A while ago, I wrote about the imminent release of the all-electric i Miev (pronounced “i meeve”), due in the UK in 2010. UK motoring publications have now been allowed to test the electric i Miev in car format – here are a couple of examples:
I also mentioned two further i Miev related possibilities:
- It may be made under licence in Europe by PSA and sold under the Peugeot and Citroen brands
- It will also be available as a van in the UK in 2011
I don’t know if volume production in Europe by the PSA group might bring down the i Miev’s estimated £17-£20,000 price tag (for the car version), blamed on the poor yen-sterling exchange rate (the i Miev’s made in Japan).
It’s also possible that for a van used exclusively in London, the extra cost of purchasing the i Miev might be cancelled out by having zero road tax, congestion charge or MOT costs and much lower fuel bills – Mitsubishi estimate that the i Miev will only cost 45p/100 miles to run. I don’t have the figures but instinct says that the loss of a diesel bill might be enough to make the whole life costs roughly equal – although resale value could be a big unknown.
Even in a best-case scenario, the i Miev still only looks useful to niche, city-only markets and drivers who don’t do more than 70-80 miles a day and can hookup their cars or vans to mains electricty every night.
(Thanks to SimpleMotoring.co.uk and CarHirePlace.com for the road test links.)