I can’t believe it’s been almost 3½ years that I’ve been living with a cute little lady who’s not my darling wife.
So how has it been, owning a close to classic EV? Brilliant really.
When I landed an unusual tax return and found a Kei car to blow it on, I didn’t realise that 40,000 people were going to be so interested in an embarrassing life decision. Apparently Australians really did engage with the idea of Australia’s cheapest EV and they clicked on this article in droves.
Turns out it’s been one of the better sight unseen purchases I’ve made. While we haven’t done thousands of kays together, it’s alright, even my spouse likes driving Irene around the place.
Whose fat arse is hanging out in the walkway?
The Nitty Gritty Of Vintage EVs
Irene arrived as the first EV both the transport driver and I had driven. While the styling and circular door trims might polarise some, everything was reassuringly familiar to every other automatic car we’d driven, the steering wheel, ignition key, audible click of the indicators – it was all standard Mitsubishi.
With rear wheel drive the turning circle is tiny, yet despite power steering, there’s still too many turns lock to lock, and the doors sound a bit tinny, again just 15 year old Mitsubishi things.
Same, Same, But Quieter.
Car makers spend millions on reducing Noise, Vibration & Harshness but being stopped in a queue of traffic with zero engine noise is just next level NVH. It feels superior. You can develop a mixture of smugness and sad disdain for the poor plebs around you, especially when an adjacent diesel ute is rattling it’s tray to death.
Parking is a doddle and left turn lanes are always open.
What’s Not To Love?
Irene has covered 41,048km since 2011 and despite the trolls’ predictions, her original battery refuses to catch fire and incinerate me.
The headlights are brilliant, as is the air conditioning and seat warmer, but the resistive electric heater takes a while to warm up & saps much range.
Assuming I miss out on 6c/kWh for solar export, 100km of fuel costs about 87 cents.
Over 15,000km maintenance has been 1 wiper blade and a few bucks to swap two tyres, because I bought some better looking wheels. I joke that a “major service” means filling the wiper washers, checking tyre pressure and buying a coffee at the petrol station.
Of course it’s a Ranger. And yes, Irene drove straight through that gap.
Despite a little reservation, my Mum’s now decided Irene’s diminutive handling is reminiscent of her favourite Morris Mini.
My kids love it and ease of parking has made her the favoured local conveyance of both grandparents. In fact there’s some chance they’ll invest the money required to double her original range with a new battery.
Speaking Of Range
I regularly drive to Mum’s and depending on mood it’s either 67km via expressway or 60km using the most direct route I can thread across the city. Irene is a long way short of modern EV ranges of 400km plus.
From a new 102km range, Irene has about 75km left in her original battery, so I’ve never suffered much doubt.
I’ve noticed a primary difference though – Irene is much more efficient at 60 to 80km/h, so despite more traffic lights, you get better range in traffic, compared to a route where 70% is a sustained 90km/h or more.
On the left, the guessometer can be optimistic after a fresh charge, here showing 109km.
Last Weekend Irene Didn’t Make It.
Cool weather & wider front tyres don’t help but I suspect it soaks up energy to squeegee the rain off 60,000 metres of road.
Maybe I’d been driving too fast but Irene said she was tired, the gauge was empty, the charging icon was flashing and the guessometer predicted just 2km, leaving me 5 short.
So I blinked: and rang my nearby local EV enthusiast. Shouting me a beer would have cost him more than the power used while I plugged in for a social visit, but by the time he rang back, Dad’s support ute had arrived.
Irene has also lived with Dad for a while and understood the issue, because early on he wasn’t familiar with public charging stations, and came home on a tow truck.
Japanese attention to detail, that’s indeed a charging plug pictured on the end of the “fuel cap” lever. Only major mechanical repair has been clipping the dislodged cable back in.
For Interest’s Sake We Did An Experiment
With a 9 metre strap, bluetooth phone connectivity and some backroads mapped, we set off to recharge the battery using diesel power. You’ll damage a dead iMiev towing like a conventional manual car, but with the key on, the constant drag of regeneration made it easy to keep the tow strap tight. Irene just pretended she was rolling down a steep hill.
We found covering just on 6 kilometres, at about 40-45km/h, we’d regenerated 3 bars (out of 16) on the fuel gauge and an additional 25 kays on the guessometer. It was faster than any CHAdeMO DC charger I’ve used, so we unhitched and went home.
Press the button and the guessometer becomes tripmeter, which I invariably reset every time I drive. 3 years ago I managed a 96km journey from Adelaide to Hindmarsh Island.
20:20 Hindsight
I knew a youth whose broken gauge and student budget meant he routinely forgot to buy fuel. A 600ml coke bottle full of petrol in the boot was his saviour. I’ve seldom run out myself, but you do feel like an arse when it happens, especially when the 600ml reserve is already empty and as a passenger, you’re obliged to push the car.
Never mind the generator, I didn’t need it, but check out that funky door trim though. Just needs bigger pockets.
Irene’s calculations came from a long highway run, hence the guessometer would have been pessimistic. I’ve pushed my luck previously but I suspect ignoring the flashing fuel gauge and making a slow back street bee line to a nearby charging station would have worked, but where’s the fun in that?
3 Years On, EVs Have Gone Mainstream
It’s been fascinating to watch the progress, changing a fundamental part of car ownership has seen a depressing amount of fear, uncertainty and doubt being circulated. Happily the clickbaiters aren’t having as much luck with FUD now, more and more the comments section is calm, rational and reasoned with first hand experience from EV owners who are never going back.
Who’s Got Range Anxiety Now?
Thankfully there’s a dawning realisation, brought on by a certain tangerine terrorist having a middle eastern misadventure. The crowd who rail about the wind not blowing and the sun not shining are suddenly terrified by the straight that’s not Hormuzing.
Peak boomer humour hits a bit differently when there’s petrol rationing on the horizon.
I’m not making light of it. We have a complete shitshow on our hands, not just with fuel, but helium, plastic and 1.5million tonnes of fertiliser Australia imports anually too. The economic damage already done may well become a lot worse, however the silver lining is that despite his stated intentions, the US President is probably the best friend electrification has ever had.
Sadly the whole world is going to pay for the rank incompetence but the disruption could well be worth it as we turn the tables on OPEC.
Unfortunately the recent budget squibbed the opportunity to accelerate the inevitable transition.
Extra onshore diesel storage might be handy for the immediate future, but how does $3.2 billion for fuel security make sense?
For half that sum you could drop $200,000 on every petrol station in the country to install DC fast chargers. Yet EV charging infrastructure, undeniably a better long term investment, only gets $40 million?
Real vision would create incentives for Janus EV truck conversions, electrified rail or even some local job creation and manufacturing diversity in car conversions, such as backing the Melbourne workshop converting classic cars into EVs.
Driving Around In Appliance White
Modern EVs are a wonder of touch screens, self driving and satellite surveillance1 but if your parents are too old for that, or you just want a basic A to B with a normal ignition key, see if you can find an iMiev.
Kei cars are perfectly practical, and even though Irene is appliance white, she’s a lot more fun than the vast fleet of boring black and insipid road colour.
54 shades of greyscale.
Speaking of appliances, tune in next time and I’ll tell you about my new toaster electric work van.
For more on EVs in the meantime, read our dedicated guide to EV charging.
Footnotes
- Fun Fact : GM has been caught selling private data from car owners personal and driving data without proper disclosure or consent. ↩
About Anthony Bennett
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Love the article, thanks Anthony. I’m VERY interested to read about the electric van too. One questions for you… have you figured out how much a new battery would cost and what the new range would be? Cheers, Andy
Hi Andy,
There’s a huperlink in the article for battery upgrades. Click on the orange text…
Our Prius Prime has only an 8 KW-h battery with 35 km range when new, but other than in sub -10 C weather in November through April it does a surprisingly large percentage of driving on electric. The last fill in Febtuary is mostly still onboard, 9 litres used so far in the past 1100 km.
The plugin hybrid is our “second car” to a Tesla, bought as a long range car before there were any Canadian DC chargers within 3,000 km to the east.
My dad lived 200 km away, and he stopped answering his phone back in the early 2010s, so having the engine comes in handy.
Pure electric is preferable, but with plugging in as much as possible, $10 a litre synthetic fuel made from solar power wouldn’t be too expensive for the odd city medical trip ($0.44 per km).
We loved our Imiev. My wife put 140000 Km on ours in the 13 years we owned it. Tyres were always an issue due to the odd size of the front tyres.
As in all EVs, tyre choice has a large impact on range: the wrong tyres can use an extra 2Kw/100, so huge when you only have 16 available (or less).
The 2 issues we had with our Imiev was potholes damaging wheels (joy of rural living), & water in the A/C compressor. We fixed the latter by making a new aluminium cover for the A/C compressor, with a surfboard valve screwed in. (The mod is on the web, so search for it!). We could not find anyone to maintain our car, so repaired it myself. (again joys of country living).
The Imiev is a great car for a first car: at least you know the kids will be in ~ 40Km radius! The Kei cars are great: surprisingly roomy inside for a tiny car (fits $75 worth of recycled bottles for instance! But the smell is another thing….)
Great write-up Anthony 🙂
I note in your article “The headlights are brilliant, as is the air conditioning and seat warmer, but the resistive electric heater takes a while to warm up & saps much range.”
Which begs the question. Do modern EVs use reverse-cycle air conditioning for cab warming? Could be up to three times more power efficient than resistive heating?
My (now 2.5 yo) MG4 lacks seat warmers, but has aircon. When you hit the “windscreen” physical button for demist, fanspeed maxes out for rapid effect, and you have to adjust later.
Its 320 km WLTP range is only 290 km for me, 65 km out of town – all highway driving. But the first 20,000 km have cost $0.00 for 100% rooftop photons. The first service (2 yrs) was around $300. There’ll be another at 4 yrs, so driving isn’t totally free. (There’s also windscreen wiper additive, and tyres one day.)
Towing half a tonne of fencing materials, I left a big 4WD with half-loaded trailer rapidly shrinking in the rear view mirror, at the lights – all without noise or vibration, just silky power. (1/2t is all it can tow.)
There’s only 117 mm ground clearance, so I keep it to smoother paddocks when bringing home a trailer-load of firewood.
My brother’s BYD PHEV has seat coolers – nifty on a 1000 km drive back up north, done twice in 3 months, as he helps with some fencing.
Yes, most modern EVs do have reverse cycle AC, hard to understand why they all didn’t from the beginning. Difficult to find a car now without AC, and nearly all domestic ACs are reverse cycle, making reverse cycle for cars would seem trivial. There was nothing new to invent.
Clive W, Melbourne.: – “Do modern EVs use reverse-cycle air conditioning for cab warming?”
As of 2026, heat pumps are almost universally adopted by major automakers for new models.
Modern systems, such as Tesla’s “Octovalve” or Hyundai’s integrated system, go further by scavenging waste heat from the battery and electric drive unit to heat the cabin.
https://www.hyundai.com/au/en/news/electrified/hyundai-and-kia-turn-up-ev-efficiency-with-new-heat-pump-technology
Heat pumps are typically 3–4 times more efficient than resistive heating, delivering 3–4 kW of heat for every 1 kW of electricity used.
While many new EVs feature heat pumps, some entry-level or older models may still rely on resistive heaters.
I just read that the next Gen Kona EV is going back to resistive heaters. Hyundai just keep shooting themselves in the foot.
You mention things like air conditioning and seat warmers, but there is something much more important to me… safety. What is the ANCAP rating on these cars? Does it have any airbags?
Pretty much everything on new model BEVs leaves legacy ICE cars for dead, it seems to me. China is so far ahead of us there, but even the superseded new models which make it down under are an improvement on old ICE.
A google for the EV you’re considering, with e.g. “airbags” and “ANCAP” as additional search terms, will elucidate all – with an AI summary to save the eyestrain of reading several hits.
The radar-guided automatic distance maintenance (collision avoidance) of my base-model MG4 is much better then the old-fashioned airbags it also has. The sign-reading automatic speed limit enforcement has saved me several $thousand in fines, and my 10 points must soon begin to dwindle.
No 5-on-the-floor is an adjustment – I still sometimes instinctively reach for an upshift coming out of a corner, but the low end torque does it all – with one gear!
Full self driving is a BEV innovation I’m prepared to do without. But legacy ICE is dying fast now, even if it’ll take a few more years.
It has airbags. Many had to be replaced under a recall
With the Imiev, you have all the safety features on a vehicle designed 15 years ago. They had the Takata airbags that were recalled. This is an issue with imported vehicles, so beware (Imievs were Mitsub imported, but the vans were not)
These cars are great fun to drive: they handle like a skate because all the weight is low. I had a Commodore follow me thru some windies & he almost lost it! There was a Lotus 7 copy that skited he drove thru a the same local windie road at 75Km: I never told him the Imiev did the same!) Another thing is the brake lights do not come on for regen braking (which modern cars do).
Modern vehicles do use Rev cycle A/C. The Imiev design is 15+ years old.
The Imiev was a redesigned petrol car, & an early design, hence the resistive heating. They use really narrow front wheels (150 profile) so the load on the power steering is lower. The Smart car is virtually the same car, but 2 seater. Unfortunately the Smart Wheels do not fit the Imiev (3 stud versus 4). But fyi, things like mirrors are interchangeable (but slight difference in shape).
we are driving one since 2016, charging only with excess solar (solax, the cheapest charging relay I found). the only disadvantage is the construction of the wiperfluid bottle, integrated in the front bumper. As soon as someone bumps into it the bottle breaks.
This response written by a word guessing machine – mods
Has Australia’s fuel supply situation, petrol and diesel, improved, remained stable or worstened over the last three days?
Based on the latest publicly available data from the last 72 hours, Australia’s diesel situation has clearly worsened, while petrol has remained broadly stable.
No confirmed inbound diesel tankers in the last 3 days on the National Fuel Supply Dashboard (pipeline shows 0 ML inbound).
Net 14‑day balance remains sharply negative (consumption far exceeds inbound + production).
Diesel supply is tightening, with no improvement in inflows, ongoing outages, and continued price escalation. Diesel has worsened over the last three days.
Tim,
Tain’t the wrinkles in the charging elephant’s hide which will clobber us, I figure, but where the brute places his feet on impact. Small daily fuel wibbles all flow toward empty refinery feedstock tanks around August, apparently.
After that, it’ll be really good to have an EV, even a PHEV, perhaps. Bicycles are good too, in some circumstances.
If only the BEV trucks and 1MW chargers were hitting the deck now, we’d be responding rationally to a decidedly tricky distribution bottleneck, looming silently.
Orange-mop today announced yet another peace breakthrough, guaranteeing an immediate fix – if he gets what he wants – all the enriched uranium, and no Hormuz tolls. I.e. no change on the last 7 “deals”, all imaginary ladders out of the hole he dug. He has two choices – admit defeat leading into the midterms, or prevaricate through November, to protect his remaining 2 years – if he can. Either way fossil fuel supply can only decline this year, and into next, I figure.
Perhaps, if we cannot get the incumbents to ditch diesel, we may need to stop them purchasing diesel in Australia. There will be a need to ensure diesel is first used for food production & delivery, as well as freight distribution.
It seems to me we could easily reduce the amount of unprocessed ´dirt´ sent overseas without really moving the economy much (as in reduce mineral exports by say 25% until the orange horror ´fixes´ the problem he created.)
I feel if this is done, BHP & Rio-Tinto might suddenly decide they can electrify…
Viva la revolution!
On another note, It is a pity the Imiev was not available as a Ute.
Doug,
A few of us are a bit grumpy that the very nifty Radar RD6 ute was touted years ago, but never made it down under. Apparently it was to be replaced by an even better model – not sure what ever happened to that. But a little MG4, bought when the 25 yo Ford ute gave up for the second time, is easier for an old bloke to park, and a light trailer makes it a part-time ute substitute.
Fuel supply is no longer up to the orange muppet – he’s lost that debacle, and can only alternate begging, bluster, and futile bombs now. By September, your proposed prioritisation may well begin to come into force, even if hostilities don’t flare up again.
The BYD-owned EV carrier “BYD Zhengzhou”, in Melbourne port now, is only carrying 5,000 EVs, I hear. They won’t last long – I figure the next carrier is well on the way. The muppet is a massive help to the vital transport transition. His mid-curve EV adoption boost ought to win him a medal.
P.S. Aluminium shortage is next, apparently.
My brother has been waiting for 2 months for his Dolphin to arrive. Mid June apparently. Lucky he lives near public transport. (His old vehicle is a troopie: needs its own crude carrier!)
Doug,
It looks like I was off the mark when I wrote that the 5,000 EVs on the BYD car carrier “wouldn’t last long”. The ABC reports that they were all presold a month or two prior to arrival:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgxTVk1YIW4
BYD’s slated delivery of 30,000 EVs to Australia in May/June was impressive, until the ABC said “more than 1 million EVs are due to arrive in Australia this year.”
BYD may then replace Toyota as market number one … by end of June?
Or as late as July?
Japan’s energy is almost all imported, at spiralling cost. Their automotive industry relies on that.Toyota’s pivot to being a rebrander of Chinese-made cars now needs to accelerate, if it is to survive?
Exponential replacement of obsolete fossil burners will be further accelerated by the fuel shortage, when it hits. Maybe a govt subsidy for the tail-enders who lack the funds to get off “demand destruction” petrol pricing? “Leave no-one behind” becomes literal now.
Driving an Imiev is like driving a Mini Moke. You are always surprised to see one on the roads as they are rare. Usually ends in flashing lights and horn tooting. My white Imiev is still going strong. Had it for over 10 years now. Range is down to about 65 km. Had its first major issue a month ago. Had all the critical warning lights on. I think it was the DC converter fuse that blew. $700 later to replace a fuse, and back on the road. Hopefully the issue was with the fuse and not an underlying problem. Carrington Street Auto Repairs did a good job to fix it.
Little kids seem to find the car amusing.
Have you tried disconnecting the 12v battery for 24H+? Our Imiev was down in range, & the 12v battery died. Replaced after a few days, & voila! back up to over 100Km range! It gradually dropped back to abt 85Km, but it was real range. One knows because you can measure the power supplied to the battery: at about 14kw/100+ charging losses. (depending on the type of driving, & the tyres: definitely woth looking for LRR tyres (Low Rolling Resistance) but not much choice for Imiev fronts now.
Thanks Doug. I’ve had the battery disconnected previously and no impact to range. The car is about 16 years old now and has done 81,000 km. When EV’s first came out, there were many predictions the batteries wouldn’t last but it is still going. I did have to replace the tyres about 5 years back and yes, I lost about 10-15km off the range in a short space of time. Around Adelaide, 60+km can still get you to most places you want to go. Still works well as a second car. But I am thinking of upgrading soon.
Hi Brenton,
Let us know when you want to move on 😉
Cheers
Will do.
The only reason we sold our Imiev was due to the fragility of the (front) wheels. Being rural, we have humongous potholes, & regularly damaged tyres. I used to buy my front tyres in x4´s!
Investigate the battery upgrades: That investment can double the range of the Imiev now. (Or just buy an Atto1!! for a few more $$s)
btw, the battery needs to be disconnected for some time (like days) not just a short time to reset the systems. Perhaps the link needs to be disconnected too? (Under the seat). There is a good Imiev group on the web too.
Okay Doug. You’ve reeled me in. I’ll disconnect the battery one weekend but being a 16 year old EV car with non- original tyres, I don’t expect to gain much. I did search for an Imiev group but did not find much. Can you point me in the right direction? I have two sets of original, brand new Imiev car mats sitting in the boot of my Ford Capri…. But that car is another project for a different group.