I-miev electric car

For a while now I have been researching building my own electric car. Living off grid its the last piece of the puzzle to sticking it to the all the people that were charging me for energy . The task isn't really that daunting to me. That said insuring the outcome meets my expectations there is a cost and effort/time involved.

Basically to build a car that would satisfy my expectations I would be using a lithium battery's, AC motor and controller to offer regenerative braking/charging with real wold range of around 100 - 150km. Air conditioning, power steering . Similar or better performance to the car had before the electric conversion. Will cost around $20,000 minimum in parts/ materials that's doing all the fabrication and machining myself. You need a car to base the project around and $5000 in Australia would provide a reasonably nice base car.

So lets just say $25,000 minimum. Doing a quality job takes time and there are a few hoops to jump through getting it all approved, safe and reliable as I would expect it to be legal and insurable. Ironing all the small bugs like you would expect with any project can be a pain. Retrofitting new components to a existing car always has its compromise. Lets face it a company like Honda were not thinking about a safe space for 20kw of battery's when they built the 2004 civic for example :lol: . Some cars lend them self better to being converted than others. So its a balancing act between finding the car you like and finding the car that ticks all the boxes for a ev conversion. The funny thing is. To often I see a crappy $800 1990 Daihatsu Charade with $20,000 of ev gear in it ...why they don't even have Air conditioning or a airbag for the driver. Its a 20 year old car and its not even a classic car.My thinking is if your going to sink that much money into a ev start with a reasonably nice/safe car in the 1st place.

Doing it the DIY way was your only option a few years ago locally. Even when the all electric factory built cars hit the street the price point was crazy. If you wanted to go electric and didn't want to spend $60,000 then building your own for $25,000 was still a good option.

Things have changed though. Take The Mitsubishi I - miev for example . It started off at $60,000 locally in 2010. With a 100 - 160km range depending on conditions. Seating for 4 people air conditioning multiple air bags, traction control stability control . RWD with a liquid cooled AC motor with around 16kw 330v of lithium. All the mod cons of a modern small car like say a Honda jazz for example....But $60,0000!!!!!!!

Fast forward a few years from 2010 and things have changed. The Mitsubishi I -miev has dropped in price each year from $60,000 in 2010 (more to do with ev being a flop in Australia than the particular car) First drop was to $48,000 then I see them for $29,000 and now after some heavy negotiation I was able to get a drive away price of $23,990 They just want to clear the last remaining stock in a few dealerships so they are willing to take a loss to get them off the floor. So things have changed.

There is a guy in Western Australia advertising his converted EV 1990 Daihatsu Charade Ev conversion online for $15,000 after spending almost $30,000.Why would you bother. Another example was a artical on guy who converted his 2000 model Mitsubishi lancer nice clean build ac motor /lithium all legal....but cost over $20,000 + the cost of his car. The range is less than the i-miev and with less features and safty , no warranty and its a 13yo car and a diy retrofit build.

So for the price of the parts alone you could drive a way in a OEM all electric car. And lest face it the OEM have access to some nice parts and R&D budget so its near on imposable to match it DIY style. localy $20,000 is what a new Nissan pulsar cost in the late 1990's and that was considered very cheap price point break through.

I'm all for diy when it equates to a better product at a cheaper price but when you end up with a lesser product at more cost its not adding up in my mind.

The fact I can charge for free has me seriously considering it. I might add a bit more PV if needed to cover extra consumption. I did the haggling with the dealer on Friday and spent the weekend thinking about it. most of my research over the weekend has been about hacking the i-mieve and how I would go about replacing the battery myself in 10 years or so when its out of warranty.

Hey I could even charge my ebikes from it using the AC/dc converter and rc chargers :lol:

I did some sums on cost $24,000 I consume $2500 in fuel each year local cost of fuel is $1.65lt (or $6.25 a US gallon) The I miev is free to charge for me from solar. So in just under ten years to pay for its self if fuel doesn't go up at all over 10 years. Now I do have to consider taking $24,000 out of the bank I will looe me $1000 each year in interest that I could have earned from that money at 5% interest.My thinking is there would be $300pa in combustion engine servicing cost wiped out going to electric and its $100 less to register the car each year discount for electric cars .So now I am only $600 down. I think that will be covered in the increase of fuel cost over 10 years as I am sure it will go up.

So at the 10 year mark I have recouped the capital investment in the car at no loss. I might need new battery's by then.So lets be realistic and say $10,000 for a new set OEM quality cells. For the next the 10 years the car would cost me $1000 a year to run - (New battery cost spread out over 10 years). Again interest lost in the $10,000 spent on the battery would be $500pa. The numbers add up well. Its never really free as you have to break down the battery cost over time but how many internal combustion engine cars actually pay there capital cost in savings and then cut the running cost from then on by a drastic amount. Not to mention the benefits of clean/quite transportation and fun factor.

It hurts when you see big numbers for battery's like 10k but I feel most people go blind putting $50 - $60 a week in there car in gas and don't really add up the cost over a year or 10 years . If you payed your gas bill every 10 years in a lump sum it would hurt to
There is also the (zombies are coming :lol: factor) Well I'm sure they aren't but if the sh** hits the fan so to speak the total Independence in a great feeling.


I will make a discussion this week....but i think a all ready have

Hi Kurt,

The age of the production EV has arrived, for sure. The cheap iMiEVs are all run-out prices since dealers are making an epic loss on all of them. That $30,000 Dihatstu conversion was probably a good price at the time, but nowadays it is literally cheaper to buy a second hand Leaf or a run-out iMiEV.

But some of us can't help ourselves and want to build one. Also, the iMiEV is butt ugly, and the Leaf with all the fruit is a small, heavy car with a very short range (and even heavier on the electrons per km). I'd rather a cool looking car that goes further and was one I put together myself, but horses for courses.

On the subject of 'getting your money back' or 'breaking even', forget it. It's a car. All cars will cause you haemorrhage cash at a great rate from the day you buy it. The only difference is how rapidly you lose money on them. If economics was the only driver, you would by a clapped out Toyota Corolla for $900 and drive that slapper into the ground. The best thing for anyone who wants to go green and save money is to stop using so much energy - the cheapest Watt is the one you don't need. But where's the fun in that?

I have two cars One new diesle 4wd ute that i dont expect it to save me money I need it for practicality and recreation and thats fine. Over the ownership time its worth the money.

The 2nd is a car 2.2lt 4cyl that we got for free (inheritance) was like new 20,000km on the clock and hasn't cost us anything other than servicing to do another 120,000km of driving on it over 10 years. There is nothing wrong with it it owes us nothing so I guess its like your $800 claped out corala example (except it isn't clapped out)

The thing is with fuel prices as they are over time if you can get free fuel (offgrid solar) and a bargain price EV . keeping the old free car costs you more your not saving anything keeping it as your committing to that fuel expenditure each year.The $800 or free combustion engine powered car always comes with its burden of a gas powered car is its a $60 a week commitment (based on having to drive a set distance each week unavoidable).

using a 20,000km a year driving the running cost of a $800 or free car always has a set point that you can not lower (the cost of fuel) even if maintenance and all other running cost are free. The cost of fuel is unavoidable and ever increasing.

Ps , yes its ugly... yet not as bad as I was thinking in white with dark factory tinting and better wheels. Interior grows on you the vision out of the windows is good and I like the simplistic interior. Reminds me of my old 84 civic simple and functional. The mechanical's are very simple to and RWD is a +. But yes I wouldn't be driving it to look cool by a long shot. I agree I i wanted a cool ev I would convert a honda s2000 or buy a tesla.

This is the model I was looking at


Kurt

i don't think they are ugly. they just don't look like the supersonic race cars or bike fairings on motorcycles. there is a lot of legality that goes into designing a front end too so that may be why the front is that way.

but we can get them much cheaper here too, and i like the leaf too, and the efit, but i need a big car to haul lumber and sleep in when i travel. so i drive the old honda civic wagons. but i think the logic of buying a used EV in the near future is more realistic with each passing model and if people decide it is cheaper to sell when they have some kinda problem which will cost a bundle to fix and i can fix it instead then the price can become very realistic for another EV toy to own. so that is the option i keep in the back of my mind for going to a leaf or imev. i think the deals will be on the imev.

also i don't have problem with cars costing money to fix either. i just blew a head gasket and so i had the head rebuilt and bot a head gasket kit off ebay along with O2 sensor and new distributor for about $320 total. the machine shop who rebuilt the head, called Cylinder Head Specialties, CHS, does first class work, machined the head like glass and replaced a valve, $182 is all it cost since i had the seals. sweet. $30 for gaskets, $20 for sensor, $90 for distributor.like a new car now. at 195k.

I do understand that a lot of the joy gained from a DIY ev is the build its self . A hobby adds value to your life. And I wouldn't knock anyone for wanting to do it them self and experience the challenge and pride that comes with DIY.

All my ebikes are DIY in fact almost everything I try and do myself because there is usually a lot of benefits in doing so ...being tight ass one big one is saving a ton of cash. But this time round I wasn't able to save anything doing it DIY.

I wasn't saying the guy with the 30,000 diy ev was silly as like others have said it was most likely the only option at the time of his build.

I was also thinking a long the lines if you can buy a new I-miev for $24,0000 and there are 2nd hand ones at $19,000 with only 5000km on the clock. Perhaps people looking for OEM spec components could buy one just for the EV gear, especially the I-miev and all its components are set out in a very simple way . In the US I'm sure they ae even cheaper. Yet the cost of a quality 16kw battery, liquid cooled AC motor and liquid cooled AC controller. Along with all other accessory designed to run of a battery like electric driven Air conditioner compressor, electric power steering pump,electric vacuum pump are all good OEM gear. Just to scrap one for the parts and use them on a DIY ev build it might be viable.

I couldn't put a parts list together for under $20,000 and lower Quality parts at that.

Ps , there was a guy on the Imiev forum that put a trailer hitch on his I-miev and was towing light loads 600lb or so. Level 6x4 trailer of loosely stacked firewood is about 500lb. (i just carted 16 trailer loads from the city to my off grid house amazing how much timber-fuel people in the city are willing to let go for free

Kurt

no, they will be half price in a few years. i bet i can buy an imev with some electrical or mechanical problem that will cost $3k at the dealer, the people will be antsy to get out and want cash. maybe for $8k i am hoping, with plenty of life to spare too. then i am gonna put it into a car share group of girls who ride bikes and go to school here in portland and make it part of a social share thing people do here. i am old and get insurance dead cheap because i live in the boonies in colorado so it would be a major cool deal to do it. i pay $340/yr on three cars now. more than i spend on gas some years.

$8000 there are peoplein the US purchasing new I-mievs for $10,000 after rebates at the moment.

One of my friend who previously had an electric Ford ranger that he bougt for 6000$ on ebay and upgraded the Leas Acid to Lithium for about 15000$ total finally sold it two month ago and recently bought a Mitsubishi Miev two weeks ago. He was tired of replacing some lithum cells under the Ranger and all the required work to service it...

He is now really satisfied to have changed for a OEM full lithium car, the MIEV . it's a 2012 that he got a great price i think it's 24000$ CAD.

I had a chance to try it and it worked really well and i was surprized how it was pleasant to drive. not the great TESLA performances as well but still enough for city driving.

However it had big lack of power starting at about 110kmh on the highway and.

Also the display is very simple and incomplete, not enough diagnostic and statistic info on teh dash, The Leaf wich is more expensive, have alot more displayed info.

Overall the i would say it was a great experience to have tried it but i would preffer spending 24k$ on a hybrid serie type like the Volt wich offer alot more performances and range and wide flexibility of energy type use.

Doc

Interesting DOC,
Yes the motor has MAX torque 180nm from 0 rpm to around 4000rpm from memory and at max speed the motor is spinning at over 9000rpm. So yes over 110kph you are in the high rpm stage of the motor and torque is dropping fast.

That said the max speed in my state is 110 kmh on the highway and 100 kmh is a much more common max highway speed. I don't intend to be spending a lot of time in the fast lane . The longest stretch of motorway I intend to drive it on is about 40km worth and 1/2 the time you spend that at just 90kmh due to all the congestion or just people driving slow trying to conserve fuel because its $1.65 lt.

My will keep our new 4wd diesel ute that returns 7.2lt 100km and our work horse and long distance transport.We just want to clock up all the small trips 100km and less in the EV and keep the km low on our new 4wd.

I will report back with more of a review and details when we have the car just sorting out paperwork now.

I agree with you DOC the instrumentation is basic. It wouldn't be long before people smarter than me hack the cars communication port and we have a smartphone app with all the nice data we all love. 1st step for me is to have my ESEV charger modified by http://evseupgrade.com/ so I can set the charge rate in 1A increments. Very handy when charging off grid as some times I have 7000w spare and other times perhaps only 1000w weather dependent.

At my offgrid house I already have a nice industrial 32A 240v power outlet in my workshop /garage for my plasma cutter and welders so that could come in handy down the track . I have three other 15A 240v industrial outlets for using the stock 15A charger. Just need to get another off peek 15A outlet installed at our city house and I'm good to go.




The car comes with two fuel flaps one each side one connects through the on board charger and the other is a direct DC port for fast charging .


Kurt

Kurt said:

$8000 there are peoplein the US purchasing new I-mievs for $10,000 after rebates at the moment.

Click to expand...

tax rebates are only useful if you have income to tax.

Ok,
Yes true then. I am unfamiliar with ins and outs of the incentives on offer in the US. Just going by what others have said they walked away with new i-miev 0km 2012 model (though there is no 2013 model) for $10,000 out of pocket.

We don't get any EV related government insensitive/ rebates at all in Australia. Only what you can negotiate with the car dealer.

Doc,
I did look into the volt but its $59,990 in Australia vs $24,000 for the I-miev. I have the 2nd car for long tips actually the volt isn't that fuel efficient for long trips on the ICE motor.

For example a person in Australia at the moment some one can purchase a I-miev for $24,000 and perhaps a small Diesel 1.6lt tdi like I30 , VW golf or polo or better still Peugeot 207 tdi new that gets 4.8 lt 100km average consumption (same as volt when running on its ice motor) cost of Peugeot 207 new $25,000 So two new cars both more efficient than the volt and to top it off have $10,000 change over the volts $59,990 price.

Kurt

Correction to my earlier post. The registration cost are only slightly less I had read the paperwork wrong . A small saving but not 1/2 the cost.

One thing that is 1/2 price is the under cover parking ticket if you use the free charge station that one car park provides in the CBC. Nice to know you can go for a night out in town and return to a full battery.

I take delivery of our new white I miev on Monday

Kurt

Hey kurt,..
Why dont you negotiate with that Mitsubishi dealer and get a 0% loan on the imiev to seal the deal :wink: :lol:
EDIT... Dang ! ..too late

After driving the car around for the last few days. Joy ride with the family up to the Mt cootha lookout, A few small trips on the motorway, to the shops and a trip to hardware store yesterday. I thought it was time to put it on the charger for the first time last night.

I had clocked up 106km a lot of that was in hilly undulating area around Brisbane along with a few steep hill climbs (Tt cootha) mentioned above. So A good mix of driving. AC used a few time for window defogging and 1/2 of the driving was done at night.

I installed a kwh meter on the charger. Going off the dash guage 16 bars representing 1kwh each I had consumed 14 bars - 14kwh or perhaps a tad more as the 1kwh resolution is hard to tell when it clicked over to 14 bars. but roughly 14kwh.

The charger starts you hear load fan run at full speed under the car for 2 seconds (test) then it stops. During the charging a small coolant pump circulate coolant through the system for 20 seconds or so .Then charging begins and slowly ramps up to 2200w on the meter and a power factor of 99. I noticed during charging the coolant pump runs very slowly for 10 seconds ever 10 min or so.(It sounds like a little water feature trickling noise from under the car) when the coolant pump ran it made no difference to the 2200w showing on the meter so was run from the car itself not AC.

After one hrs charging the charger dropped back to 2w consumption for about 5 min (I guess it was doing some kind of battery check) Then it continued charging at 2200w. I woke up this morning to a full battery and 14.37kwh consumed on the kwh meter.

The charging from wall to battery is very efficient. Got to love lithiums. Doing the calculations 106km driven on 14.37kwh =(135wh/km) exactly what the energy efficiency sticker on the window said or at $0.156kwh (my off peak tariff 33 in Brisbane) $2.10 for 100km of driving Or the equivalent of a petrol burner using (1.2lt - 100km) at today's local petrol prices.

Next update will be charging it at my off grid house and perhaps a video or two if anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

As it turns out my typical week day driving is about 4-5kwh a day consumption from the wall plug. Shouldn't be to hard to cover that with the extra 4200w of PV at our off-grid house even in average weather.







Kurt

After driving around some more in mixed terrain although leaning towards more hilly terrain than flat.I have charged a few times and recorded all data . I am recording very close to the 135wh KM on my first test (wall plug to wheels including all losses) and its quite consistent.

I would love to fit some kind of watt meter to the car to see consumptions at fixed speeds. Cycle analyst on steroids would be great

Enjoying the car wouldn't ever go back to ICE for local transport again.

Kurt

hey Kurt,

Marty here from Melbourne. just saw that you bought yourself an Imiev.
I took one for a test drive today and really could see myself getting one, aswell.
Is there a chance I could call you to discuss ownership and your offgrid house,please?
it seems you know and have done everything I would like to do, as well.
Your not German by any chance are you?

Today I picked up My own service station for the Imiev

21 x 200w solar panels. 4200w extra pv for the off grid house should more than cover the I-mieve's daily consumption

No broken panels thank god. Was driving like a grandma on the way home to avoid shaking them up.








Kurt

wow first class. mono crystalline. i thought you already had about 4kW of panels.

Yes the house came with 24x 165w BP panels 3960w. I find that size is perfect to cover our house and my workshop consumption. (havnt needed the generator at all over the past 1 1/2 years)

When you throw in charging a 16kwh EV battery every 2nd day or so. I felt it was worth putting in more PV to cover that extra load . With brad name PV at under $1 a watt Its good value. I spent almost the same $ on unleaded fuel last year for my old car as what the extra PV cost me. The pv will provide free fuel for 25 years or longer.

We kind of budgeted it in when we purchased the car . We just considered the car was 4k more expensive than what we payed but has free fuel for its life.

So new system total is 8160w. The extra Pv will come in handy even when we are not charging the EV as during the day the power comes more or less directly from the solar. If i go crazy plasma cutting thick aluminum while my wife vacuums with the dishwasher on all at the same time I would even suck anything from the battery's.

I'm addicted to PV

Kurt

that is really really a good deal. i suspect there is more to the story and somebody either owned you a favor or you bot in with someone else on a big shipment since those are nice panels.

They were 200w panels for $180 each. I was given a slight discount about 10%. Its a a reasonable price. I consider anything under $1 - watt as being a good price. As long as the panels have been independently tested and have all the certifications and warranty's as they are a long term investment. You can get panels for even less but usually they are just eBay no name with no backup.

Most things in Australia are usually more expensive than the US but solar gear is reasonably well priced as it has become quite popular in AU and there is some competition now in the industry.

Just need some more mounting racks and an extra charge controller among a few other things and I can wire them up.

Kurt

I made a small video I took showing the accessory loads on my I-miev in particular AC & heating.

[youtube]8L1I_5B_c7k[/youtube]

Kurt

Nice Car!

I like the Miev, and worked out a deal to buy one a few months ago - Mitsubishi was offering $10,000 dealer cash for a few months, so between that and 2500 California/7500 Federal rebates it would have only cost me $10,000 plus tax. Then I realized that I would still want to build the Electric Dune Buggy project - which was just coming together after several years of research, planning, and purchases - and I would end up with two electric cars. Since I prefer to commute on an e-moto two cars is overkill, and my wife isn't about to give up her side of the garage (again ) so I reluctantly passed - but I still have heart for the I-Miev. Enjoy it!

JD

The dune buggy project looks great should be a blast to drive when its complete. It will be a one of a kind car.

It dose have me thinking though. At just $10,000 the OEM parts alone - quality 16kwh battery, water cooled controller & charger, AC motor, electric power steering , electric Air conditioning , vacuum pumps all OEM quality would be worth way more than $10,000. At that price you could purchase the I-miev part out the car - sell off all the I-miev body parts and use all the EV parts in a project car and come out cheaper than after using after market parts.

I had a shopping list for a project EV and it was over $20,000 in parts.

The Ev parts on the Imiev lend them self well to being adapted to a project car. Being a rwd tube frame rear end and a bolt on battery enclosure under the pan.All the parts are set out in a very simple fashion and could be easily removed and adapted to another chassis.

The 49kw AC motors are good for 80kw (pikes peek I-miev tuned the same motor for 80kw)

Kurt

Yeah, tons of potential there, much value for the money - at most any other point in my life, I would have jumped on the deal. For the California rebate, at least, one needs to keep the car registered for at least 2 years or you have to pay it back, so it would be a while before I could have broken it up.

Here is a link to the article where I first heard about the 10k dealer cash, and even though the article says the deal ended in April, a dealer was willing to give it to me in early May, maybe they still have it:

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/05/0...d-127-i-electric-cars-in-april-despite-10-00/

It's a classic car dealer move: offer extra special deals as the monthly calendar winds down and, presto, you've boosted your sales totals. When it comes to the 2012 Mitsubishi i (the current model), something needed to be done, since Mitsubishi only sold 31 examples in March. Towards the end of April, Mitsubishi offered an eye-popping $10,000 in dealer cash on the engine-free hood of the all-electric i (or i-MiEV, as it is also known). With the dealer cash and a federal tax rebate worth up to $7,500, Mitsubishi's Dan Irvin said April was "a good time to buy an i-MiEV." The i starts at $29,125 and shoppers still needed to negotiate with the dealership on final price, of course.

The deal is over now, but when it was still going on, Irvin told Autoblog there was "plenty of inventory to accommodate this promotion." He said he didn't know the number of 2012 i-MiEVs remaining in the US, but the end result was that 127 were sold last month.

Even with the extra money, April i sales did not reach the lofty (as it were) heights of January and February, when 257 and 337 of the Mitsubishi EVs were sold, respectively. The i has been the subject of low, low prices before, including a cell-phone-like lease of $69 a month.