carnut1100
Well-known member
Back in 2013, I was, as usual, making a nuisance of myself by sticking my nose in the Mitsubishi dealer looking at their iMiEV demo.
Here in Australia, the 2010 was never sold, about 120 of them were brought out and leased for 3 years to various organisations as a trial, then the 2012 was brought here as a regular model.
Unfortunately, they were too expensive and didn't sell, and were dumped by Mitsubishi at a loss.
Retail price was $A49k and the dealer was ditching their demo for $30k.
At this time, the 2010 cars were coming off lease and bring auctioned.
I lamented that there weren't any in Tasmania, and the dealer said there was one...Mitsubishi used this one in a touring road show then gave it to Hobart for a demo, but they already had a 2012 demo on order, so they parked it in the spare parts lobby and ignored it.
I asked if it was for sale, and the dealer contacted head office who said I could have it for $19,500 or they would auction it...so I jumped on it.
Turns out, it had 387km on the clock...
A good friend of mine liked it so much, she started looking for one for herself...and found a demo in Sydney going for $21k.
It was a 2012 in dealer demo wrap.
Not long later, we got together, and eventually got married...a decision which would cost me my iMiEV and a house, but that's later.
We had what I believe to be the only his and hers pair in Australia at the time.
Over the next 2 years, I put 40,000km on it, in a state which did not have a single public charger at the time.
We found many charging opportunities though.
One day we switched cars, as she wanted to pick up some shopping but had some boxes of stuff in the back of hers to deliver to a friend...so I took hers for the day.
I came to a stop at the end of a row of traffic at a red light.
The van behind me stopped too.
The 4x4 behind him smashed into the van at high speed, pushing him into me, and me into the car in front, before spinning across the second lane and collecting a Jeep.
4 of the 5 cars were totals.
The iMiEV could have been repaired, but the whole rear structure was bent and twisted, the shock wrapped round the axle like a banana, and the tow bar of the front car had messed up a lot of stuff behind the bumper.
It went to a guy who was planning to use the parts in a conversion.
Mine kept going, but we had moved further from town, it couldn't go to town and back without a top up charge in town, and my with required a 4x4 and towing a trailer, so the iMiEV was bring used only for running around the village.
She wanted to start a business, and the iMiEV was sold to get start up capital.
The new owner lived in an off grid house, and charged it by solar and micro-hydro.
He later bought a Tesla 3, but kept the iMiEV, and as of last year he still owned it and it was still going strong.
