Next step in the i-MiEV saga

There are many precedents for introducing a new product to market through a leasing program -- but cars haven't been among them.

Mitsubishi, acknowledging that electric cars are expensive to purchase, will launch the tiny i-MiEV battery electric vehicle to the Australian market via a 'Foundation Customer Group'. The members of this group will lease 40 of the cars from Mitsubishi over a three-year program, paying the Adelaide-based importer $1740 per calendar month.

President of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, Osamu Masuko, delivered the announcement to the Australian press yesterday.

"The key issue, facing the industry at the moment," he said, "is increased demand from new markets -- emerging economies -- while sales in mature markets remain static. Increased environmental concerns have also become a major issue."

"These two factors are affecting the way we do business and have seen, globally, a shift from large passenger vehicles to smaller, more efficient and economical cars.

"Environmentally, MMC has a strong advantage over our competitors. Already, we have launched a mass-produced electric vehicle in the i-MiEV and we are on track to launch our first plug-in hybrid by 2013.

"In Japan we have sold 1400 units [of the i-MiEV] in fiscal year 2009. We have just announced an increase in production and plan to build more than 40,000 units by fiscal year 2012."

"The i-MiEV has been attracting a lot of attention in Australia and I'm pleased to announce that we can now confirm that an additional 40 units will be arriving here from July and August. These vehicles will take part in further long-term trials with high-profile users and represent the first electric vehicles available on the Australian market.

"This announcement will ensure that we will be number one in bringing the electric vehicle to Australia.

"We will continue our discussion with Australian federal and state governments regarding the policy changes and infrastructure required to support a full-scale launch of these vehicles in the Australian market."

Prior to the press conference, Masuko-san had met with Australian federal minister for infrastructure and transport, Anthony Albanese, minister for climate change, Penny Wong and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. According to the MMC president, the meeting was "positive".

The current purchase price for the i-MiEV in Japan is ¥4 million before incentives, which equates in current exchange rates to around AUD $51,000. Mitsubishi has said in the past that such a purchase price is beyond the means or the environmental commitment of private buyers, so the importer is placing its faith in the federal government to offer incentives that will ease the pain, but Masuko's visit to Canberra was also aimed at raising the consciousness of federal politicians with regard to EV-supporting infrastructure.

Paul Stevenson, VP for Strategy and P&A Business at Mitsubishi Motors Australia, subsequently explained the logic and background to the decision to launch the electric kei-car here through the leasing program.

"The 40 cars we've got coming in, we've had such interest -- demand basically -- for the cars, that... [since] everyone wants to be the first customer for an electric vehicle... we just determined the fairest way to approach this is to establish a Foundation Customer Group," he said.

"So basically, tomorrow morning, everyone we've been talking to -- and that's every state government, federal government, a range of departments there, a whole series of major fleet customers, some key corporates -- will be getting a letter from Mitsubishi inviting them to contact us if they'd like to be part of our Foundation Customer Group -- with the notion that we've got a close-off date at the end of this month; so that early July we'll assess the applications that we get for the vehicles, to really try to select potential customers that have the best ability to largely co-promote electric vehicles in Australia with us.

"This is a pretty important next stage for Mitsubishi, in trying to raise the overall awareness, understanding and profile of EVs."

Stevenson didn't care to speculate how many applicants there would be for the Foundation Customer Group, but did allow that there was a lot of current interest in the i-MiEV.

"Certainly, all of the indications we've got at present is that it will be fairly oversubscribed."

Despite Australia being one of the last bastions of large-capacity passenger cars, SUVs and commercials, Stevenson believes that it's a market ripe for broad-scale EV adoption. For a start, we have a national power grid running 240 Volts and most car owners can park their vehicles off the street -- in garages connected to the grid.

All the i-MiEV needs to recharge overnight is a 15-Amp power outlet such as household air conditioning and central heating systems employ. Mitsubishi claims that with our 240-Volt system, the i-MiEV can recharge in about eight hours and provide a range of up to 160km, although in a practical scenario the range is likely to be somewhere between 120 and 160km.

"One of the clearest messages we've had with EVs in Australia," said Stevenson, "is that overseas there are some hurdles to getting them out into the market -- in terms of needing a recharge infrastructure -- whereas we've said fairly consistently that we don't believe that's a barrier to entry in Australia, simply because we've got this fantastic set-up where we all have off-street parking. So they can be recharged at home."

Stevenson defended the Foundation Customer Group strategy when it was pointed out that the Customers would not own the cars after the three years.

"Some of this is, really, protecting customers a little bit. We're in the early stages of new technology -- it's not so much the technology, but we know the price is going to come down fairly severely over the next few years. What we actually can do with the cars or what's fair on the customer in three years' time is going to be easier to determine."

It's not just the price of the car in three years' time that cannot be foreseen. The whole future for EVs remains murky. If ethanol-fuelled plug-in hybrids take off, for example, or someone develops a cheap and easy means of producing hydrogen in industrial-scale quantities -- EV programs everywhere could be under threat.

And three years is not even far off, when most car companies believe that around 80 per cent of vehicles will still be part-powered by internal-combustion engines, come 2020.