Help me buy an iMiev

[PV1]

Thanks. Just to pull an overnight, you'd definitely need level 2 charging if you plan to do a commute test. I guess it would be enough to explore the car in depth or to do a highway range test.

I was looking to buy next March, and my farthest drive for work is 55 miles one-way mostly on the highway at 65 mph. Level 2 charging would be available at 3 kW (see thread http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=533, except I found a 220 VAC inverter), so I would start home with a full charge, or near full charge.

 

[iMiEVNZ7]

Hi PV1,
We asked the dealer if we could take it for a weekend test drive, which is is pretty common for petrol and Diesel cars here. We picked it up on the Friday, went for a trip over the hills near Christchurch, on the sort of route a tourist might take, and got back to home with about 14 Km spare.

On the way home we took a friend for a drive, and he was impressed with the take off and heated seat.

After arriving home, we found another friend had heard about us picking up the imiev, so we took him for a quick spin down the road and back twice. He was also impressed with the ride and pick up.

We reversed the car up the driveway to recharge and on plugging in, had around 7 Km left on the RR and I think, one or two bars. The RR might have been reduced somewhat by the driving style of testing take off...

The next day after a cheap overnight charge on 240 volts, 19 cents NZ about 16 cents US, per Kw / Hr so x 16 Kw = $ 3. 04 NZ / about $ 2. 57 , my boss took it to a client's place about 20 km away, and return another 20 Km.

I think we then did a bit of driving around and recharged it to full again. The best RR we saw on starting up after a full recharge was 128 Km.


On Sunday I took it around to test at Sheffield and back. 107 Km round trip with three people on board. Got back on the turtle mode.

On Monday, took it to show a technician friend and he took his family to class with it and when he got back we recharged the car while talking on the phone to Chargepoint rep re a fast charger. Took longer than the call of course, but we did note an approx 1 km per three minute recharge rate while on the phone for 15 minutes.

We fully recharged then dropped the car back on Monday night around 5 pm.


The next weekend, we did more tests and they were happy to let us have the car again from Friday to I think Tuesday.

I think we clocked up about 400 Km. we are really keen to buy it, God willing...and being able to convince the boss.

With regards to what people we show the car to think, great acceleration, good inside space, looks funny, like a mini does, and wow the price is about twice what they expect it to be, and the range, even though they know they only travel within the range normally, it is what if we need to go somewhere on the way home, unplanned.. that makes them think no not suitable.That is from the people who live about 50 km away from work, unless they can recharge at work it, there is no buffer in the max range. For long trips most of the people they can use their petrol car though.

In essence, if the makers or promoters of the cars can provide recharging stations that are quick or near a parking space that people can leave them there while at work, and sell enough cars to bring the price to closer to a petrol car, then the imiev will sell really well.


So what are we doing as a company ? We aim to buy two imievs with an option to get up to four, place quick chargers around the city and on the main tourist routes, and hopefully get the cars out and about with tourists or long term hires, every day, so they pay for the infrustucture in five years.

If enough people and firms get together on infrustructure, the imiev is certainly going to be sold in good volumes. The key is, the recharge points need to be plentiful and work out significantly cheaper than filling the same sized car with petrol in the fuel tank.

The top ups should also be cheaper than a full charge to encourage having a near full tank so people have plenty of range.

Essentially, people will buy electric cars in large volumes , once range and availability of easy and fast charging or at least charging while working, is common place. To achieve that, companies need to look at offering a recharge as a public service and an advertising opportunity to promote their green business.


We hope to pick up our first imiev in November.

 

[freddotu]

I have to say that buying a new vehicle and selling or disposing of the old ones ranks right up there with the unpleasant task of moving a household or finding a new job.

We dropped into the local dealership today to see how much of a trade-in our barely used Scion xA would bring. A 2005 model xA on kelly blue book's web site suggests nearly ten thousand from a private sale and more than eight thousand from a dealer for trade-in. The examination was completed at the dealer in a rather short time, I thought and the internet-sales guy offered us six thousand. That's a far cry from KBB and I noted that. His response was that Kelly Blue Book isn't going to write us a check. When I said I wanted eight grand, he proffered "six, maybe seven" and I said no thanks and took the key back.

I understand that they have to do a bit of detailing to put it on the market, but this car is pristine with only a few scratches in the plastic bumper. It didn't get much wear after 29,001 miles over the last eight years.

We won't be talking to that dealer until one of the two vehicles we no longer need have been sold. Ideally, I'll be able to sell both of them and be all the more financially ready to walk away from the dealer with the silver ES that's been a lot lizard for five months now. They've taken delivery of yet another i to the lot, even though none of them seem to be moving off the lot. Seven of them clustered around the one EV area collecting some serious sun time.

 

[Don]

In the old days . . . . they would give you $8K in trade for a car worth only $6K because there was all sorts of 'headroom' between what they had in the new car they were selling you and what you were paying them for it - You could either talk them down a couple thousand pretty easily on a cash deal, or they would give you a couple extra on your trade . . . . they were still making good money on the deal, especially if they were financing it. Unfortunately, now there's next to no money in financing and there is next to nothing left on these cars - The dealer makes much less selling you an i than just about any new Mitsubishi he has on the lot, even the cheaper ones. So, they're really discouraging trades of any kind in most cases. That's what he was telling you . . . . he only wants your car if he can make a few hundred wholesaling it to an auction company where a used car dealer will buy it for a couple grand under the book

Our dealer offered us $1600 on our ten year old car with 125K on it. We declined, stuck a sign in the windshield for $4500 and sold it the next day for $4300

If you have a nice, clean, low mileage car, selling it locally for a good price shouldn't be that hard. Most folks would prefer buying a car from the original owner than getting the same car from a dealership. I would certainly try marketing it on your own first and consider a trade only as a last resort. At least put a sign in the window with a phone number and a price and drive it around for a few days - You might be surprised

Don

 

[freddotu]

Directly connected to your sage advise, our Scion is in the driveway, with four, count 'em, four signs, with price, phone number, mpg and other such inanities. Cars dot com is running an ad for me. Well, not for me, since I paid for it, but there's one out there too. Got a call today from what I think must have been a dealer, based on the background noise, but fair price is too high for him, so he declined to purchase. I'm going to see how much it would cost to get the minor scratches touched up, since that should improve the resale value a bit. That's if it doesn't sell out from under the effort.

Not being in a hurry to sell, not being in a hurry to buy and having one primary vehicle for my wife (Rav4EV) and three secondary vehicles for me takes a good bit of the pressure off. In a pinch, I have a fourth secondary vehicle, but riding solo on a tandem recumbent is a lot more work than I'd care to exert!