Mitsubishi i-MiEV launching in November 2009, with a $31,000 and $37,000 price range

Mitsubishi i-MiEV will be one of the first 'pure' electric cars being available in the UK.

It is a 4-door 5-seater than can travel 100 miles, or 160 Km, on a single charge.

It was just announced that the cars will become available for purchase in England beginning in November 2009. At first there will only be 50 vehicles made available, with another 150 arriving in 2010. Mitsubishi hopes to eventually sell 40,000 iMiEvs per year.

The price is being quoted as between £20,000 and £25,000 ($30,844-$37,800 USD).

The Mitsubishi i-MiEV will also abe vailable in a sports version, pictured below:

20% of all vehicles sold in U.S. to be hybrids by 2020

According to a recent study conducted by JPMorgan, hybrid sales are about to take off. Last year, there were some 480,000 total hybrid vehicles sold around the world, which represents less than 1% of global sales. By 2020, though, JPMorgan predicts that 11.28 million hybrids will be sold annually, representing over 13% of all vehicles sold.

Much of that increase in sales will be attributed to the United States, as the report suggests that hybrids will capture nearly 20% of total market share in this country. The study suggests that the increase in hybrid vehicle sales will be influenced by such factors such as increased pressure from government agencies to reduce fuel consumption and overall vehicle emissions, as well as a drastic reduction in the cost of hybrid technology.

You can go to the AutoBlog's original article and answer the poll.

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Test Fit

Now that I am completely done with classes, it's EV time!
I did a test fit of the control tray in the EV today, and I have to say I do quite like it. I need another trip to ACE to get some 1/4-20 bolts to mount the controller/heatsink to the mini tray, and I need a longer hose for the vacuum switch. Then I will lock down the vacuum tank and finish up some wiring and test the tray.

I also fiddled with the BC-20 charger today. My batteries needed a freshen up charge, but the charger wouldn't work. I found out that my setting resistor needed to be readjusted to deal with the heat. After 45 minutes of fiddling, I started a top off charge.

Finally, Some Real Progress

It has been about a month since I have done one tiny thing on the EV. Actually, I haven't really worked on it since winter break. A little bit here, or there, but this past semester has been loaded and most of the things I wanted to do did not happen.

Well, I finally have day to work on the EV. I received my new heatsink and mounted the controller to it.

I have also finished wiring the entire control tray. The only two things left for the tray is to mount the heatsink controller to it's small tray and to add lock washers to the nuts. Then it gets installed and tested. I am also going to make up a clear wiring diagram eventually.

May Update

I am in my final weeks of the semester so I really haven't been able to do to much on the EV. I am almost done with the new wiring for the control system but it has taken much longer than I hoped because I had to get new relays.

If I play my cards right, I should be able to finish the rest of my semester's work this week and take Friday afternoon off to work on the EV before seeing the new Star Trek movie.

I also have ordered up a proper heatsink for my Kelly KDH09401. I have a 8.5"x12" finned aluminum heatsink coming in soon that will not only look better than the plate I have not, but should also provide even better cooling.