Mitsubishi Owners Day

[Lithim]

Greetings electronauts,
Mitsubishi is hosting a Mitsubishi Owners Day at its Normal, Illinois plant on Sept. 26, from 9-1. according to an e-mail I received today. Any I-Miev owners in the area might want to attend to show their enthusiasm for their electric vehicles.
On the other hand, the event seems like a strange idea in light of Mitsubishi's plan to close that plant in the near future.
Stay charged my friend.

 

[davidricardo86]

I wanted to go but that's a long trip from Chicago.

 

[jray3]

e event seems like a strange idea in light of Mitsubishi's plan to close that plant in the near future.
Stay charged my friend.

Very strange, but just the latest in Mitsubishi's long string of marketing gaffes. :roll:

 

[DaveMiller]

Since I live nearby, I attended yesterday’s Mitsubishi Owner’s Day event. I arrived just after the beginning time of 9 AM. I was astounded by how many people the event attracted. They had designated parking sorted by your vehicle model. I-Miev parking was farthest from the tents and being used for overflow parking. My I-Miev was the only I-Miev. Many people had traveled hundreds of miles to attend from surrounding states, so I guess poor I-Miev show up is understandable.

The parking lot was full of hoods up showing off chrome and engine modifications for racing. It was gear head heaven for most. The tents had giveaways such as service manuals and posters of race cars. I found nothing for the I-Miev owners. I lost interest in waiting for the factory tour and left after an hour. I did see one other I-Miev in line coming in as I was leaving.

This made me think about why I-Mievs have not sold well. I am old enough to be the father of most of those kids I saw yesterday drooling over engines. I doubt any of them would consider an EV at this point in their lives. They might like a Tesla P85D, but I doubt few if any could afford that car. Nor would the P85D be a good off road racing vehicle. The “Mitsubishi brand” just does not attract EV customers. The people who do show to look at an I-Miev, have a big selection of other cars to distract them.

In the past, I have wasted money on Mustangs and other V8 gas guzzling vehicles. I think I have smartened up (in my opinion) and would rather waste my money on things other than gas at this point in my life. Plus I love the simplicity of an EV. It is just better technology. I doubt I would have thought that way 30 years ago.

I do think Tesla has an advantage because they don’t have a gas car in their (electronic or mall) show rooms. People looking at a Tesla are interested in an EV. I hope the model 3 delivers on their promises by the time my I-Miev needs to be replaced.

Just my thoughts,
Dave

 

[PV1]

That's sad to hear. Wasn't Normal the town they brought dozens of i-MiEVs for people to use? Or was that only for their promotional video?

 

[Phximiev]

Manufacturers are short sighted, just look at VW. Mitsubishi's motives? Who knows, but they appear to be PHEV Outlander "focused" on the electric side and determined to survive on the other.

Once an 'Miev is sold, how does a dealer make money? It appears to me that they don't. At least that's the preliminary picture.

Once a gas car is sold, one only has to look at the service department to see where the money is. The Mitsubishi Day is the same. With electrics, how do they keep their existing customers?

Follow the money.

 

[Don]

Plus I love the simplicity of an EV. It is just better technology. I doubt I would have thought that way 30 years ago.

My thoughts exactly

You design an ICE and then you need a cooling system. Unless you want to handcrank it, you need a fairly complicated self starting system. You need to let it idle when you come to a stop sign, so you need a clutch of some sort to disconnect the engine from the driveline. The engine has a fairly narrow torque band so if you want good low speed performance and highway capabilities, you need some sort of transmission - In the old days, it was a 2 speed Chevy PowerGlide, but now automatic transmissions are 6 or 7 or even 8 speeds . . . . and of course, you need a reverse if you want to back up

With electric (or steam) you have maximum torque at minimal RPM's so no transmission, clutch or reversing gears are needed. No 200 degree liquids to deal with, no oil or filter changes, no exhaust system to rust out and leak, no carrying around 15 or 20 or 30 gallons of explosive liquid just looking for a spark in the event of an accident

Simplicity, technology, engineering - That about says it all

Don

 

[DaveMiller]

Wasn't Normal the town they brought dozens of i-MiEVs for people to use? Or was that only for their promotional video?

Yes, Normal is EV town http://www.evtown.org/ . Take a look at Plugshare http://www.plugshare.com/ and you will see 30+ public level 2 chargers, 1 CHAdeMO, and 4 Tesla Super Chargers in our Bloomington/Normal area. All are free. We have Nissan, Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota and Mitsubishi dealers who sell EVs/PHEVs. There are also several wind farms nearby. Over 100 windmills silently generate power with corn or beans growing around them. just outside of the city limits. When I moved to Normal 4 years ago, there were hopes to get about 1000 EVs on our streets. Normal also being home to a Mitsubishi plant, the majority were expected to be I-Mievs. I think the bad I-Miev reviews really hurt that initial goal. Rumors I hear is that we only got to about 250. Many of those were leased, so I suspect that number is smaller today. I am hoping for a turn around when new models come out over the next few years. In my opinion, Normal is a great place to own an EV. Any brand EV.

Dave

 

[BenBrown]

How well does this compare to our national presence at the Drive Electric Week events. Mitsubishi i-MiEV's were in the top 10 of 40 represented models with 51 Mitsubishis at 43 different events around the country... There may be no correlation, but we have a new meev owner 7 days after the event in our area.

Mitsubishi is absolutely with no doubt not alone in under selling their bev electric cars. The Only way bev's are going to be sold in the next few years is by owner word of mouth and our use of media. This website alone probably has produced more sales than any dealer alone. The video we showed on our NDEW-Kalamazoo website caused several people to drive an hour just to ride in my i-miev even though there were Teslas at our event.

I one statement that stuckin my head... "no description matches the physical sensation of riding in (or driving) an electric car." I heard variations of that idea from almost everyone that has ridden in my car.

Maybe we won't reach the yearly average of 15 new ev sales per 100 rides... but chances are we could increase the yearly sales by simply encouraging more people to ride in our cars! --- I believe enough for Mitsu to take notice. ((I know one manufactuer flew in to see our event, because they couldn't believe what they were hearing about the interest we generated... and we are just above a village level.))...