iMiEV Rental in New Zealand

Hi Forum,
We hope to have at least one of these cars for hire in New Zealand so iMiEVers from overseas can hire the car while here on holiday, and for those residents in NZ that would like a longer test than a dealer might allow.

Pricing is set to be $ 57 NZ per day, with this becoming cheaper for a week hire or if even cheaper if it is for a month or so.

Prior to us considering ordering a car, we have taken a four day test of the vehicle with help from the dealer, and found it to be fine for our roads and conditions with the following ranges when not being careful with the accelerator / gas .

On a Up and down hill trip, two persons, some heater use, trip of about 94 Km, started with 100 km range full bars, came home with 2 bars and 14 km RR. Recharged overnight on 15 amps 230 volts 50 Hz standard charger lead.

Noted on trip the regeneration was great with 61 RR showing for about 10 kms of downhill and some flat.

Next day a short trip to town of 40 km round trip no problems. With traffic this trip usually uses about 1/8 of a tank, in our petrol car, about 8 litres. Of course on the open road the petrol car is a lot more economical around 12 litres per 100 km. In town traffic it, the V8 4WD car, isn't so great at fuel ecconomy, but the iMiEV does well at town work.

On Sunday, we went for a country drive of 108 kms, but we thought it was going to be 88 kms....Three people, no aircon or heater, 90 km / hr and slightly up hill on the way there. got there with only 39 kms RR showing and about 5 bars.

Could not find a 15 amp socket anywhere, not at the shop or at nearby friends, so came home with the idea of maybe the AA might be needed.

Got back safely with the turtle light coming on. Charged up again overnight.

On Monday, took it to show a friend, and he took his daughter and wife for the ride to school. Came back and recharged it at his place, and noted as I sat in the car talking, that the RR meter showed the range increasing by 1 km for each 3 minutes talking, er , charging. Oddly enough, I was on the phone to a Chargepoint rep about getting a Chargepoint unit for NZ. After about 15 minutes or so, I had another 8 km range.

Took the car home after a Hot Chocolate at my friends, and topped up the car for the trip back to the dealers.

Decided to splash out on the aircon power on the way back and arrived at the dealers showing about 70 km range remaining from an initial 127 kms available.

The dealer then took the car for a run of 16 kms to try out a new driving technique he had been shown on a course, and he finished with 102, I think, RR.

So we learnt driving style makes a big difference to the RR and we have to factor that in for hires.

We think specifying a Hire range of 80 Km with no aircon or heater on and a 50 Km range with it on, will give the customers a safety margin of around 20km to get back on for unplanned detours.

Obviously, if the hirer is good at range improving they will be fine but we need to allow for an inexperienced EV driver hire too.

The plan is to have these available for tourists to drive around town and short trips.

We have a modification which allows the iMiEV to be pugged in anywhere with 10 amp sockets or 15 amp sockets and still be able to charge at level one power.

Level two we are sorting via a Legrand charger for portable use if a 20 amp supply is available and maybe a set of Chargepoint chargers spread out around the routes used often by tourists.

I would like to know how many NZ visitors or residents would use this service, so I can work out viability of buying the iMiEV for our firm.

I have learnt a lot from this forum and have shown it to the dealer.

Thanks also to the admin for helping me with sorting log in / password problems. I did not click log me in automatically, so when I changed pages it logged me out. All sorted now.

Kind Regards,
Michael. iMiEVNZ7

Michael, thank you for sharing your iMiEV experience with us. You did not mention which island/city you are located in.

If I may suggest, you might reconsider which market you are targeting: out-of-country tourists just want to hop into a car and drive all around both of your beautiful islands, putting on many many hundreds of km in the short available time without worrying about where to find charging at your major attractions and being forced to stay there for an unnecessarily long time while the car recharges; for this, I suggest the iMiEV is not suitable. On the other hand, the iMiEV is certainly a great vehicle for a business traveller coming into a city and simply staying there, providing charging can be accommodated in the hotel. Level 1 in NZ means 240v, so that even at 8A this should certainly be adequate for daily use.

I wish you luck with your venture.

Hi Joe,
Yes, you are correct about the tourists wanting to travel far and wide around our Islands and for this we have a flash V8 4WD for them, if going far.

With the price of fuel here, currently $ 2.20 NZ per litre, and the V8 holding about 75 litres, the 12 litres per 100 km is getting a bit expensive so we decided to try a small electric car for round town and near town usage.

We are hoping that tourists will use the iMIEV for round town use and fly to the next major city as that is the most often done thing here for tourists in a hurry.

For those with lots of time, they tend to hire a car for a month or a campervan / small RV and take their time exploring.

It is pretty much the ones who pop into a city from the airport and want to stay a day or two and do short day journeys from there that we think would appreciate the iMiEV, and for those who really do need to go a long way or are going to be based in a new town each night, the bigger car or even another smaller rental car would be best.


I hope that clarifies our intentions better. We also hope to add a smooth V8 idling sound, for letting the iMiEV let pedestrians know it is trundling by when at slow speeds. :idea:

Thank you for the welcome and I hope the iMiEV's over there get easier to buy. Here, they are very keen to help out sales, and our dealer has been great with pricing and assistance, as has the whole team at Mitsubishi NZ.

While we are based in the South Island we hope to have one or two iMIEVs at each main city before long.

Michael.

Update on the Hire plan for iMiEV in NZ.

Have been number crunching, hoping to have all the numbers smoothed and presentable for the Finance People before we buy.

One more set of test runs probably this weekend to test the range so that we can recommend a range to our potential customers and know they won't be stranded if they drive within the legal limits, but with enthusiasm.

We do need to confirm, but based on the previous tests and what we have read, we think we will be advertising the car with the following estimated rates and ranges.

Car Hire Rates, includes insurance GST and first " tank " of fuel.

$ 67 per day for hires between 1 and four days long.

$ 57 per day for hires between 5 and 7 days long.

$ 50 per day for hires longer than 7 days long.


Range with 2 persons, with heater on medium, range estimated at 80 kms with speed at 100 Km/ Hr. This is the normal legal speed here on motorways.

Range with 4 persons no heater on, range estimated at 80 kms with speed at 100 Km /Hr.

Range with 1 person, no heater, at 90 Km / Hr, is estimated to be 100 kms.

All these figures allow a 10 km buffer for reserve, not counting the approx 7 km reserve on turtle mode.

The car will be configured to be able to charge at any normal power point and we will have a pick up trailer for those who go too far, although there is a service fee for this.

We hope to build and maintain a small number of charge points at the Level two or three charge rates for the iMiEV around the cities.


The first iMiEV we hope to get, we have priced out for hiring at near break even, to get a feel for the market.

The figures need to be confirmed, but based on a couple of goes at working the figures out, we estimate the car, with rental insurance, initial pricing and repayments, maintenance, and a bit left over for contingencies, will cost us about $ 45 per day to own.

This is assuming no one hires the car.

If we do get good hires, the car will pay for itself with 5 hires per week.

If we allow for office use of the car and the resulting fuel savings based on 200 kms per week, then the car will pay for itself with about 4 hires per week.

Based on estimated hire rates of how often we expect the car to hire out over a whole year, we think 2.5 days per week would be likely, so we would in effect be paying, allowing for office use as well, about $ 138 per week or about $ 20 per day to own the car over 5 years.

Based on this and indeed even the $ 45 per day, we think it is a possibility to buy.

It will also make popping out to our country car storage property only $ 3. 80 per trip compared to $ 24.00 per trip currently.


We feel if the Fast Charger infrastructure is brought into NZ, these and other electric cars will take off.

Speaking of which, I see there are some light aircraft now being made that run on electricity !.

Please note the figures are rough estimates and a detailed set of figures should of course be calculated by any purchaser themselves before making any decision.

Our pricing is based on a special price from our dealer for a show car, with about 1, 000 km on the clock, not the standard retail price of a brand new car.

Hope that helps.

Michael.

Update on testing the iMiEV in NZ for Rental use.

We did extensive testing with iMiEV over eight days and found that the range for reliable hire use, that is, letting someone with no electric car knowledge drive on a hire, as one would a petrol car, was too short for practical hire here in NZ, unless used only in the city.

Our test runs were conducted over a gentle uphill trip, rising 500 feet over 49 kms, a break with a part recharge where needed, and a return back over the second 49 km part which was downhill.

We tested with heater on for one trip, one person on board, aircon on for another, with two people on board and no aircon or heater for two trips, one with one person on board only, and one with three on board.

In each of these tests, we did not have enough power to comfortably get back without charging up.

We also tested over hills and shorter trips, and on these the iMiEV was fine.

With the heater on we used 11 kw on the trip up and 8 kw on the trip back, with the air con we used 9 Kw on the trip up and 8 on the way back, at 80 to 90 Km /Hr, both ways.

Note we used the heater or aircon on the trip up only and to be sure to get home, left the heater or aircon off on the way back, after charging the car to about 8 bars or more. on one trip we arrived with 7 bars left, and charged with 4 Kw to get a total of 11 bars, and got home with 20 km RR and 2 bars left.

With no aircon or heater, and one person only, but at 100 Km / Hr , we used 9 Kw up and 7 Kw back. For this trip we did not recharge to see if it could be done on one tank.

Overall, we loved the iMiEV for acceleration and performance when range was not a worry, and yet it was a concern on the long range tests so we were careful to drive carefully and smoothly.

The problem we feel may be an issue is that hirers may also test out the performance and be left stranded without power, at much shorter ranges.

For this reason, we have considered hiring it out with this range sticker on the dash:

Range with one person at 85 Kgs:
With no heater or aircon being used, flat terrain, range approx 80 kms.
With aircon on, flat terrain, range approx 70 Kms.
With Heater on, flat terrain, range approx 50 Kms.

With each extra person at 85 Kgs, the range may be 5 km less.
Range with four persons, Flat terrain, approx 60 Kms.
Range with four Persons, Flat terrain, aircon on, approx 50 Kms.
Range with four Persons, Flat terrain, heater on, approx 30 Kms.

There is a reserve of approx 7 kms without heater or aircon.

I think for four people and in Winter, the range will be too short, so my boss has said no to buying the car for hiring out.

In Summer, especially with the windows open instead of aircon and say with two people,it would be fun to hire out.

If we could just get some fast chargers set up here, it would be a goer.

MMNZ have said no to helping fund these so it will be not likely we see these cars in big amounts in NZ for a while.

In other news, the dealer has helped out with a really good price for a show car, and so I am trying to convince the boss here to buy one for a office car instead. Before insurance and maintenance, it should be around $ 28 per day to own.

Our already brought petrol car uses $ 14 per day in fuel so.....it is a uphill battle to convince the boss.

If anyone keen in Canterbury, NZ is keen to lease or hire out one of these from us, at $ 35 per day, we would jump at it.!.


If the car had another 20 % range it would be fine for hiring out. We did find though if one was prepared to drive more slowly the range was far better.

These cars will sell well for local trips with careful drivers, if the pricing could get to compete with the fuel savings of petrol cars of same size.

Michael.