Overview

The i-MiEV was Mitsubishi’s first attempt at building an electric car, and initially things looked promising. Both Peugeot and Citroen rebadged it as the iOn and the C-Zero respectively. So the question was whether such a car could really work with limited infrastructure as it was then and such strong competition from other manufacturers. How do you get ahead of the curve when offering almost exactly the same product as two other manufacturers?

One way is to aim it squarely at two demographics: the young and the young-at-heart. That’s what the Japanese manufacturer has done. As well as being a little faster than the French attempts, i-MiEV customers can also ‘personalise’ their cars by adding graphics to the roof and wing mirrors reminiscent of a teenager’s Japanese interpretive art coursework.

Behind the wheel you were greeted with panels adorned in modern-looking fabrics, a large touch-screen satnav and a Momo handbrake handle that wouldn’t look out of place in the kind of car normally spotted in the car park of a popular fast food outlet. So it seems Mitsubishi has decided that angling for the younger vote is the way forward. But dis it work, and was it capable of stealing some of the Nissan Leaf’s limelight?