I bought a Peugeot-badged one of these at auction four years ago for £3,600 here in the UK. It's now over ten years old and still gets 67 miles of range in the summer and that's on very hilly terrain. Great car with lots of charisma and cheap as chips to run. The only money we've spent on it in four years is £70 on a new 12V battery and two new front tyres for £35 each plus fitting. It just sailed through the MoT. Cheapest motoring ever.
I love both of your accounts. EV's need to be small to make sense: Emissions are half that of a Tesla per mile, Battery replacement becomes economically viable and is also half or less of the resource hog a large EV is.
They have mentioned in other videos that they intend to distribute internationally through approved EV maintenance companies, due to the high voltage involved. ☮️
Never had the electric version but had 2 petrol ones, a great car so roomy and great for city driving, it was certainly made to a cost and the rust proofing was dire, but it had great character and good equipment for the time. My only issue was other drivers being car bullies, :-(
I suspect as things move forward in the electric vehicle space there's going to be a lot more of this happening. I can see a cottage industry arising to take care of this segment of the market, and I'm all for it!
What's quite annoying about that is Nissan still make an easily swappable battery for all of the older Leafs now but won't sell it to 3rd party companies, or, offer an upgrade service to existing customers. It's buy new or get lost. A really poor ethical business decision by them. The great PR they would get by being all in on extending the life of their products is just thrown away. They are more than a little disappointing.
Yep. We traded in a Leaf for a bolt euv for the same reason. If we could have gotten a bigger battery we'd have kept it. But, prices to replace batteries in the US are insane. . And all on the opposite coast from me
I have a 2010 iMiEV with this upgraded battery pack, as supplied by Oz Electric Vehicles. It's a brilliant little runabout and I'm getting between 230 -250 km per charge. I kept the original 50Ah cells and used them to make an off-grid solar charging station on my shed, which charges up during the day and then trickle charges the car overnight, so it's always charged in the morning. I haven't bought petrol or used grid supplied electricity to charge it for nearly a year now. I look forward to seeing what others have re-used the old batteries for.
What was the cost? Coming from the uk, we have things like rust, and when you get past the 10 year mark switches and plastics start breaking, so unless it were cheap, im not sure it would be worth it to replace batteries.
That is awesome. However, let me give you an important tip. Keeping lithium batteries topped up reduces their life, can be rather significantly too. So it is MUCH better to run your car down to 20% before recharging it back to 80% than to keep it 60-80 or worse. I know most people think they can operate like lead acid batteries which last longer when kept full.
Yeah, this is what it's all about. Companies like this should be springing up all over the world soon. Good on them and good on you Robert for showing how it should be done.👍👏
You got it! I certainly hope we see more 3rd party shops opening in the US as well. The major stumbling blocks I see revolve around the proprietary software the would need modified, and potential liability issues if upgrades could be pointed to as a cause to a fire or accident. However, as the owner of a 2016 Chevy Spark EV, if it's range could be doubled I'd be extremely happy! If AC and DC charging could also be updated that would be the 🍒 on top! Great video that gives us old gen 1 EV owners hope.
I really hope something like this will come up in Germany. I don't really know, but it seems like there are regulatory and cost hurdles. Also seems like the country is firmly in the grip of our big OEMs.
Way back in the day when there was only two DCFCs in Brisbane, I used the AC charger out the front of that shop to help get my Nissan Leaf from Ipswich to the Gold Coast. Great to see they are still trading and innovating.
What absolutely wonderful memories. I remember this video well and not long after this, I ended up with a Peugeot iOn clone of the iMiEV. I even put a kitchen in the back with a fridge and running water! Looking forward to seeing Rob and the team this weekend at Everything Electric in Sydney!
Hey Rob, pop over to New Zealand and talk to the guys at Ev's Enhanced in Christchurch, they're upgrading Leafs with bugger batteries but have gone silent on updates. Maybe you could charm them? :)
frick EV enhanced for selling open source product and not giving any credit to the original creator. they are a leech on opensource community. charging 800dollaroos for leaf can bridge also breaking GPL v3.0 license
As a UK iMiev owner I've been following the work of Oz Electric Vehicles for years. Their hard work and what they've achieved is fantastic and deserves to be rewarded. The issue is cost. If I were to go through the process of landing an upgrade kit here and fitting it myself the cost would easily outstrip just buying a good used EV with more than double the range and a lot more creature comforts. It souldn't be like this but sadly that's the state of play. I wish them all the best and if the cost of getting a kit in the UK were to half then I'd be seriously considering it.
My first EV was a Peugeot-badged iMiev. On our third EV now but still miss the iMiev’s sheer ability as a run-around for shopping, quick trips, even weekends away. It was like owning a four wheeled Vespa and not much wider either!
240km range is not a bad range , especially considering the size and where that type of car typically drives. This is a good thing these guys are doing.
I bought a used 2012 i-MiEV 8 years ago here in the US. The North American trim ones are slightly wider than the European and Asian versions. It's a marvelous little car that, I think, was largely underappreciated at the time. The original battery in mine started to fade in capacity in 2020 and I was able to get a warranty replacement. I take care of this car and will surely be driving it for years to come. The work this crew in Australia is doing is marvelous.
Agreed! Good call. I keep looking at all the lovely shiny brand new EV's, get envious & seriously consider buying one, but knowing that my Leaf is good for 99% of my journeys, I'm loathed to throw £40k at a car that simply takes me from A to B. Chademo charging fast becoming obsolete though, I can see the sense in making upgrades that could perhaps double the cars current range, just to future proof & make the occasional longer journey a bit easier. Finding a trustworthy local(ish) solution is of definite interest to me & many others.
@@Brian-qo1sdI keep hearing that CHAdeMO is going extinct but I've seen the charger in about 70% of places; BP Pulse, Shell Recharge, Osprey and PodPoint are (almost) collaboratively spread wide enough wherever there is rapid charging I still want garages like this to be every 80 miles or closer in the UK
Luckily we still get 80Km range from a full charge in our Imiev, last check a few months ago, from turtle to full, took 11Kwh from its original 16Kwh capacity. ours is a 2010 model.
I'll come back in about a hour to fight the anti ev nut jobs. I really feel fullycharged should be doing this work. Individual videos cannot cover everything. Quick response to comments will do more damage to the crazies.
I still have the Peugeot Ion and i am agree That this is a marvellous car , I love it . Why you need more to go from A to B. The only thing ist is limited and lacking in this day is , range ! I would like this upgrade here in Spain .
This stuff is what so many people are missing about electric vehicles. The batteries have an amazing potential life beyond the initial install and that has flow on effects to all areas of the renewable ecosystem.
Have we seen anything from the channel in Poland? I suspect not. YES! We need at least one story from Poland. Surely two people on the fully charged staff like country-hopping in Europe? (Needs two: Camera-person + presenter)
Currently it's about 16k with only a 1 year battery warranty, the ACCC would say that warranty is way lower than the expected life of those batteries but you would have to sue the company for redress is they died to early.
So almost 10k euros? You could buy a second hand Dacia Spring for not much more money, and definitely a longer warranty. As ever the cost is the killer for these projects@@metricstormtrooper
We don't have much choice in Australia. With buying the car and the battery upgrade it was the MUCH cheaper option for getting into an EV. $21 000 AUD for a fabulous, as new EV!!@@StartledPancake
Oh wow, just a few months ago i was looking at available EVs in Brisbane, the i-MiEV caught my eye, and my research brought me to THESE SAME GUYS! They're just down in southside of Brisbane. 1:24 Is that an ARDUINO DUE 😂. Welp if it works IT WORKS! Heck yeah, getting it DONE! We're not here to f... uh... _flip spiders._
Graeme has a been leader in Brisbane of adapting vehicles from ICE power to Electric for a number of years if you want to know about converting vehicles to electric he is the man to see, he also easy to talk to and so helpful with advice.
Sorry, that's very intriguing but way too short a video! We need deeper dives to give people more confidence in this and similar ventures. What about the pack enclosure, safety, batteries they tried, new configuration of the old cells for solar, testing and selection of the same? The gentleman mentioned hot-rodding, can the power be increased (spoiler, it probably can, with CAN 😀)?
Brilliant idea. And for anyone who is thinking of switching from ICE, I would imagine it could still be cheaper to buy an old EV like this and pay for the upgrades than buy a shiny new one. Certainly a lot greener anyway. 💚
There needs to be a big project to create a computer system that can run everything in the car, and not just these cars but any electric car. There are going to be loads of old second hand electric cars where mechanics will be trying to figure out what the old computer system is doing. It would better to pull out the old computer out from the old cars and put in a new one. I hope someone starts an open source IT project for just any old electric car, with all the battery management and all the driving functionality, even functionality to control the electric windows and windscreen wipers...
These already exist in various separate forms such as OrionBMS for diy battery packs, and Thunderstruck motor controllers as a few examples. It's very tricky to create generalised car controllers as there are so many configs of battery voltage and motor design, this is without considering the various different uses of CAN messaging across EV hardware! Right now it's not too tricky (just time consuming) to build and run an entire DIY refurb EV off a couple of Arduinos that you can program for your specific project for cheap
Our 2014 Mitsi PHEV uses same Yussa LEV40 battery cells It's now done 270K fault free miles on original battery pack . We use a CHadeMo 5Kw plug in power take off to power our caravan off grid or our house in power cuts. ( It's always been great towing car ) Stationery in charge mode it's more efficient then our 10 hp Honda generator 🤠👍
EU Right to Repair regulations should include "right to upgrade EV batteries". It's a pity that this level of custom work (with major changes to the software and CAN bus) will probably be required for every single model of EV. Why can't it be plug and play? If cars are just laptops on wheels, then we should follow the Wintel model, where you can upgrade the RAM and hard disk any time, and not the iMac model (where everything is glued and soldered together).
OMG! The Mitsu Outlander PHEV battery management system (BMS) did that fake degradation trick as well - the BMS calculated max capacity based on the number of days since the battery was built. The car lost range quickly whether the batteries were used or not. So great to hear smart people finding a way to fix that and make this car useful again.
A small car with a nicely usable amount of range... Dear major car companies; BUILD THIS SORT OF THING! We don't need cars with 20 metre wheelbases, that accelerate from 0 to 60 in less time it takes me to fart.
I own a Citroen Zero and we love the car. We live on a small island in the Netherlands and the Zero is ideal for it. I hope we can change the battery in Europe too for this kind of battery. I love youre programme on youtube
I am also thinking the I3 is a good choise for giving a 2. life with all the carbon, alu and plast it is made of. There was a test of some new batteries with 600 km, but have not heard from that since.
Great to see these older cars having modern battery upgrades. There have been CATL LFP modules available for the Nissan Leaf for a while now, is this company also going to perform that upgrade?
This is great! HOWEVER We need to put it too manufacturers to not prevent this on all items into the future, what am I getting at? Manufactures (tesla) will limit 3rd party modifications aggressively. This is not on, you buy it you own it, its yours, so don't allow the people you bought it from to determan how it might be used (or not) in the long future!
This is a factor which anti-EV proponents ignore. How often does a petrol or Diesel car manage to double its range after ten years of driving? And how often does one of them double its fuel efficiency in that time? Sure, you can fit a double-capacity fuel tank, but the fuel will weigh twice as much, reducing vehicle efficiency to something lower than its original abysmally poor state. Tweaking the fuel efficiency might yield a 10% improvement in kilometres per litre, but that's way short of the almost 100% improvement of this electric upgrade.
Robert, please get Harry Metcalf from Harry’s Garage/Farm on your show. He is obviously mates with some big oil execs and is fighting the move to EV. Please get him on with a passionate scientist and ‘put im riaaaaght’. Please.
And where is Mitsubishi in the EV market now, how did they let it slip from being there early doors to vanish. Typically Australian let’s give it go. Bringing now life to these cars brilliant. This is the future taking your Car in after ten years to get it improved by local garages that know there stuff.
I have a feeling this would be the car Kath & Kim would drive in a 2024 reboot of the show... Along with a teen-aged Epponnee-Rae! It's different! It's unusual! It's noyce!
OZ Electric Vehicles in Springwood Australia, do amazing work. My 2010 i-MiEV was upgraded in 2020 with their new battery and it has transformed the car and how I can now use it! Fabulous little EV's!!!
@@GurmeetSingh-dz8ff The battery pack on the ES trim of the i-MiEV features a fan-driven, forced-air induction system that automatically engages to protect the battery from overheating during charging. Drivers can upgrade to the Premium Package, which also gives drivers the ability to charge the i-MiEV using public quick-chargers. Because quick-chargers can tend to heat batteries and reduce their efficiency in the long term, we've added an air-cooling system that draws cold air from the air conditioning unit to keep the battery nice and cool, even in hot climates.
Love how global this channel can be at times. One day watching a review of new sports ev in China, then a 3 wheeler in the UK and now you're down the road from me showing resto mods. Love the variety. Bring the Everything Electric show to the Brisbane Exhibition Centre next year!
It's maximum 200klm's to gympie from bisvagas. Aside from that slip up. What a company! What a car! This really is the future of sustainability and the most affordable way to get new buyers into the used EV market!
Great video. Interesting hearing the engineer saying it was difficult to decode the 'cambus'. We need the 'right to repair' ... manufacturers need to be made to make technical details including software available to third party's so that the life of EVs can be extended.
It is only when looking back one can see the incredible progress that has been made. I still have the same car I had 15 years ago but the progress in EV:s has been amazing over those years.
Just hit 108,000 miles in my 2013 Ford Focus EV. Still get 70 mile range in the Winter. I’ll be driving it until the wheels fall off. Really looking forward to seeing more businesses like this!
The i-MIEV is so cute. Love seeing things getting repaired, upgraded, up cycled. Saving old ICE cars with blown motors from the wreckers and converting them to electric, and giving old EVs new life with upgraded batteries and features is so great to see. I do believe EVs (and maybe hydrogen cars) are our future. New battery tech under development will double (or more) the range and also eliminate the fire risks, and prices are coming down fast. BTW, OZ Electric Vehicles are just down the road from me. Going to stop in and say Hi and see what EVs they have for sale.
So cool. we have a company in France that tries to replace the batteries with more modern ones but it is illegal. I really hope they win their legal fight.
Thanks to Robert's iMiev videos way back, we bought a second hand Peugeot iOn several years ago. The car's heading for her teens, high mileage now, but still as good as new. Although we've added a second EV to the family, the iOn is still our daily runabout. Just adore our 'mini tardis', and will certainly treat her to an upgrade battery some day. She's a keeper!
I was working on a highland estate as a renewable energy manager. My commute was 20 miles each way and the single track twisty roads were eating the tires off my BMW so I nabbed one of these in Edinburgh for 5K at the time. It was a pre-production ex Scottish power car. The drive back to Ardnamurchan was some laugh I stopped at just about every charger I could the last being in the Glencoe ski centre. I just made it to my house with 0 on the battery and a turtle on the dash. It was one of the most fun cars I ever had and i am a petrol head as well as a long time EV enthusiast. I loved this thing it was perfect for single track highland roads and with B mode on the regen was fantastic. One day it just stopped I knew the battery itself was fine because I carefully monitored it but Mitsubishi told me it needed a new one and that was it. As I was leaving the county soon I sold it off to a chap I thought could save it and I was delighted to hear he did. It was just a trivial component as I thought. The memory of passing an Audi in it full chat at 70, motor screaming still gives me a smile.
I had one of these (the Peugeot version), and loved the car. 120/130km range, perfectly usable to comute. With a new, larger battery, I would buy it again .
I liked the i-MiEV, and would have bought one, except… the LEAF had a bit more range. I've always thought that if Mitsu and Nissan would have just put a 50, 60, 70 kW battery in them, they would've left Tesla in the dust.
I had a Peugeot Ion for 5 years, absolutely loves it. If this upgrade was available within the UK i would have gone for it (instead I had to change cars to one with a larger battery). Interesting the battery upgrade for the outlander PHEVs, i see this been very attractive for owners as well.
Im in Australia, I have a Mitsubishi minicab miev EV and id love to get the battery upgraded in my car but a 12 month warranty on batteries as part of a $16,000 upgrade is just not good enough.
For me that's the beauty of EVs, the simplicity. They are basically 2 components, a battery and a Motor. ICE cars are so complex. A huge chain of potential weakest links. A simple Cam-belt snaps and it's a huge rebuild of smashed parts. What would be great in future is a sort of ISO standard for Battery modules, so you could plug more in as they developed, swap them in and out, slide them into racks for industrial use ..etc. Having said that EVs will have 300 mile ranges as standard within 5 years, and LFP will be the technology.
Ross Blade had the same issue with Getz canbus for the Blade Electron. Has been so good to meet i-meiv owners that have upgraded their batteries around Brisbane.
What's not to like! I've got Le Miev (Peugeot Ion) and love it. I also have a recent i3. Honestly in many ways I prefer the little Ion, so the idea of the Ion having a thoroughly modern range to rival the i3 is fab.
iMiEV is definitely a head-turner! People think it’s a new car for some reason and get surprised when they find out that it’s a decade old car with upgraded batteries !! Love this little and powerful car!
Car manufacturers should be made to facilitate this with their design to the point where your car can be viewed as a separate investment to your battery.
Just bought a Chevrolet Bolt because my Chevrolet Spark EV didn't quite have the range I wanted. I always thought, that the Spark would be great at 150-200 miles of range. If they could double the battery pack and not increase the weight. Would be a terrific all around car. Like it said in the piece, these battery packs could be use for backup solar arrays. Never know, when your power goes out or buy cheaper energy at night.
We had a Mitsubishi i-miev (Peugeot version) and absolutely loved it. We are in the UK and contacted this company (oz) in Australia. Sadly they never replied. The range became unacceptable so we traded it in for a Seat Mii. It's a nice car but nowhere near as well loved as the i-miev, bigger and heavier. We're so sad that we couldn't upgrade the i-miev here.
I drove one of the first iMiEVs at the Tokyo Auto Show when it debuted. Nice 4-door city car with legitimate seating for 4 adults (as opposed to the 2-door, 2+2 seating in my Fiat 500e). It just needed a better battery.
Can we get a link to these blokes business pinned in the comments? Reckon they'd be able to do RestoMod work? There's plenty of classic cars running around that would benefit from EV conversion or EV-assist power-adders, such as AWD's that are primarily FWD most of the time, having an EV motor and gearbox directly driving the rear wheels for "EV only city mode" or extra push from the traffic lights as needed.
What I find strange is that *this* car is the closest EV to what I want. And so a new-build one would be bought. Yet there is nothing close to it on the market in Australia now. There are lots of really big, expensive BEVs.
I'm afraid it's partly because your compatriots keep telling everyone that they need vehicles that can take 4 adults and 2 children with all their stuff whilst towing a huge caravan across thousands of miles of rough outback roads ... whilst the reality is that most Australians live in urban areas and are often looking for compact city cars just like the rest of us!
@@MrAdopado I wonder if it is the other drivers who are pushing that way, or the various self-appointed pundits and magazine "experts"? I am certainly in that urban category, and there is just me. But every now and then I go for a long drive - including across the country. In that I am not *too* unusual. But me taking even one other person is extremely infrequent, and that is unusual.
I am still driving my i-miev as my only vehicle (other than a once or twice yearly rental of a longer range ev) I have to run off to work and after the first 2.5 minutes of video realize I have to come back after work to hear the rest of this! Double the range!? I got a high of 90 miles hypermiling back roads (I know it was rated at 60 miles on a charge... what would I get with an upgrade? 180 miles per charge!? Looking forward to the whole video later...
Our first ev was used 2012 imiev. Found it on a high end used car lot. Lambos Maserati etc.. It was like new, 5,000 miles. Car lot had no idea what to do with it. Purchased it for $6,800. Worked great. Grandson wanted to buy an EV, sold it to him on a good deal. He used it daily. A year after buying a storm knocked down a tree and crushed it!
I bought a Peugeot-badged one of these at auction four years ago for £3,600 here in the UK. It's now over ten years old and still gets 67 miles of range in the summer and that's on very hilly terrain. Great car with lots of charisma and cheap as chips to run. The only money we've spent on it in four years is £70 on a new 12V battery and two new front tyres for £35 each plus fitting. It just sailed through the MoT.
Cheapest motoring ever.
Yup, my 2011 iMiEV has saved me so much money! Purcased for a similar price and so cheap and easy to service and repair DIY, it's ridiculous
I love both of your accounts. EV's need to be small to make sense: Emissions are half that of a Tesla per mile, Battery replacement becomes economically viable and is also half or less of the resource hog a large EV is.
I want one! How do I get my hands on one while living in Montreal Quebec? I'll pay the shipping too!
Please tell me how to go about it?
They have mentioned in other videos that they intend to distribute internationally through approved EV maintenance companies, due to the high voltage involved. ☮️
Excellent episode and testament to those who want to see a brighter, cheaper and sustainable future. Cool!
I'm interested, they mentioned that they reworked the battery for the outlander phev. What cells do they use?
Never had the electric version but had 2 petrol ones, a great car so roomy and great for city driving, it was certainly made to a cost and the rust proofing was dire, but it had great character and good equipment for the time. My only issue was other drivers being car bullies, :-(
I still have One. Battery degradation is real but for my City life to works.
Just traded in our Leaf for a Kona. There was literally nothing wrong with it other than the range, we need more companies like this!
I suspect as things move forward in the electric vehicle space there's going to be a lot more of this happening. I can see a cottage industry arising to take care of this segment of the market, and I'm all for it!
What's quite annoying about that is Nissan still make an easily swappable battery for all of the older Leafs now but won't sell it to 3rd party companies, or, offer an upgrade service to existing customers. It's buy new or get lost. A really poor ethical business decision by them. The great PR they would get by being all in on extending the life of their products is just thrown away.
They are more than a little disappointing.
and the price ?
Range is pretty important. So it was useless!
Yep. We traded in a Leaf for a bolt euv for the same reason. If we could have gotten a bigger battery we'd have kept it. But, prices to replace batteries in the US are insane. . And all on the opposite coast from me
I have a 2010 iMiEV with this upgraded battery pack, as supplied by Oz Electric Vehicles. It's a brilliant little runabout and I'm getting between 230 -250 km per charge. I kept the original 50Ah cells and used them to make an off-grid solar charging station on my shed, which charges up during the day and then trickle charges the car overnight, so it's always charged in the morning. I haven't bought petrol or used grid supplied electricity to charge it for nearly a year now. I look forward to seeing what others have re-used the old batteries for.
What was the cost?
Coming from the uk, we have things like rust, and when you get past the 10 year mark switches and plastics start breaking, so unless it were cheap, im not sure it would be worth it to replace batteries.
That is awesome. However, let me give you an important tip. Keeping lithium batteries topped up reduces their life, can be rather significantly too. So it is MUCH better to run your car down to 20% before recharging it back to 80% than to keep it 60-80 or worse. I know most people think they can operate like lead acid batteries which last longer when kept full.
Yeah, this is what it's all about. Companies like this should be springing up all over the world soon. Good on them and good on you Robert for showing how it should be done.👍👏
Absolutely 💯
You got it! I certainly hope we see more 3rd party shops opening in the US as well. The major stumbling blocks I see revolve around the proprietary software the would need modified, and potential liability issues if upgrades could be pointed to as a cause to a fire or accident. However, as the owner of a 2016 Chevy Spark EV, if it's range could be doubled I'd be extremely happy! If AC and DC charging could also be updated that would be the 🍒 on top! Great video that gives us old gen 1 EV owners hope.
I really hope something like this will come up in Germany. I don't really know, but it seems like there are regulatory and cost hurdles. Also seems like the country is firmly in the grip of our big OEMs.
Not quite Germany, but Robert had his leaf redone in the Netherlands.
sadly not open source so they can frick off with their prices
This is perfect, recycling, keeping sensible, usable cars on the road. We need shops like this everywhere on the planet!
Way back in the day when there was only two DCFCs in Brisbane, I used the AC charger out the front of that shop to help get my Nissan Leaf from Ipswich to the Gold Coast. Great to see they are still trading and innovating.
They mentioned the Leaf. Are also refurbishing its battery pack?
@@iangardner2311yes they are.
And the Outlander PHEV.
@@iangardner2311 Yes, and BMW I3, Outlander PHEV
What absolutely wonderful memories. I remember this video well and not long after this, I ended up with a Peugeot iOn clone of the iMiEV. I even put a kitchen in the back with a fridge and running water! Looking forward to seeing Rob and the team this weekend at Everything Electric in Sydney!
Gavin, you have got to review one of these surely.
I remember following those adventures! Nostalgic!
Hey Rob, pop over to New Zealand and talk to the guys at Ev's Enhanced in Christchurch, they're upgrading Leafs with bugger batteries but have gone silent on updates. Maybe you could charm them? :)
frick EV enhanced for selling open source product and not giving any credit to the original creator. they are a leech on opensource community. charging 800dollaroos for leaf can bridge also breaking GPL v3.0 license
@@hillppariPerhaps we should have Richard Stallman pay them a visit.
Bugger batteries - how appropriate for NZ!
Where i live, there's also a small workshop that has specialized in older used EVs. They keep em running, install bms, bigger batteries, etc
As a UK iMiev owner I've been following the work of Oz Electric Vehicles for years. Their hard work and what they've achieved is fantastic and deserves to be rewarded.
The issue is cost. If I were to go through the process of landing an upgrade kit here and fitting it myself the cost would easily outstrip just buying a good used EV with more than double the range and a lot more creature comforts.
It souldn't be like this but sadly that's the state of play. I wish them all the best and if the cost of getting a kit in the UK were to half then I'd be seriously considering it.
My first EV was a Peugeot-badged iMiev. On our third EV now but still miss the iMiev’s sheer ability as a run-around for shopping, quick trips, even weekends away. It was like owning a four wheeled Vespa and not much wider either!
Mitsubishi should,ve kept the model going , considering battery technology now, if it was cheap enough it would sell like hot cakes.
240km range is not a bad range , especially considering the size and where that type of car typically drives. This is a good thing these guys are doing.
Further than a new Honda E ... !
I bought a used 2012 i-MiEV 8 years ago here in the US. The North American trim ones are slightly wider than the European and Asian versions. It's a marvelous little car that, I think, was largely underappreciated at the time. The original battery in mine started to fade in capacity in 2020 and I was able to get a warranty replacement. I take care of this car and will surely be driving it for years to come. The work this crew in Australia is doing is marvelous.
How many companies like these do we have in the UK? When you get back Robert you should showcase the guys in the UK as well.
Agreed! Good call.
I keep looking at all the lovely shiny brand new EV's, get envious & seriously consider buying one, but knowing that my Leaf is good for 99% of my journeys, I'm loathed to throw £40k at a car that simply takes me from A to B.
Chademo charging fast becoming obsolete though, I can see the sense in making upgrades that could perhaps double the cars current range, just to future proof & make the occasional longer journey a bit easier.
Finding a trustworthy local(ish) solution is of definite interest to me & many others.
I think there's a company in Europe that upgrade Nissan leafs, might be in France.
@@flukeylukey7559Yeah, there's certainly one in Holland 'Muxsan'.
@@Brian-qo1sdI keep hearing that CHAdeMO is going extinct but I've seen the charger in about 70% of places; BP Pulse, Shell Recharge, Osprey and PodPoint are (almost) collaboratively spread wide enough wherever there is rapid charging
I still want garages like this to be every 80 miles or closer in the UK
I think these little cars just the right size for city driving!!
I would love to have one of these.
Luckily we still get 80Km range from a full charge in our Imiev, last check a few months ago, from turtle to full, took 11Kwh from its original 16Kwh capacity. ours is a 2010 model.
I'll come back in about a hour to fight the anti ev nut jobs. I really feel fullycharged should be doing this work. Individual videos cannot cover everything. Quick response to comments will do more damage to the crazies.
Good on you
I still have the Peugeot Ion and i am agree That this is a marvellous car , I love it . Why you need more to go from A to B. The only thing ist is limited and lacking in this day is , range ! I would like this upgrade here in Spain .
I just had my iMiev arrive this week and I am lucky enough to live in Brisbane. Next stop, that workshop 🙂
What year? I have a 2010 with Graeme's battery upgrade :)
Feel the envy. I'm in the US and no such battery work is available.
This stuff is what so many people are missing about electric vehicles. The batteries have an amazing potential life beyond the initial install and that has flow on effects to all areas of the renewable ecosystem.
hej! Mr, Robert, You do not need to go to australia, in Poland fee companies doing same, 2x range, not only in imiev but alos phev outlander. ;)
Have we seen anything from the channel in Poland? I suspect not. YES! We need at least one story from Poland. Surely two people on the fully charged staff like country-hopping in Europe? (Needs two: Camera-person + presenter)
Sorry, did I miss it? How much did it cost to upgrade?
Currently it's about 16k with only a 1 year battery warranty, the ACCC would say that warranty is way lower than the expected life of those batteries but you would have to sue the company for redress is they died to early.
So almost 10k euros? You could buy a second hand Dacia Spring for not much more money, and definitely a longer warranty. As ever the cost is the killer for these projects@@metricstormtrooper
We don't have much choice in Australia. With buying the car and the battery upgrade it was the MUCH cheaper option for getting into an EV. $21 000 AUD for a fabulous, as new EV!!@@StartledPancake
I like this car a lot. A workmate still drives the critroen c-zero(twin car of this) and it's great. There should be more cars this size
I remember those - where are they now?
Oh wow, just a few months ago i was looking at available EVs in Brisbane, the i-MiEV caught my eye, and my research brought me to THESE SAME GUYS! They're just down in southside of Brisbane.
1:24 Is that an ARDUINO DUE 😂. Welp if it works IT WORKS! Heck yeah, getting it DONE! We're not here to f... uh... _flip spiders._
What a great video, so cool to see the iMiev upgraded into a really capable EV. Those guys show some great ingenuity.
Graeme has a been leader in Brisbane of adapting vehicles from ICE power to Electric for a number of years if you want to know about converting vehicles to electric he is the man to see, he also easy to talk to and so helpful with advice.
Sorry, that's very intriguing but way too short a video! We need deeper dives to give people more confidence in this and similar ventures. What about the pack enclosure, safety, batteries they tried, new configuration of the old cells for solar, testing and selection of the same? The gentleman mentioned hot-rodding, can the power be increased (spoiler, it probably can, with CAN 😀)?
Brilliant idea. And for anyone who is thinking of switching from ICE, I would imagine it could still be cheaper to buy an old EV like this and pay for the upgrades than buy a shiny new one. Certainly a lot greener anyway. 💚
By sheer coincidence I saw an iMiEV in SW London yesterday - so nice to see a genuinely small car on the roads in amongst all the SUVs.
There needs to be a big project to create a computer system that can run everything in the car, and not just these cars but any electric car.
There are going to be loads of old second hand electric cars where mechanics will be trying to figure out what the old computer system is doing. It would better to pull out the old computer out from the old cars and put in a new one.
I hope someone starts an open source IT project for just any old electric car, with all the battery management and all the driving functionality, even functionality to control the electric windows and windscreen wipers...
Maybe Haltek could do it.
@@metricstormtrooper I would probably need to be a team effort from a large team.
These already exist in various separate forms such as OrionBMS for diy battery packs, and Thunderstruck motor controllers as a few examples.
It's very tricky to create generalised car controllers as there are so many configs of battery voltage and motor design, this is without considering the various different uses of CAN messaging across EV hardware! Right now it's not too tricky (just time consuming) to build and run an entire DIY refurb EV off a couple of Arduinos that you can program for your specific project for cheap
@@matthewbaynham6286look at what Haltek have done with not only engine management systems but systems which run the complete car from top to bottom.
Our 2014 Mitsi PHEV uses same Yussa LEV40 battery cells
It's now done 270K fault free miles on original battery pack .
We use a CHadeMo 5Kw plug in power take off to power our caravan off grid or our house in power cuts.
( It's always been great towing car ) Stationery in charge mode it's more efficient then our 10 hp Honda generator 🤠👍
My favorite futuristic egg on wheels, it still looks funky today. This makes more sense than 2-ton EVs that goes 0-60 3sec or sth.
brilliant! we have a crummy old '12 leaf and would love a similar upgrade 😊
EU Right to Repair regulations should include "right to upgrade EV batteries".
It's a pity that this level of custom work (with major changes to the software and CAN bus) will probably be required for every single model of EV.
Why can't it be plug and play? If cars are just laptops on wheels, then we should follow the Wintel model, where you can upgrade the RAM and hard disk any time, and not the iMac model (where everything is glued and soldered together).
OMG! The Mitsu Outlander PHEV battery management system (BMS) did that fake degradation trick as well - the BMS calculated max capacity based on the number of days since the battery was built. The car lost range quickly whether the batteries were used or not. So great to hear smart people finding a way to fix that and make this car useful again.
Graeme is also rebuilding PHEV Outlander packs…either with original capacity or for a bit more money he nearly doubles the EV range.
A small car with a nicely usable amount of range... Dear major car companies; BUILD THIS SORT OF THING! We don't need cars with 20 metre wheelbases, that accelerate from 0 to 60 in less time it takes me to fart.
I own a Citroen Zero and we love the car. We live on a small island in the Netherlands and the Zero is ideal for it. I hope we can change the battery in Europe too for this kind of battery. I love youre programme on youtube
Love to see a company do the same to the BMW i3. Cool little car, stunning interior.
I am also thinking the I3 is a good choise for giving a 2. life with all the carbon, alu and plast it is made of. There was a test of some new batteries with 600 km, but have not heard from that since.
Great to see these older cars having modern battery upgrades. There have been CATL LFP modules available for the Nissan Leaf for a while now, is this company also going to perform that upgrade?
This is great! HOWEVER
We need to put it too manufacturers to not prevent this on all items into the future, what am I getting at? Manufactures (tesla) will limit 3rd party modifications aggressively. This is not on, you buy it you own it, its yours, so don't allow the people you bought it from to determan how it might be used (or not) in the long future!
Cleanest I've ever seen Graeme's Shop, sorry I couldn't bring my dirty minicab for the vid.
Got my van done here. Great stuff.
This is a factor which anti-EV proponents ignore. How often does a petrol or Diesel car manage to double its range after ten years of driving? And how often does one of them double its fuel efficiency in that time? Sure, you can fit a double-capacity fuel tank, but the fuel will weigh twice as much, reducing vehicle efficiency to something lower than its original abysmally poor state. Tweaking the fuel efficiency might yield a 10% improvement in kilometres per litre, but that's way short of the almost 100% improvement of this electric upgrade.
Robert, please get Harry Metcalf from Harry’s Garage/Farm on your show. He is obviously mates with some big oil execs and is fighting the move to EV. Please get him on with a passionate scientist and ‘put im riaaaaght’. Please.
I would like to see the company do the same thing to a 2011/12 Azure Dynamics/Ford Transit Connect Electric, if it´s possible.
And where is Mitsubishi in the EV market now, how did they let it slip from being there early doors to vanish. Typically Australian let’s give it go. Bringing now life to these cars brilliant. This is the future taking your Car in after ten years to get it improved by local garages that know there stuff.
I love these little guys. It's a shame EVs became huge heavy luxury pickups and cars like this have mostly disappeared, in the US anyways...
I have a feeling this would be the car Kath & Kim would drive in a 2024 reboot of the show... Along with a teen-aged Epponnee-Rae! It's different! It's unusual! It's noyce!
OZ Electric Vehicles in Springwood Australia, do amazing work. My 2010 i-MiEV was upgraded in 2020 with their new battery and it has transformed the car and how I can now use it! Fabulous little EV's!!!
Was the original battery air cooled liquid cooled?
@@GurmeetSingh-dz8ff The battery pack on the ES trim of the i-MiEV features a fan-driven, forced-air induction system that automatically engages to protect the battery from overheating during charging. Drivers can upgrade to the Premium Package, which also gives drivers the ability to charge the i-MiEV using public quick-chargers. Because quick-chargers can tend to heat batteries and reduce their efficiency in the long term, we've added an air-cooling system that draws cold air from the air conditioning unit to keep the battery nice and cool, even in hot climates.
Love how global this channel can be at times. One day watching a review of new sports ev in China, then a 3 wheeler in the UK and now you're down the road from me showing resto mods. Love the variety. Bring the Everything Electric show to the Brisbane Exhibition Centre next year!
Yeah, and save me the hassle of charging - it's worse than pulling teeth.
Yup, rad car.
It's maximum 200klm's to gympie from bisvagas.
Aside from that slip up. What a company! What a car! This really is the future of sustainability and the most affordable way to get new buyers into the used EV market!
Great video. Interesting hearing the engineer saying it was difficult to decode the 'cambus'. We need the 'right to repair' ... manufacturers need to be made to make technical details including software available to third party's so that the life of EVs can be extended.
It is only when looking back one can see the incredible progress that has been made. I still have the same car I had 15 years ago but the progress in EV:s has been amazing over those years.
Just hit 108,000 miles in my 2013 Ford Focus EV. Still get 70 mile range in the Winter. I’ll be driving it until the wheels fall off. Really looking forward to seeing more businesses like this!
What a great idea of upgrading old EV hope someone would do the same for VW eUP here in EUROPE ❤😊
The i-MIEV is so cute. Love seeing things getting repaired, upgraded, up cycled. Saving old ICE cars with blown motors from the wreckers and converting them to electric, and giving old EVs new life with upgraded batteries and features is so great to see. I do believe EVs (and maybe hydrogen cars) are our future. New battery tech under development will double (or more) the range and also eliminate the fire risks, and prices are coming down fast. BTW, OZ Electric Vehicles are just down the road from me. Going to stop in and say Hi and see what EVs they have for sale.
Thats cute and its cool. (positively refrigerated compared to the original). The future may yet be Small Electric CarS (Secsy)
We have a 2013 model. A very reliable and honest car. It does exactly what it was designed to do.
Always liked the I-Miev - good to see they are getting well deserved up-grades. 👌
So cool.
we have a company in France that tries to replace the batteries with more modern ones but it is illegal.
I really hope they win their legal fight.
Super interesting and thought provoking video… We do not need something bigger - at least many of us don’t. Thanks for bringing us along 👍
Thanks to Robert's iMiev videos way back, we bought a second hand Peugeot iOn several years ago. The car's heading for her teens, high mileage now, but still as good as new. Although we've added a second EV to the family, the iOn is still our daily runabout. Just adore our 'mini tardis', and will certainly treat her to an upgrade battery some day. She's a keeper!
I was working on a highland estate as a renewable energy manager. My commute was 20 miles each way and the single track twisty roads were eating the tires off my BMW so I nabbed one of these in Edinburgh for 5K at the time. It was a pre-production ex Scottish power car. The drive back to Ardnamurchan was some laugh I stopped at just about every charger I could the last being in the Glencoe ski centre. I just made it to my house with 0 on the battery and a turtle on the dash. It was one of the most fun cars I ever had and i am a petrol head as well as a long time EV enthusiast. I loved this thing it was perfect for single track highland roads and with B mode on the regen was fantastic. One day it just stopped I knew the battery itself was fine because I carefully monitored it but Mitsubishi told me it needed a new one and that was it. As I was leaving the county soon I sold it off to a chap I thought could save it and I was delighted to hear he did. It was just a trivial component as I thought. The memory of passing an Audi in it full chat at 70, motor screaming still gives me a smile.
Never thought I'd see Bob driving down Compton Road lol
i-MiEV hotrod - bonzer!
I had one of these (the Peugeot version), and loved the car. 120/130km range, perfectly usable to comute. With a new, larger battery, I would buy it again .
Miss my c zero (crashed it unfortunately). Would buy another if it had 150 mile range. Anyone in UK doing these upgrades?
I liked the i-MiEV, and would have bought one, except… the LEAF had a bit more range. I've always thought that if Mitsu and Nissan would have just put a 50, 60, 70 kW battery in them, they would've left Tesla in the dust.
kWh (mind you even the guys in this video mixed the terminology!)
I had a Peugeot Ion for 5 years, absolutely loves it. If this upgrade was available within the UK i would have gone for it (instead I had to change cars to one with a larger battery). Interesting the battery upgrade for the outlander PHEVs, i see this been very attractive for owners as well.
Im in Australia, I have a Mitsubishi minicab miev EV and id love to get the battery upgraded in my car but a 12 month warranty on batteries as part of a $16,000 upgrade is just not good enough.
For me that's the beauty of EVs, the simplicity. They are basically 2 components, a battery and a Motor. ICE cars are so complex. A huge chain of potential weakest links. A simple Cam-belt snaps and it's a huge rebuild of smashed parts.
What would be great in future is a sort of ISO standard for Battery modules, so you could plug more in as they developed, swap them in and out, slide them into racks for industrial use ..etc.
Having said that EVs will have 300 mile ranges as standard within 5 years, and LFP will be the technology.
Ross Blade had the same issue with Getz canbus for the Blade Electron.
Has been so good to meet i-meiv owners that have upgraded their batteries around Brisbane.
The indicative cost for this upgrade would have helped a lot.
What's not to like! I've got Le Miev (Peugeot Ion) and love it. I also have a recent i3. Honestly in many ways I prefer the little Ion, so the idea of the Ion having a thoroughly modern range to rival the i3 is fab.
iMiEV is definitely a head-turner!
People think it’s a new car for some reason and get surprised when they find out that it’s a decade old car with upgraded batteries !!
Love this little and powerful car!
First gen PSA ev's would also deserve the same attention to detail.
I own a Chevy Spark EV I'd like to keep going. 👍
so the batteries live on too? of course! brilliant stuff.
I wish I hadn't watched this video. Now I desperately want one of those Mitsubishis
Car manufacturers should be made to facilitate this with their design to the point where your car can be viewed as a separate investment to your battery.
I'm from Canada, and own a 2016 IMiev. It's a great little car, indeed. What does this conversion cost, anyone on here know?
Search for OZ Electric Vehicles
I enjoyed my short time with my i-MiEV. Got it on a lease for $0 down and $69/month. I couldn't say no to that!
Are Mitsubishi still making EVs...?
Yes, but not selling them in Aus anymore.
They do an EV kei car today.
Just bought a Chevrolet Bolt because my Chevrolet Spark EV didn't quite have the range I wanted. I always thought, that the Spark would be great at 150-200 miles of range. If they could double the battery pack and not increase the weight. Would be a terrific all around car.
Like it said in the piece, these battery packs could be use for backup solar arrays. Never know, when your power goes out or buy cheaper energy at night.
We had a Mitsubishi i-miev (Peugeot version) and absolutely loved it. We are in the UK and contacted this company (oz) in Australia. Sadly they never replied. The range became unacceptable so we traded it in for a Seat Mii. It's a nice car but nowhere near as well loved as the i-miev, bigger and heavier. We're so sad that we couldn't upgrade the i-miev here.
I drove one of the first iMiEVs at the Tokyo Auto Show when it debuted. Nice 4-door city car with legitimate seating for 4 adults (as opposed to the 2-door, 2+2 seating in my Fiat 500e). It just needed a better battery.
Hey! Fantastic! Always LOVED the iMiev! Well done!
Can we get a link to these blokes business pinned in the comments? Reckon they'd be able to do RestoMod work? There's plenty of classic cars running around that would benefit from EV conversion or EV-assist power-adders, such as AWD's that are primarily FWD most of the time, having an EV motor and gearbox directly driving the rear wheels for "EV only city mode" or extra push from the traffic lights as needed.
Google “Oz diy evs”.
They do conversions too…recently they have done a Landcruiser, a Honda S600, and are going to be doing a Rolls Royce Phantom 4.
What I find strange is that *this* car is the closest EV to what I want. And so a new-build one would be bought. Yet there is nothing close to it on the market in Australia now.
There are lots of really big, expensive BEVs.
I'm afraid it's partly because your compatriots keep telling everyone that they need vehicles that can take 4 adults and 2 children with all their stuff whilst towing a huge caravan across thousands of miles of rough outback roads ... whilst the reality is that most Australians live in urban areas and are often looking for compact city cars just like the rest of us!
@@MrAdopado I wonder if it is the other drivers who are pushing that way, or the various self-appointed pundits and magazine "experts"?
I am certainly in that urban category, and there is just me. But every now and then I go for a long drive - including across the country. In that I am not *too* unusual. But me taking even one other person is extremely infrequent, and that is unusual.
I am still driving my i-miev as my only vehicle (other than a once or twice yearly rental of a longer range ev) I have to run off to work and after the first 2.5 minutes of video realize I have to come back after work to hear the rest of this! Double the range!? I got a high of 90 miles hypermiling back roads (I know it was rated at 60 miles on a charge... what would I get with an upgrade? 180 miles per charge!? Looking forward to the whole video later...
They are developing installers world wide. Contact OZ Electric Vehicles :)
Hi Robert
Very Impressive is there any way can we have this upgrade in the UK?
They are developing installers world wide. Contact OZ Electric Vehicles :)
Our first ev was used 2012 imiev. Found it on a high end used car lot. Lambos Maserati etc.. It was like new, 5,000 miles. Car lot had no idea what to do with it. Purchased it for $6,800. Worked great. Grandson wanted to buy an EV, sold it to him on a good deal. He used it daily. A year after buying a storm knocked down a tree and crushed it!
But how much does such an upgrade cost?