pioneer navigates you to your destination. But like all maps, they have one or more errors , resulting in strange routes… That said I am still hooked on my TomTom on my telephone/PDA!
Navigation systems for cars NOT running on liquid fuel.
Only fuel consumption in liters, tanked in liters ( or gallons) and consumption in l/100 km can be used. The system can calculate if you drive ECO but thinks you use a lot of “fuel” when you stand still.
With an EV you use almost nothing when you drive slow. Standing still also means NO energy consumption, when you put the gear in Neutral (N). So the ECO calculations make not much sense.
When I drove SUPER ECO on one of my last drives the ECO meter said, slight improvement! I never had a 130km radius before!
Tricks?
That said I am sure there are some tricks in fooling the system.
Its a bit strange to tell the system you have only 160 “liters” ( 16 kWh) and you use up this 160 liter within 100 km on the highway!
Pioneer @ Autorai 2011 Amsterdam
I talked to a representative of Pioneer at the #AutoRai in Amsterdam last week. The suggestion of mine to make a little update on fueltypes ( adding kWh ) and tweeking the system for better ECO calculations ended up in disappointment.
Do you have any suggestions how to use this ECO calculation of this Pioneer systeem for EV’s?
WHICH NAVIGATION SYSTEM IS READY FOR EV’s?
Do you know BETTER navigation systems which CAN work with EV’s?
Please comment on this blog if you have any suggestions!
Read more on the Pioneer system I use on: http://www.pioneer.eu/nl/products/25/111/241/AVIC-F20BT/index.html
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Some interesting technical details on the I_MiEV
Size
Total length: 3.475mm
Total length: 1.475 mm
Total height: 1.610 mm
Yes funny isn’t it, its higher than the car is wide. And though its looks really small, I can sit quite good inside and I am 1.88m long, ok fine am not heavy boned…
Power car
Topspeed: 130 km/h
Accelaration: 0-100 km/h in 15.9 seconds
I find this statistic of 16 seconds to get to the 100 km/h wrong. I swear I reach this already within 11 seconds!
Blog you later
Edwin
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Energy
Energy costs money. In which form you buy it. The diesel in the Netherlands cost about 1,40 euro per liter, regular cost 1,70eur / liter ! Most of it ( 60-80% is tax ). A kW electricity cost about 22 eurocent here in the Netherlands. So a full charge costs 16 * 22 cents = 3,52 eur The official radius ( which I still need to be able to reach ) is 140 km. So lets keep it real, if you do NOT drive ECOnomical the car uses one of the 16 bars ( 1 kWh ) within 3,5 km. But if you drive a little ECO and do NOT go on the highway you easily reach 100km ( when the temparture is above 10 degrees Celcius, see previous blogs ).
If we compare a average diesel driver ( 6 l/100km ) to this I-MiEV we see a difference between 8,40eur or 3,52 eur for driving the 100 km distance in this example. In practice you will be driving 120 km once you start slowing down your rythm a little and choosing the inside roads instead of the highway when possible making the trip a few minutes longer perhaps but saving energy. But not everybody wants to slow down and keep driving the way / speed acceleration they are used to, but even than you wil save on the energy costs per km ( here in Holland )
Tax breaks ( Business owned )
Here in the Netherlands, and other countries might have same benefits environnental invenstments including electrical cars can be deducted when its on your business balance within 2 years ! Special recession deal… So YES the car is expensive but there are only tax BENEFITS in comparision to other cars. Here in Holland you have to add 14-25% value of the car to your income ( if you dirve more than 500km private km) and pay taxes over it making you pay half of the cars value EXTRA in taxes within 4 years. With this electrical car you do NOT have any addition on your taxes, no matter how many private kilometers your drive with it!
Maintenance
There is hardly any cost on this car, since there is a guarantee on the battery for 100.000km or 5 years. Except your tires and breakpads, but this is normal.
The Car breaks and recharges at the same time, making using your breaks much less than in normal cars…
Blog you later
Edwin
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Yesterday I wrote a litle about the 88 cells that are combined to create a 16kWh battery pack. Well this battery needs to be charged, a lot!
Charging
Since in Holland Quick chargers are not yet common goods, charging will need to be done at home or at work during 6 hours of ones 8 hour working day most people have. That said, You actually NEED to work long enough sometimes to get back to home if you have to drive a big distance. ( Speaking from experience 😉 )
Quick
So the 30 minutes Quick charge ( 125A / 50kW ), forget about it just now, at least when you live in the Netherlands, but this ofcourse can be totally different for the country you might live in. If you read this article in one year time, maybe quick chargers are all over the place. The first Quick charger by the way is in Leeuwarden.
Charging the car at a high speed is (ofcourse) not that good for your battery, but for most people this quick charging will be done ‘sometimes’. Charging at home ( at work -charge while you stop- ) is likely to be mostly used.
6 Hours
It will take 6 hours to charge a completely drained battery. It is NOT recommended to drive the car untill it stops. Besides you have the problem of getting to your destination, since the one battery s all you ahve to drive on, a totally depleted battery will make charging slower and quality of the battery worse. The best ( also for your bloodpressure trying to reach your destination ) is driving with 2 bars in reserve.
Navigation System km vs. <___ (radius left)
You probably understand by now that a proper planned trip, is necesarry when your maximum radius or battery radius indication <___ is close to your destination distance. I have been driving the first 2 weeks in the winter with a very close eye on distance to drive and <___ radius of the I-MiEV’s battery pack calculated on the instrument panel.
Cable
In the Netherlands a charging cable of 5 meters length is supplied with on one side a tradition Type E plug. THe other side that is connected into the I-MiEV is a 5 pins plug type IEC62196-2-I . 15 centimeters to the end of this cable ( close to the TYpe E plug is a CCID-box. THis is a security box with any problem in the power supply it will disconnect the I-MiEV. This will avoid overcharging and or damage to the I-MiEV. The 5 pin plug has a little place to put a lock in, but I personally find this lock so small that its more to keep ‘bad boys’ from pulling the cable out for fun than it is for keeping it from being stolen.
I hope you found this interesting, tomorrow I will blog about how much driving this car costs me…
Blog you later
Edwin
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My Miev 