Buying a used electric car?

I would suggest that you communicate with the Australian Electric Vehicle Association.

Surely, they will have knowledge of local conditions affecting EV use and resale Down Under.
A member may have personal knowledge/info on the car.

Then again, they just might do an "inside job," and get there firstest with the mostest.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

Sounds about right as it's a high mileage in one year for an electric vehicle. I'm guessing it'll have been fast charged with the DC chademo charger to allow for 50k km in 12 months and I understand that on some EV's using fast charging every day can reduce the life of the battery.

Guess it depends on what you'd use it for. Who ever owned it is taking a big hit in one year so it might be worth a punt. How cool would it be to have an EV? And if you assume a HV battery life of 60k miles/100k km then you are half way there.

To put it in context - just done a UK search for 2nd hand Imievs at there is a 2010 going for £16k with 5k miles on it.

Used MITSUBISHI I-MIEV Car for Sale - Auto Trader UK

 

sounds like it's worth a flyer, how much would new batts cost?

 

If you can you should check how far you can drive that baby on a fully charged battery. Run a couple of cycles. If you are close to the advertised range you should be OK. According to the latest news Mits says that the batteries can pretty well tolerate fast charges.

On the side...I also drive a 2008 Prius and the best I can get is 4.9 l/100km - in the summer. How on earth can you average 3.9 l/100km? You either drive all the way downhill, or are Aussy litres bigger than Canadian litres or are your kilometres shorter? (I don't think so....)

Cheers mate!

 

Nothing in the advert appears to indicate that it is electric; quite the opposite actually.

 

I think that's because most car sales websites don't have an electric fuel option.

 

The traction pack is likely going to last for quite a while. There may be a warranty that comes with it too. Even if not, there are several aftermarket companies thay may allow you to purchase a warranty if the car's condition bothers you. If this IS an EV, it's a bargain!

.

 

i think you got a great deal. like one third retail on a car with 31,000 miles?? sorry hard to see how you could possibly do wrong on that and i on my 2nd EV and i can tell you, a lot of people will try to scare you into thinking different spouting off information they 1) know nothing about, 2) have no personal exprience with 3) using invalid analogies with other battery/charging experiences


but then again. dont believe me. lets take a worst case since we already know the benefits of an "average used EV owner experience" would be

ok, it has 31,000 miles on it which is fairly new for any car, so will guess no major mechanical malfunction and tires that will probably go another 10-30,000 miles. so no real near time expense there.


range is very adequate for you now and will be for the near term. but suppose we have a battery pack failure. i have little knowledge on the i MEV pack but guessing it a bunch of individually replaceable modules. generally pack failure can be fixed by replacing anywhere from one to a few modules. with labor, we might be talking about $5,000. i doubt if it would be much more than that, but what if it were 10,000.

ok, so now we have $26,000 into it. i take that any day. replacing your entire pack would probably still get you a near new car for much less that $48,000.

but the battery chemistry has been tested and should last. i would fully expect individual battery module failures. nothing is perfect so failures will happen and in a pack environment, if you have say 48 modules, any variance in the pack will muliply that difference 48 times. so your odds are much higher because of the multi module situation. but at that the same time, its still probably not going to be that bad.

keep in mind, out of balance modules manifest themselves early. if you have 31,000 miles and are seeing minimal range degradation at this point, you have a well balanced pack which bodes very well.

like i said. a lot of clueless people will try to tell you different but i think you pretty much stole the car

 

case in point; this is FUD. or at best a matter of definition.

the statement in itself maybe true, but we currently do not have "fast charging" that is fast enough to do any real damage. the charging to 80% in 30 minutes we have all heard about is really not very fast at all.

the charge to 80% in 5 or 10 minutes is. but that is rumored to be at least 10 years away. so what you say might be true, but it is not true today

DC Fast Charging: Mitsubishi Says You Can Do It Every Day

 

Dave I'm glad you brought that up. I saw that link a day or two ago, but couldn't find this post again to post the link. Looks like the op has a bargain and should seriously consider purchase of this vehicle - depending on his circumstances of course.

There should also be the remainder of manufacturers warranty on the HV battery,

 

ah no problem and then of course there is the "other" side of the conversation

Nissan Develops 10-Minute Rapid Charger For Leaf Electric Car

 

I am not aware of any EV manufacturer offering a warranty against early degradation of range. The warranties are against manufacturing defects. Nissan actually disclaims any liability for early degradation of range, and specifically warns against frequent fast charging, by which they mean L3, which is the fastest they presently offer. Tesla also offers no warranty on range, though they do have a battery replacement plan, under which $12,000 today gets you a new battery, installed, in seven years. No reference to range: You pay today, you ask for the pack in 7 years. (Pro-rated up and down by specific amounts if you ask for the pack earlier or later.)

That said, I have a high degree of confidence in the battery packs from all three manufacturers (Nissan, Tesla, and Mitsubishi) as well as Toyota.

Note also that "battery life" is typically based on the time it takes to reach 80% of its original capacity. If the car is to be driven only 15 km per day, it will be perfectly serviceable several times longer than the "expected lifetime" of the pack since you won't have to replace it until capacity has gone way below 80%.

My advice to the OP would be to examine the car, and have a mechanic examine it, for mechanical issues and physical integrity. Are the non-drive-train components in good shape? Has it been in an accident? Etc.