iMiEV San Francisco to Sacramento Drive by a Car Reviewer

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JoeS

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http://www.theweeklydriver.com/mitsubishi-i-miev-not-so-electric-car-best-run-with-cold-pizza/

Another example of needing to carefully hypermile our iMiEV's when going long-distances. Although generally favorable, this reviewer's conclusion is that our iMiEV is only for restricted local driving - which he fails to mention accounts for >95% of typical daily vehicle usage in this country (Ref: http://www.solarjourneyusa.com/EVdistanceAnalysis7.php). Driving from San Francisco to Sacramento is something I certainly wouldn't bother doing it in my iMiEV unless I had CHAdeMO and some time to spare. BTW, he's mistaken, as the iMiEV was released to the American market a full year after the Leaf and Volt; however, he does point out the lack of Mitsubishi marketing of the car: The Mitsubishi debuted as if the carmaker for some reason didn’t want anyone to know about it.
 
I must say his review annoyed me.

Clearly his first EV experience, if not, it was another 'on purpose' effort at pointing out the cars limitations that all EV buyers are generally aware of before they make their purchase.

His "adventure" would have been substantially shortened had he used the L3 chargers along the route. He could have even then driven at the speed limit, adding less than 1.5hrs to the journey for charging time.

Sacramento to Vacaville 33mi fast charge, Vacaville to Concord 35mi fast charge... The battery wouldn't even be half empty at each stop so 30mins charging time at each would have done it. Concord to San Francisco 31mi. Give or take a few exta miles for his exact destination and starting point.

So a clearly doable trip in the i-MiEV.

I don't have an i-MiEV (for reasons previously mentioned but love it so!) or live in the States and I would have been able to trip plan better than him!
 
JoeS said:
BTW, he's mistaken, as the iMiEV was released to the American market a full year after the Leaf and Volt; however, he does point out the lack of Mitsubishi marketing of the car: The Mitsubishi debuted as if the carmaker for some reason didn’t want anyone to know about it.
Depends where you lived - the bicoastal myopia of East and West notwithstanding, here in flyover country the Mitsubishi showed up first, months before Nissan's intended "release" of the Leaf here. Nissan did move up their timetables after that, but the i-MiEV went nationwide first. Of course, as noted, it did so very, very quietly :oops:

I remain convinced that a faction within Mitsu was strong enough to get the car developed (and I think it was a pretty good idea given their options and the reality of the CARB ZEV quotas), but when the yen rose and Nissan mostly held the line on Leaf pricing, the per-unit numbers looked so bad that less EV-friendly elements (apparently including MMNA) could justify starving it of marketing support (why spend money to try to lose money?). Their relentless (and I maintain self-destructive) flogging of the "toddler with a tiara"' SE Premium, with a selling price which probably did pay the bills but also made for an unfavorable value comparison with the LEAF in review after review, is consistent with that theory. MM's mysterious (some might say personality-fractured) behavior continues with recent assurances that new i-MiEVs will be available to U.S. customers at some unspecified time after the 2012 inventory is cleared. I wouldn't be surprised if they're to be offered on a "ship to order" basis from inventory maintained in CA, so those of us who actually got to drive the car before buying may count ourselves lucky.

I hope someday someone spills the beans on all this. I imagine the story would fall somewhere between mildly interesting and downright jaw-dropping.
 
Completely bias article/author. I submitted my comments to the article and offered up the correct route he should have used with the locations of the chademo chargers he should have used etc and he 'moderated it'.

Jerk wad, on purpose, make an EV look bad sort of person it seems.

Rant over, ;)
 
Leafboi said:
Completely bias article/author. I submitted my comments to the article and offered up the correct route he should have used with the locations of the chademo chargers he should have used etc and he 'moderated it'.

Jerk wad, on purpose, make an EV look bad sort of person it seems.

Rant over, ;)

:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
So, since their income is derived from the number of views (?), would we be best in the future to completely ignore negative reviews and not bother posting them here? The exception to me was the Consumer Reports writeup which, to this day, makes my blood boil!
 
aarond12 said:
Leafboi said:
...and he 'moderated it'.
He deleted my post too. :lol:
What a useless coward. Since we now know he will delete helpful corrections from readers, remember James Raia's name and discount/ignore his future ramblings accordingly.

If you have a chance, it'd be fun to read what Raia deleted if you still remember it or had a copy somewhere (one reason I usually compose posts in Google docs and paste to the forum).
 
After exchanging a couple emails with the author, I left the following comment:

There are several free smart phone apps available that will show you where the Level 3 charge stations are.
You could have stopped at one of the two Level 3 chargers in Concord, and the Level 3 charger in Vacaville for 15 or 20 minutes each and had enough charge to get to Sacramento.
If you don’t have a smart phone, you can check EV charge station websites on the internet before you leave. They will show you where the Level 3 charge stations are and if they are working.
Unfortunately, with a new technology like electric vehicles, understanding your charging options can be confusing.
I invite you to take the same trip again, stopping at the Level 3 charge stations, and see if your opinion changes.


I think we forget sometimes that electric vehicles are something new and different, and that people don't know their capabilities.
 
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