Zoomi Life

For some reason I can’t really figure out, a lot of electric vehicle industry buzz surrounds the Mitsubishi i-MiEV.  The little battery electric gets a lot of attention.  I haven’t figured out why either, because these cars are ugly, only kind of impressive in performance, and don’t exactly have much about them that says “safe.”

Mostly, though, they’re just ugly.

But apparently they’ve got quite the following. I won’t knock that and I guess mine is not to question why.  Not that this has stopped me before.  Ask my parents.  My dad bought me an encyclopedia set when I was in the second grade because he was tired of my questions.  “Go look it up,” was his new mantra.

Not that this is really relevant to the story at hand.  That being that since going into pre-sales in July, the i-MiEV has managed to get at least 1,400 pre-orders. Given that production in the first year (2010) for the little EV was only supposed to total 1,000 for export and 5,000 for domestic, Japanese sales, that could mean that they’re selling out.

Of course, Mitsubishi hasn’t actually built one to begin filling those orders - every i-MiEV so far is either a show model or has been sold to corporations and governments.  Officially, manufacture for customer orders won’t begin until late this year.

Don’t be surprised if the next couple of months has Mitsubishi throwing out newly updated production numbers if this demand is real.  Doing so would give them a chance to corner a huge segment of the brand new EV market that emerging with popularity now.

Source: Green Car Advisor