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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Tokyo Motor Show Report: Mitsubishi
The Concept PX-MiEVⅡ is Mitsubishi’s take on a midsize SUV plug-in hybrid. The SUV uses a 2-liter, 4-cylinder engine paired with a pair of 60-kilowatt electric motors to provide what Mitsubishi claims is acceleration comparable to that of a 3.0-liter V6 engine. The new concept also features the company’s proprietary version of four-wheel drive, called Super All Wheel Control.
The SUV has room for five and an all-electric driving range of just over 30 miles. With the motor and batteries working together, Mitsubishi says drivers can expect to cruise for nearly 500 miles. Drivers have the option to select Battery Drive Mode using pure EV power or Battery Charge Mode, which uses the engine as a generator to charge the batteries.
The new SUV also has a socket that allows the electricity stored in the drive batteries to be used to power electric appliances when camping, tail gating or to provide an emergency power source.
Courtesy of EarthTechling
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Mitsubishi i tops 2012 EPA Fuel Economy Guide
[[posterous-content:pid___1]]What's the most fuel-efficient vehicle sold in the United States? Well, for 2012 it's the Mitsubishi i, at least according to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.
The federal agencies have issued the latest edition of their Fuel Economy Guide, and Mitsubishi's subcompact electric leads all vehicles with a combined rating of 112 miles per gallon of gasoline equivalent. The Nissan Leaf is second at 99 MPGe, the Ford Transit Connect Electric is third at 62, and the Chevrolet Volt ranks fourth at 60 MPGe. Of course, they're all electric vehicles (well, in the case of the Volt, a part-time EV), which is why their mileage numbers are listed as MPGe. The highest-rated vehicle powered by a conventional internal combustion engine continues to be the Toyota Prius, at 50 miles per gallon combined.
Courtesy of AutoBlog
Friday, November 18, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Is your vehicle feeling a little wobbly? You're wheels may need an alighnment service, and we have just the thing!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Mitsubishi Releases New ASX Black Special Edition for British Market. How would you like to see this model here in the US!
Porsche has one. Mercedes-Benz has one. Even Mazda and GM Australia's Holden have one. And now Mitsubishi gets its own Black edition model as well – at least for the UK market.
The ASX Black Edition is Mitsubishi's newest offering in Britain, with the crossover being available for order now.
The black designation in the special edition ASX's name is justified on the outside by the satin black styling kit which includes black 17-inch alloy wheels, roof, spoiler, mirrors, grille and fog lamp bezels, and on the inside, by a black leather kit featuring carbon fibre inserts.
Standard equipment features include a Kenwood satellite navigation system, a parking camera, Auto Stop & Go and low rolling resistance tyres.
The Black Edition of the ASX is available in 6 exterior colors including, Kingfisher Blue (metallic), Polar White (solid), Cool Silver (metallic), Amethyst Black (pearlescent), Atlantic Grey (metallic) and Orient Red (metallic).
Buyers can choose between two engines, a 1.6-liter gasoline unit with 115bhp linked to a 5sp manual gearbox, or a 1.8-liter turbodiesel with 147bhp matched to a 6-speed manual transmission, and either FWD or AWD.
From: CarScoop
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Mitsubishi Taps into Leading EV Charging Station Database Compiled by CarStations
Mitsubishi Taps into Leading EV Charging Station Database Compiled by CarStations
Nov 11, 2011
CYPRESS, California, November 11, 2011 – Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc., (MMNA) has teamed up with electric vehicle (EV) charging station finder company, CarStations to leverage their pioneering community-powered global Charging Station database. CarStations. will provide an updated feed providing the status of local charging stations to users of the Mitsubishi i “Trip Calculator” application. This social media-friendly application is located on both the Mitsubishi i website and dedicated Facebook page. The application is intended to show users the flexibility of the Mitsubishi i’s driving range by allowing them to see how many various stops can be made within the vehicle’s EPA-rated 62 mile range. The application will allow users to enter custom locations or choose from pre-populated local stops to map out their trip.
The applications will also be featured during the "Mitsubishi i 100% Electric Experience" tour, which debuted on the green carpet at Portland Fashion Week on October 6. Visitors will be able to use Apple iPad™ devices to experience the app on-site and learn more about the vehicle.
To experience the app on-line or for more information including a complete list of upcoming dates and event locations, please visit "The Electric Experience" tab at facebook.com/iMitsubishi.
Courtesy of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation
Friday, November 11, 2011
Spitzer Mitsubishi Sheffield would like to take this opportunity to thank the men and women of the Armed Forces from the past and present for their service to our country.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev EV Test Drive
Alternative fuels are still stuck inside the chicken-and-the-egg dilemma. No one wants to commit to building an alternate fueling infrastructure (the egg) before there’s a critical mass of vehicles (the chicken) out there to use it. And vice versa. Frustrating as that logic loop is to be caught in, there are indications that there are ways out of it. One ray of sunshine (literally) is the quick charger station for electric vehicles in Vacaville, Calif.
Mitsubishi, which is planning to send a version of its i-Miev electric car here next year, seized upon the Vacaville charging station as a solid excuse for a press event touting both its vehicle and the potential infrastructure represented by the quick charger. The plan was straightforward: A group of journalists would travel in five Japanese-market i-Mievs from San Francisco across the Bay Bridge and then northeast up I-80 to Vacaville. That’s a total of just about 54 miles; within the i-Miev’s range as long as the air conditioning wasn’t turned on and the drivers were careful. In Vacaville, the journalists would all be fed while each i-Miev would be hooked to the quick charger. After 20 minutes each on the charger all the i-Mievs would be juiced to about 80-percent of battery capacity. Another 34 miles on the I-80 would then have the electric cars cruising into California’s capital, Sacramento. It was like the days of stagecoaches—San Francisco to Sacramento with just one stop in Vacaville to change horses. Here’s what we learned.The i-Miev
The production, on-sale-now, Japanese-market i-Miev has its steering wheel on the wrong side, but it drives just fine. It’s also a familiar face around here, since PM’s Ben Stewart drove it back during the 2008 New York Auto Show.
The i-Miev is a creature built for urban mobility. At only 133.7-inches long overall, it’s almost a full foot shorter than a Mini Cooper and it rides on super-narrow 145/65R15 front and 175/55R15 rear tires. But with its 47-kilowatt engine driving the rear wheels and 330-volt li-ion battery pack mounted low in the chassis, it’s stable and nimble. The motor’s instantaneous torque means there’s seemingly always thrust available, and the 63.4-inch tall i-Miev can squirt through traffic holes that behemoths like the Honda Civic or Mazda3 wouldn’t even dare. Forget issues of range and charging time for a moment—it’s hard to think of any vehicle better suited for pounding across the cityscape than the i-Miev, no matter what the drivetrain. At just 58.1-inches wide, however, the i-Miev is too narrow for full-size American hips. The driver always has one knee digging into the right front door panel and the left knee slapping against the center console and shifter (calling it a “gear shifter” would be somewhat inaccurate). The dashboard is a study in minimalism and gray plastic, but the graphic display is informative enough. And its sort of nice to see a single-DIN audio unit again—it’s very 1989. The i-Miev is about the furthest thing from a luxury car imaginable. In fact, the thin seats and unpretentious decoration are probably too Spartan for American buyers, particularly in light of a projected price of around $30,000 (before any government kickbacks, incentives, tax breaks, subventions and bribes). And sentencing any adult to prolonged confinement in the rear seat would be in violation of numerous international treaties against the mistreatment of prisoners of war. Mitsubishi promises that the i-Miev that comes to America will be wider, “sassier” and more accommodating of this market’s tastes and body types than the Japanese market version. Here’s hoping that the extra measure of comfort doesn’t come at the expense of nimbleness. In normal driving—normal for an electric car with regenerative braking and driven with light throttle application and the air conditioning, lights and wipers off—Mitsubishi has the i-Miev going about 85 miles on a full charge. Fully charging the battery using a 220-volt should take 7 hours, and a 110-volt system should need about twice that.The Drive to Vacaville
Even though it’s built for city use, the i-Miev’s 100.4-inch wheelbase is pretty long—exactly the same length as the larger Honda Insight’s and Kia Soul’s. So the freeway ride is actually acceptable, and the thin tires have such modest contact patches that there’s little in the way of droning noise coming from down there. Throw in some nicely controlled ride motions, and the i-Miev is a pretty good cruiser.
Of course there was no opportunity to try the EV on curvy mountain roads, but the i-Miev hasn’t been built to challenge the Tesla Roadster for the title of best-handling electric car. This is a transportation module—a city bus shortened to four seats. Once across the Bay Bridge, the temptation was to shift into the “eco” mode and cut power back. But do that and the i-Miev goes from spritely to sluggish in a moment. While the goal was to just maintain velocity on the freeway, the idea that there would be essentially zero power in reserve for passing or accident avoidance was one anxiety too many. Though I was riding solo in the i-Miev, I’m a big guy, and the battery level indicator was drooping down toward the eighth full mark when Vacaville’s exits started showing up on the road signs. Mitsubishi wouldn’t have set up this drive if it wasn’t secure that the little cars would all make it to the charging station, but colleagues riding two-up reported more perilous drains on their car’s batteries. And one two-man crew managed to miss an exit and drain their i-Miev completely. Even under the best, most controlled circumstances, range anxiety is the most unnerving thing about driving an electric vehicle. Any EV.Extended Range Charging
Inelegantly tucked in behind a Sonic drive-in, the Vacaville EV charging station grabs most of its power from two banks of photovoltaic panels running about a block long each. When it opened in 2005, it featured six chargers for pumping juice into whatever few electric oddities scurrying about back then. During the day, the 45-kilowatt solar system is enough to keep the conventional chargers going while still sending additional power back through the grid. At night the station gets its electricity back from the power grid.
The station was sited at this particular location so that EV owners could park their machines and walk over to the nearby Regional Transportation Center to catch city buses or links to trains running over to the Bay Area. When the i-Miev fleet arrived, there were a couple of old electric Toyota RAV4s sipping from the system, though the charger specifically for Tesla vehicles was empty. The star of the day was sitting there waiting for its i-Mievs: the Level 3 Quick Charger. Developed by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), and eventually to be produced by Eaton, it looked like a big utility cabinet with a particularly nice coat of white paint. A small status display panel is in front while a hose sticks out the right side. There are only two switches, a blue switch for “start” and (oddly) a green one marked “stop.” The hose from the Quick Charger has a nice satisfying heft. It makes the whole system seem less toy-like and more serious. The hose plugs into the i-Miev through a door along its left rear flank. TEPCO’s fast charger connector is a series of pins that not only pump juice into the i-Miev, but also provide a communications link that lets the computerized system optimize power delivery efficiency. Using the solar array’s AC-current, the TEPCO charger uses a three-phase system to convert to the DC the i-Miev needs. What goes into the Quick Charger as 208 volts at somewhere between 150 to 250 amps AC goes into the i-Miev as DC current just north of 1200 amps. According to Eaton, the system can charge a depleted i-Miev in about 20 minutes to 80 percent charge. More than enough for most EV owners to make it home from a long commute. More pertinently, enough for Mitsubishi’s five i-Mievs to make it from Vacaville to Sacramento.The Dream
Listen to Mitsubishi and Eaton, and they imagine a future where quick chargers could be positioned at Starbucks, McDonald’s or, yes, Sonic drive-ins. Drivers could pull in, hook their i-Mievs up to the system and sit back and enjoy a latte, Big Mac or whatever it is Sonic sells. After that relaxing respite, they’d stroll back to their driving appliances and continue their journey. It’s their alternative to the extended range offered by the upcoming Chevrolet Volt’s on-board internal combustion engine.
Their dream may be a good one. But it’s also problematic. There were, after all, five i-Mievs on this drive that needed charging, and with only one charger it didn’t take 20 minutes to fuel them. It took about an hour and a half. Mitsubishi didn’t leave us to cool our heels during that charging, but took us to a nice lunch. Imagine how nasty the scene could get if five i-Miev owners showed up at one charger with the fifth in line finding out he’s going to be spending more than an hour cooling his heels at Sonic. So what if he has a coupon that gets him two milk shakes for the price of one? A modest, average size gas station has, say, eight pumps. And usually those pumps push fuel at a rate of between five- and ten-gallons per minute. Going on the low end of the scale, lets say it takes three minutes to fuel up an average car with a 15-gallon tank. So in an hour, that eight-pump station could theoretically fuel 160 average cars from empty to full. In contrast, a station with eight Eaton/TEPCO Quick Chargers could theoretically fuel just 24 i-Mievs to 80-percent full in an hour. To match the capacity of a modest gas station, completely filling 160 i-Mievs to 100-percent of battery capacity (on 25 minute charges) in one hour, would take at least 67 Quick Chargers with one parking space for each charger. Figure 300-square feet of space for each charger and parking spot and that’s a half acre of land before accounting for driveways or other infrastructure. That might be more than most Starbucks managers would be comfortable handling. Of course both Mitsubishi and Eaton expect the primary charging of virtually all i-Mievs to take place at home overnight. There’s really no way now to predict what sort of demand for high capacity Quick Chargers may develop. That, after all, depends on how human beings behave in using their electric vehicles in the future. And that unknowable future brings us right back to chickens and eggs.
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