Hi if you're listening to the amp hour a couple, well, a week or two back Chris gaml and I kind of goof things up with some terminology to do with electric cars I blame Chris But eh. anyway I was talking about on the amp the mitubishi I Mev uh electric car and well through the magic of the Eev blog. Snap My Fingers I've got one here in the lab. Really, it's here.

Check it out ta the Mitsubishi Imv complete with Malcolm fade and you might know Malcolm from Silicon Chip that's his electric. There's his face on the front. there's his fully 3phase electric Ute that he uh got published. Tell us about the Ute how how old is it? How' it come about? Okay, well it came about when uh, fuel prices were getting toward $2 a liter.

Um, back about 3 years ago now I started planning, designing and thinking there must be a better way. Started going to the Australian Electric Vehicle Association meetings and uh, searching and scouring the internet for ideas. um and uh, the uh ideas just built up on how best to how best to do the job. Found the you y found an old 3phase motor.

Actually the motor was the first thing I found at a Um at a surplus yard. Awesome! Um the inverter. the thing that converts DC to three-phase AC from eBay as all good things come abely where from is it a China thing or did you get it from the US or uh the inverter is a brand called Danos which is I think is European but uh well eBay from oh it came locally I think from um Tasmania Okay, interesting. Anyway, just showed up on a pallet one day.

Excellent Um batteries came from China uh I imported a P pallet load. It was uh much cheaper than doing it any other way and they serve me well almost 2 years. Excellent is is it still going the you or you have to replace the batteries or the you? I have actually sold. Oh you've sold it.

Yes, about 6 weeks ago I sold it to a gentleman in Perth who's going to revive new life into it. Fantastic! Um, the batteries were on their way out. Um, lead acid batteries have a useful life of about 2 years in a car just because. The right.

The Um application in a car is exactly not what they like. Um, he's going to to put some nickel metal hydride batteries into it. Yep from uh Vectric Electric Motorcycles. Ah yes of course they you can buy those in Australia now can't you? um not anymore.

The really parent company went bankrupt in the US A fantastic bike in fact I do repairs on them. Excellent! Um I repair the battery packs. uh they have a about 102 cells y 50 sorry 10230 amp nickel metal hydride cells 1.2 Vols each and uh single cells go faulty either. Go um they start leaking their fluid so you take it about near part you repack them.

new cells? exactly. Um yeah. usually one cell, two cells. and how do you do with load? How do you? Does a Lo Does load balancing matter? If you can replace one, you know if it's an almost worn out pack and you only replace a couple of cells.

Is that not so much a good thing to do? It is a, um, a tricky thing to do. What uh what I have to do is level the voltages on the old batteries and the new batter right? Um, Nickel Metal Hydr has a fairly flat discharge curve, but um I can balance the voltage within a few uh, few molts. Okay, that's usually close enough. Um, once the battery does a once the bike does a charge cycle.

Yep, um. nickel metal hydride battery self balance through self so they work themselves out. Excellent. And the mitsubish IM what does it use? It uses lithium ion batteries.

just standard lithium ion technology. Or is it some weird? It's nothing too weird. I think every manufacturer has their own secret ingredients. Yep, um, the these ones are 50 ow mhm and there is about 82 of them totaling about 320 volt pack.

Nice. So and we're going to take it outside and check it out. Let's do that. Let's do it.

Give us the lowdown and uh, what it's all about. Well, this is the Mitsubishi I'm IM Um first production electric vehicle from Mitsubishi Um I'm lucky enough to work for RO The company that has it leas from Mitsubishi um with a little bit of controling in a nice letter, we were able to lease it uh, lease it off of them along with about 40 other country companies in Australia um I'll give you a guided tour if you like. Please let's go here. We have the front of the vehicle really really short Bonnet or hood for the uh for those of the American persuasion.

Absolutely. um. wheels are right at the front which uh is where they and right in the corner which is where they should be for uh for uh, better handling. Coming around to the driver's door, we have keyless entry excellent which is complaining.

no it's not going to let us in. fail. Oh well. oh well, not quite.

okay. And here's our interior. let's check it out. Unfortunately I don't have my wide angle lens so we might have to shoot it from the back.

Actually, go ahead all here. We have the gear selector Park reverse neutral and we've got three Drive positions. Drive is normal Eco limits your maximum acceleration right to what to uh about 2/3 I would say of full. it kind of limits limits the roll on of torque and and okay uh, therefore current so you can't shoot off the line of it's no good for drag racing.

y all right? Um, and B just like the Prius gives you uh, additional regenerative braking for going downhill. So if you're going down a steep hill, slip it into B and you don't have to use the brake so much and you're using that, you're using that energy for uh to recharge the batteries. On the left, we have the fuel gauge For want of a better word I Guess it is fuel. Yep, um, half full at the moment and currently in park.

Uh, the keys are not in the Run mode at the moment, so that's why the battery light is on. We have an economy gauge which goes from Blue under Regen to Green uh and fading to white with ever increasing power as you put your foot down right hand side. We've got uh, trip meter and a bunch of things, but this also tells us the range left. so 42 km range left on the batteries is that fairly? Have you found that to be fairly accurate? Or this seems to be fairly accurate.

Nobody's been brave enough to run it flat to really test it right? So does it actually, uh, work on your driving history? your driving style? Or is it just pretty dumb? You think? Yes, it does. Uh, does work on your driving history. If you drive conservatively, that figure goes down quite quietly. Okay, uh.

down quite slowly. If you drive aggressively, it disappears in no time. Got it? So they have put some smarts into it. Yes, they have.

And in the middle, of course, we've got a speedo. Yep, very very simple display. I like it and this is a just a multifunction multi-function stereo with GPS Um, Unfortunately, it is not integrated into the vehicle at all. That's disappointing I Thought that would have been a given I would have thought so too.

Um I Really like the power display of the Pr Prius and also the Uh Niss and Leaf Y, but unfortunately they've not done that on this vehicle. It's got much Oh glove box space H You know space for the USB port for the stereo, right? and it's a oh, an actual USB a real USB it has got a real real USB connection. In fact I've been playing music off of my phone. fantastic during the trip.

I Like it any other uh, electronic accessories has it got another USB port somewhere? No. I'm afraid not. That's it. That's it.

It's a pretty simple car. It really is right. But it's got full air conditioning, full air conditioning you must have for an Australian absolutely and uh cup holders cup holders. the the Uh air conditioning just does Cooling and it heats water to circulate for the heating.

Unfortunately, it doesn't use reverse air conditioning right like the Ev1 did. Um, back in the '90s Yes, that was who killed the electric car. You've got to watch it if you haven't seen it. Absolutely, it's a good watch.

Next what we'll do is we'll open up the Uh fuel fuel cap release. There's two. actually. yep, one uh.

shoot it. Go Tada And what have we got? The uh, rather unusual looking connector. Yep, it's called a J122 something I Forget what the standard is Okay, but it's not actually fully. The standard is not fully implemented in the vehicle, right? Okay, and we've got a charge cable and we've got a charge cable.

Nice. It looks like a gardening hose. You plug it in, turn the tap on, and you're good to go. And that's just the standard.

Um. standard single phase one. or is that the Uh. multiphase.

it's single phase, but 15 amp here in Australia We have 240 Vol and 10 amps just for General General Power outlets. Um, this is a 15 amp outlet. The only difference here being the Earth pin is slightly larger. Yep, around the other side, let's check it out.

This is the high current fast charge input. Oh got it. nice. This will uh pump I Think about 80 amps into the battery pack directly.

80 amps direct from a high voltage or a low voltage source from a DC Source right from a DC source. So all the smarts of the charging is offboard the car. The car is telling the charger what to do, but the uh, but the smarts are in the in the offboard charger. None of those exist in Australia yet.

I Look forward to using one one day. Oh what you mean they don't actually Supply Come on, You know they should have a massive Uh pack that you can charge up at home and then like you can leave it, you can leave the Box charging at home and then just pump it. That would be that would be nice but clearly not and expensive. Yeah, now we get to the good stuff we have.

We it's not, doesn't normally look like this. We have actually removed the uh uh the panel here so there's is there enough uh room for I don't know a bunch of Scopes and stuff like that or a a some golf clubs? yes I'm sure you can fit your golf clubs and shopping in the back tell us all about it in the back here. We've removed the panel from above the motor and uh and all the good stuff. What we have starting at the left is a water reservoir for cooling fluid.

That cooling fluid circulates through the charger, the inverter, the motor, and I think the battery pack as well to keep everything nice and cool. Next we have the charger that's for charging the 320 volt lithium ion battery pack mhm. The batteries are made up of 50 amp hour cells of which there's from memory about 83 or so of them. Um, and next we have the inverter.

This converts the 320 volts DC into three-phase AC for the uh permanent magnet AC motor that is buried three-phase AC just like your Ute It certainly is right if the Australia's only three-phase electric first and only three-phase electric Ute I should say first Road Legal Road There have been a few others around, but First Road Legal fully certified. We'll definitely have to put the links for that, which will be down below the video there. Check it out. M's Ute or truck as they call them in the US on the right hand side.

Here, we've got a brake vacuum pump. Um, the uh brake booster. like Mo All cars, most cars needs a vacuum source and that's what. Uh, that's what that's for.

Why is that why? Why do they need a vacuum source for the brakes? What? The brake boost As you know, I'm not very mechanically inclined from Ma made a comment about uh, myself and Chris on the amp hour goofing up the drive terminology for this thing. Oh well, yeah. Third Time Lucky When he's talking about the um, the Vault it's uh, connected to the crankshaft is the correct term. And what's this one connected to? Uh, this one? Well, this one doesn't have a petrol motor, so there is.

There is no equivalent. Um, it's of course, battery only. Yep. and there is the motor down the bottom, which is kind of hard to really see.

It's sort of tucked. you can probably see it. That's it down down there somewhere. and it goes about this long, doesn't it? Yep, about that long.

About half the width of the car there. So it's a pretty tiny motor really. Um, through a single reduction gearbox. So there's no gear changes 0 to 130 km an hour, no shifts.

which means it's quite, uh, quite py off the lights, bucket, loads of torque, and no shift. So when everybody else is changing gear, you're accelerating. awesome And that's pretty much it. Is that all you need for? that's all you need.

Basic? uh, it's pretty much all I had in my use as well. Batteries, charger, inverter, and you're good to go. And if we just have a look through the uh wheel Arch Here we can just see the motor in there and that, uh, dries. And there's the there's the diff.

There we go. That's the motor in there, motor to the right, diff, and gearbox to your left near the center of the C Yep, and there's the diff and the gearbox. Excellent. And if you sit inside the sucer, it's actually pretty.

uh, darn room here. It's pretty windy here today. I Don't know if you can hear me. The boom mik might be getting a little bit of wind noise today, but uh, it's It's quite nice.

There's a decent amount of leg room in the back and it seats four nicely now. seats more comfortably yep and even has child restraints. Child restraints? Excellent. Tell us the specs all about it? Sure, Okay, Top speeds: about 130 km hour? Yep.

Um. acceleration 0 to 80 of memory sorry 0 to 60 M 0 to 100 km hour if memory serves correctly is about 12 seconds. It's really, really tky between about 20 and 70 km an hour. It's just fantastic.

So you can shoot off the line, burn off the Uh V8s burn offine off the Sixers Have you tried? Come on, you can own up. Yes. Awesome. Um, what else it's um.

weight is about uh 1,000 50 kilos? Yep. the torque H sorry power is 47 KW Torque escapes me, but it's pretty decent. Torque is what gives you acceleration, not power. Power gives you top speed.

Um, what else can I say? Range Conservative driving is about 80 sorry 100 km. Um, normal driving about 80 km. The box is 160 I Wouldn't believe it. Um, and uh, have you found that that range actually is usable around a city like Sydney Is it I can imagine I mean I I used to work half halfway across Sydney at the company that shall not be named and that was 35 km each way.

Um, and that so I could do that I could do a day's worth of driving. You really could quite comfortably. Um, with that range of 80 to 100ks, it's a good commuter. Um, depends on where you live.

Sydney is not a great City for EVS because it's very large and very sprawling. Um, but for commuting. Um, if you live that 30 40 from home from work, it's fantastic. Um, as I said at the moment, EVS are a fantastic second vehicle if you've got.

um, if you want to go further or go camping or do whatever you do, you take the other car. But uh, it's a really economic way to own a second car and there's no servicing cost absolutely Well, you'd have to. there's you'd have to get the brakes and stuff. service, but just the basics like Bres yeah, brake pads, fluids.

Yep, that's about it. That's about it. Um, they don't get changed. Oh, and because it has regenerative braking, you don't use the brakes so much of so I would expect that' probably last about 30 or 40,000 K Fantastic.

And it's keyless entry. Is it? I Mean it's actually keyless? It really is. Um, I've got the key fob in my pocket and it's got just this little dinky thing that looks like a key. Okay to make it go right.

so it's like a little, um, a little RFID tag or something is it? Let's yes, it is right here. There you go. Well, that's that's pretty big actually. and you just have to keep that on your person.

Yep, and it'll let you unlock the driver's or open the driver's door by pressing a button or open the boot trunk for those of the American persuasion. Um, and it has an emergency key if you get stuck. just in case all the technology, just in case the technology, fails and it has a backup. Excellent.

Actually, where do you stick that? Well, there's a trick all right. Ah, there. a little cover off, got it? I Don't don't think you can start it even with this, but it does. Oh, you've got to be able to start it surely.

Ah, it does. Yes, you can. There you go. Haven't tried it before, no haven't had to thankfully.

And inside the rear seats, there's actually a decent amount of leg room that's uh, not too bad at all. and uh, charger cables you just keep in the back? here. There we go. Not a problem, but what? You just have to sit in there loose? Yeah, well.

it comes with a Dy little for the thick black cable. Um, they say don't plug in an extension cord, but in case I get stuck I Keep my Caravan cord handy. Awesome! And we forgot the headlights. What's so cool about the headlights? are they LED hid hid HID headlight.

So I was going to say duck down and point the camera at them but get washed out there we go. Fantastic! I Like it. Here's the tires. They're supposedly special.

low resistance. uh, tires. low rolling resistance tires. They're a dum.

Lop Are they made here? or I would doubt it. Oh, there's still some Dunlop tires made here, isn't there? Maybe not I don't know or made in Malaysia And it's four-wheel disc brake obviously. uh Drive Oh okay. Oh, and and it is rear wheel drive.

It is rear wheel drive Fantastic. As we saw before, the the motor is uh, motor and gearbox are just sitting in the back under the passel shelf and M's going to tell us all about Motors and how they drive the wheels in electric cars. hopefully. Okay, well um, this vehicle is rear wheeel drive and has a single motor driving a single reduction gearbox.

Uh, onto the back wheels. no inhe Motors There's no in wheel Motors available yet largely because the unstrung mass that is the weight of the wheel um causes problems with the suspension and handling and um, the with a wheel motor, the mass of the motor is quite High Um, it's not ideal the Uh to tell you why the mass is a problem. power is proportional to the torque times the RPM If you want a powerful motor you have to either inre increase the torque or the RPM to increase the torque. You need a big motor big and heavy.

Bad idea. So what we do is we increase the RPM so we have a low torque motor high. RPM through a reduction box to the wheels you end up with a nice light and fairly simple package. The Tesla Roadster has a very small motor.

It's called a I Believe based on a 112 frame 112 mimet from Center of shaft to the outer circumference of the motor. very small Very comp compact, but it spins up to about 12,000 RPM uh and then through a reduction box which magnifies the or multiplies the torque uh and keeps the power. High Awesome! Thanks Malcolm Physics 101 which is more than I know about cars that's for sure. And there it is.

the Mitsubishi Innovative Electric vehicle. The IV is that how you pronounce it Imv Iev We I think we've given up on the uh, try to use the GPS thing on this. it was too hard. Anyway, let's start it up.

See what it sounds like it started? Oh fail. No noise at all. All right, no noise at all. Let's drive out of here.

Okay, here we go. There's the lab, see you and there's my WM my Pine the world's oldest tree. Here we go that is quiet Here we go and we're off and we're off. And it does have some acceleration doesn't it? And I wasn't really trying.

Oh okay, it won't gun in it. How does it handle the chicanes? Woohoo! I Love it! So how's it been to drive? How many months? How long have you been driving it now? Um I just get it off and on. It's the company's pool car. Um so I need to book it just like anybody else.

the um I've borrowed it maybe three four times. um whenever I'm able. It's great fun. It's um, just so different and and neat to drive.

and uh, of course no petrol. um with my youth I hadn't uh I hadn't bought two Petrol in 2 years? Um, fantastic. It's just brilliant. Um, so yeah, it's it's really good.

It's uh, as we mentioned before, there's uh, just a single speed gearbox so no changes or shifts. Yep, and the acceleration is just Progressive Fantastic. And we're in the Hills district here of uh Sydney So we're uh, going to test it out on some decent Hills No, we oh no, sorry I was too busy filming, not navigating. We're just testing out the Turning Circle which is pretty sharp very got say and the handling is very smooth.

All of the batteries are under the floor so the center of gravity is very low. So even though it's a little narrow car, it's um, handling is like that of a much wider car and how does it break it stops. More than good enough. More than good enough.

More than good enough. What I can do is when we're next going down a hill, I'll shift the gear lever from Eco to B and uh, maybe you'll get a feel of what's Happening from the road noise. Okay, you'll feel the we will feel the we will feel it but uh unfortunately this is not feeler. Vision Here we go, we're going go down a hill shifting into B and we don't notice much difference.

No afraid not, it's not that steep. the uh little red little uh Econo gaau is now in the charge region. Oh yes, there it is which shows it's regenerating. yep and the other way.

full noise nice. and all of the uh noise we're getting is just the uh Wheels Really, that's right, that's pretty much it. So has this got special low resistance tires or is it it has? Actually it has very has low resistance low rolling resistance tires and um, oddly enough, the front wheels are skinnier than the rear. Not quite sure why that is.

Maybe they think it's Formula 1 or something right? I Got to say, this is quite impressive. I Want one? How much are they? Well, you can't really buy them. They were available on limited release in Australia to Um selected corporate and governments. Um I'm lucky enough to currently be working for a a corporate and will be out of a job soon.

So I don't get to borrow it anymore. but um so you can't buy them? Uh, it's kind of weird so people ask how much are they. There is no price. um hopefully they'll come in under 50.

Grand It'd be crazy if they were more. they just wouldn't sell. But people bought plasma TVs when they were $20,000 so they did. People will buy these I'm sure early adopters that's right or suckers as they call them, but no someone's got to buy which is great.

I would I would buy one if it? yeah, 50 Grand is probably a bit too much I think so. um I think I'll wait for them to have the early adopters can have them and uh I'll reap the rewards in 5 years time cuz this is the future. Well for those mechanically inclined, you may be uh, tempted to convert one yourself, convert a petrol vehicle yourself? Yes. and if you want the details, you have a website now um I have a website a 4x4 Kiwi Blogspot.com and also um, you might want to check out the Australian Electric Vehicle Association website just Google it.

and if you want to see loads of examples of converted Vehicles go and have a look at EV Album.com Excellent, thank you very much! M This was fantastic. My pleasure. Yeah.