Buy a used i-MiEV?

[sgtlethargic]

Hello. I've been wanting an inexpensive used EV for in-town driving. A 2012 model is for sale locally. It's said to have a 50-mile city range and has less than 60k miles on the odometer. Wikipedia says it has a permanent magnet synchronous motor (then BLDC pops up) and a lithium-ion battery pack. If it's still available when I'm no longer testing positive for COVID, I'll go look at it. Good guidance is appreciated.

First, what are some questions that I should ask the seller? Maybe they can give clues about the battery health and other common concerns.

Thanks!

 

[jray3]

Welcome to the forum. I just sold one of my i-MiEVs to just such a fellow who works from home and just needs to run local errands. The car was still capable of about 50 summer miles and 30 winter miles, but a 2012 i-MiEV battery condition could vary tremendously. The warranty-replaced battery packs are better than the original packs, but relatively few were replaced. If you can download the CANion app on an Android phone and run it, it'll give you the best data of all. But anyway, I would take it for a long test drive with just a couple of jaunts up to high speed to check for vibrations, etc.. and see how many miles you can cover in your expected driving conditions. Don't run the heater much, but turning it on periodically along the way will help see if the turtle pops out. A turtle icon on the dash indicates that at least one cell voltage is too low, but with an original 2012 battery this would be expected in very cold weather under full acceleration and heat at a low state of charge. In that case if the turtle goes away as soon as you ease off of acceleration, I would expect years of continued but gradually declining service...