Mitsubishi I-MiEV, at least an electric priced!

Mitsubishi I-MiEV in London

We’ve been talking about electric cars for years, but very few were actually available to the general public, at a price the average person can afford. Actually, as of today, there isn’t a single one available in America. Well, there’s the Tesla roadster, but it’s more than $100,000! We expect something more affordable, but we’ll have to wait some more…

The Mitsubishi I-MiEV is currently on sale in Japan, at a pretty expensive price. If you were expecting more agressive pricing in western markets, you were wrong. The orderbook is open in the U.K., the car is available for the hefty sum of 38,699 british pounds, which makes $59,000 at today’s rate. Ouch! That is with sales tax, for a complete car, lithium-ion batteries included. Very big money for a car smaller than a Toyota Yaris…

Mitsubishi is now manufacturing about 800 cars a month, it is expecting to build about 1500 cars a month next year. We hope that by then, economies of scale will allow to lower the price. That is absolutely necessary if we want electric cars to gain some market share…