Greetings everyone on the forum!
I just thought I would post another update to my love relationship with my car. When I first bought this car it was an experiment to see if I would actually like owning an electric vehicle before making the leap to a Tesla. However I have come to love my car so much, that I'm going to put off buying a Tesla, because this car fulfills everything I actually need for my commuting to work. Why spend the money if I'm already happy?
For example, it has been quite warm here in Little Rock recently, and as a result I run the air conditioner on maximum and it almost freezes me out of the car. Because my commute is only a few miles each way, I think around five miles perhaps, I have had zero range anxiety which is really nice, and the car performs so beautifully. This daily 10 mile round trip commute, plus shopping and local businesses and errands, etc., is all I need.
I find when I run everything on maximum, such as the air conditioner, driving at over 70 miles per hour on the freeway versus my normal surface street route, etc, that my full charge lasts only about 4 days so I end up charging a second time towards the end of the week versus my normal once-weekly charge on Sundays.
All I can say is that so many of the naysayers online who are quick to discount the people who own this car are speaking out of ignorance and not really knowing what this car is meant for or what it's intended to do. I really love mine. I have not driven my gas hog luxury sedan at ALL so far since owning the i-MiEV (other than just start it to avoid having the car go dead in the garage).
I recently ordered the dashboard kit to convert to a touch screen, however I went a little wild with the whole idea. I have no reason for a navigation unit or anything fancy however I want to do it just because I'm going to make this car into a fun car for me. So I purchased a 10-inch touch screen smart Android car system with built in 4G for around $600, it's a higher-end system and sounds amazing. I rough fitted the unit into the opening and the screen easily clears all of the steering wheel stalks etc and it in no way blocks the air conditioner vents that are just below the stereo. The screen tilts up and down for optimal viewing angle as well. The actual chassis of the unit is a standard double din size, so it's easy to install.
Once I have that installation made permanent I will post some pictures because it really is a fun project and it gives the car that Tesla feel LOL
Also, I have been looking for some really cool graphics to have professionally applied to the outside of my car to show that it's an electric vehicle and to stick my tongue out at those people who still rely so heavily on gas for even a short commute to a market 2 miles away. I hate when I see a huge 10 passenger SUV with one person in it commuting, it's ridiculous.
In one video, I saw that an i-MiEV had along the bottom of the doors on the sides of the vehicle a black graphic spelling out "Mitsubishi Innovative Electric Vehicle" which I thought looked stellar. if I could find and purchase those graphics somewhere that would be great, but if not I also have someone here who does graphics for a living and can produce them for me by custom making them. That would be fun to have applied to the sides of the car just as shown in that photograph.
Another pending project is I'm going to have the seats re-covered in leather, although it won't be the higher-end leather it will be the lower level of leather that is normally produced from factory scrap and then pressed into leather, I forget the name of this material. However since the outside of the car is that really pretty metallic sapphire blue, I'm going to have the seats done in a two-tone black and sapphire blue leather.
I think part of what drives me to try to make this car so quirky and fun and really stand out even more is that I used to have a smart car which had bright colors all over it, a bright colored dashboard and accent colors and it was really fun and always would be a conversation starter. At being such an affordable vehicle, it's not hard to put your own stamp on it and make it uniquely your own
Recently, since I park in my reserved space which is right near the main door to the lobby of my office building, many times I have come out of work and people were standing near my car and right away wanted to ask all about it, how many miles does it get, what's it like to own one. Why was I not driving my big sedan that is normally there... Questions like that. And of course I'm always too happy to go on and on about how wonderful it is to own this vehicle and I have not been to a gas station now in months. And I love it.
I also hope that anyone who comes across this forum and reads our posts and might be on the fence about getting one of these cute little electric vehicles just takes the leap of faith and they won't be sorry. I was very unsure before I bought mine but I'm so glad that I did. And having such wonderful people like the ones here on this forum with which to exchange ideas and get advice has been invaluable to me.
I hope you are all staying very healthy and safe and I look forward to seeing more new posts on the forum very soon! Have a terrific day everyone!
Michael
