Mitsubishi Motors meets Southern California Edison

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) has recently announced plans to form a collaborative effort with Southern California Edison (SCE) for an extended testing and evaluation period of the MiEV all-electric vehicle in U.S. markets. For the last couple of years, MMC has been conducting extensive testing of the MiEV in Japan, and the successful results have encouraged company officials to bump-up introduction to the Japanese market to 2009 and begin earnest testing in America right away.

SEC has something to gain as well. They hope to learn, along with Mitsubishi, how electric vehicles can most effectively connect to "smart grids" (electricity distribution networks that use advanced communications and computers to efficiently and reliably dispense electricity to end users) in general and to new generation Edison SmartConnect advanced meters in particular. According to a Mitsubishi press release, Edward Kjaer, SCE's director of electric transportation had this to say: "Southern California Edison has more than 20 years and 16 million EV miles of experience operating the nation's largest fleet of electric vehicles. This new EV collaboration with Mitsubishi complements SCE's existing work on plug-in hybrids and next-generation advanced batteries and their effective connection and control by Edison's next-generation meters."

The MiEV electric vehicle uses a zero-emissions electric drivetrain consisting of a heavy-duty 330-volt lithium-ion battery pack and 47 kW electric traction motor. This battery, developed by Mitsubishi in joint partnership with GS Yuasa, Lithium Energy Japan, promises a range of up to 100 miles on a single charge when packaged in the MiEV.

This all sounds soooo good. But remember ... we've been down this road before with the state of California and the General Motors EV-1. Recall that? The California Air Resources Board was pushing very hard for zero emissions, California utilities built charging stations galore, and GM delivered dozens and dozens of EV-1s to eager So Cal customers. Even Ford (Ranger EV), Toyota (RAV4 EV) and Honda (EV Plus) jumped on the band wagon. Yet, all of this support notwithstanding, it still all went up in smoke. It hurts to see these promising technologies get eaten-up by the political machine. Let's just hope all parties have their heads screwed on straight this time.

i MiEV plug-in electric car - photo © Mitsubishi Motors