iMiEV as workhorse

[rgalvinmi]

I haul our 2 bikes on our rack....works great.

[img]http://i468.photobucket.com/al... 2015/feb 2015001/imiev_zpsxhajkjxz.png[/img]

 

[Don]

I haul our 2 bikes on our rack....works great.

:shock: :shock: Eeek!! I think one of them fell off!! :lol:

Don

 

[bennelson]

I've always loved hatchbacks for the way you can haul such surprisingly large cargo with them.

I've only had my iMiEV for 2 weeks, but It's been great for both an 8' step ladder and the set of snow tires for our Prius.

I look forward to getting a towing package for the car.

 

[databeestje]

Well, what i did find yesterday is that the car comes with isofix mounts standard (2010), yay, but when putting the maxi-cosi onto the family fix it becomes awkward because the top of the front seat is in het way to push it into the lock.

You need to put the seat quite far forward, upright so that the maxi-cosi fits. Otherwise it's fine though, the rest of the stuff came along fine too. Could have been worse. It's a niggle that I don't have with the Suzuki Swift. Oh well, since I drive alone in the car it's not the end of the world.

I was surprised to find the isofix mounts came as standard, the old Peugeot 206 didn't have them, but the Suzuki Swift does too.

 

[bennelson]

Also good for hauling firewood.
Here, I have 8 bags of construction "waste" cut-offs and a piece of plywood.

 

[JoeS]

I had shown this previously, but thought an update might be in order. Many years ago I had bought a nice lightweight non-slip-backed indoor/outdoor carpet at Home Depot, which I cut to shape for the back of my Insights and i-MiEVs and boat. Unfortunately when I needed to add carpet to my newest used-iMiEV's entire rear compartment, I had run out of this stuff and Home Depot no longer carries it. Purely by accident I found some at Costco a few months ago, and I bought a roll and I kept the label: It's called Clean Green Indooor/Outdoor Area Rug, but when I just now tried to look it up on the Costco website, it's not shown. Anyway, it's tough stuff and I'm extremely pleased with it and it has done a great job of protecting the rear seatbacks (in the down position) for years. The label says it's made of 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles and is antimicrobial, made by Foss Mfg. Co. in Hampton NH. http://eco-fi.com. Velcro hooks stick to it and it easily cuts with scissors. I have no affiliation with this outfit. Even though I've carried some very heavy stuff back there, I haven't felt the need for a plywood underlayment as this carpet cushions and distributes the load a bit. Our normal mode is to keep the i-MiEV in station-wagon mode, with three Rubbermaid containers wedged into place. Groceries are carried into the house by simply grabbing a container.

 

[wmcbrine]

This is about the largest thing I think I could fit into my i-MiEV -- a pair of 79"-tall bookcases from Ikea:

I had to kind of hold onto them half the time, and drive very carefully, but it worked.

BTW, my local Ikea (College Park) has a nice display about how they're covering their roof with solar panels, and hope to produce more energy than they consume by 2020. But they have no EV chargers (unlike this UK Ikea (w/ i-MiEV)).

 

[JoeS]

wmcbrine, thanks for posting. I'm still trying to figure out how you got the passenger seatback down so far as to lay those boxes on top of it. What a great tight fit!

I moved your post over to this thread so there's a single place to show all our wacky packing schemes - hope you don't mind.

Ikea in Palo Alto has a Blink charging station - one of the very early EVSE installations.

 

[PV1]

wmcbrine, thanks for posting. I'm still trying to figure out how you got the passenger seatback down so far as to lay those boxes on top of it. What a great tight fit

That's easy. Remove both headrests from the right side seats and fold down the back seat, slide the front seat all the way forward, and lay it back. It doesn't sit completely flat, but it works quite well.

One of my improvement suggestions would be to make the front seat flip forward and lay flat, then we'd have a flat floor all the way to the dash.

I have a couple of pictures. I'll have to see if I posted them already.

 

[jray3]

Latest big haul in MR BEAN was a Weber grill. You shoulda seen the salesman's face when I pulled around to get it loaded up!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u55vc162j4dyoup/IMG_0675[1].JPG?dl=0

 

[phb10186]

Latest big haul in MR BEAN was a Weber grill. You shoulda seen the salesman's face when I pulled around to get it loaded up!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u55vc162j4dyoup/IMG_0675[1].JPG?dl=0

A black I-MIEV doesn't actually look that dissimilar to the original Weber kettle BBQ really...

 

[Phximiev]

LOL

:lol:

 

[jray3]

Curse you phb10186, for planting that idea! I've got an old tilt-down bicycle carrier for the hitch receiver, and now have quite the itch to mount a black Weber kettle grill on it for tailgating...

 

[blackheart]

Curse you phb10186, for planting that idea! I've got an old tilt-down bicycle carrier for the hitch receiver, and now have quite the itch to mount a black Weber kettle grill on it for tailgating...

:lol:

 

[sandange]

Too funny,

 

[blackheart]

Too funny,

Mitsu might have actually increased their sales of the little car - with the optional 'tailgate BBQ'..... But to make it flow, it should really be an electric grill...

 

[bennelson]

Great, now I REALLY want to mount my "Solar Death Ray" to my iMiev hitch to make a solar cooker for tailgating.

 

[phb10186]

Too funny,

Mitsu might have actually increased their sales of the little car - with the optional 'tailgate BBQ'..... But to make it flow, it should really be an electric grill...

Only in America would that increase sales. In the UK, you may prefer the '4 seat transportable cream tea dining table'. On a serious note, the Brits are hopeless at securing towable stuff / items to roof racks - don't ask me why, but as a nation we just don't do it well. May be a London thing - we are especially useless at that manly stuff... just pay someone with an old van to do it for you and save the car.

If a 110cc/ 8bhp Honda Wave step-through bike can tow a cement mixer, think of all the good stuff an I-MiEV can tow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R4WC94_osQ

 

[JoeS]

This photo (taken last Fall) shows Mitti (my i-MiEV with the trailer hitch) coming back from its weekly 1/2-mile recycling/trash/brush run down to the main road.

 

[blackheart]

I will have some pics to post tomorrow. Jack carried 50 landscape blocks and some plants home today