Living With Irene The Classic EV

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.