As far as Tomoki Yanagawa is concerned, fully electric automobiles should be ready to go and available for purchase in Vancouver within the next five years. Yanagawa—vice president of sales, marketing, and corporate planning for Mitsubishi Canada—was in town a couple of weeks ago to show off his company’s newest electric car, the Mitsubishi Innovative Electric Vehicle.

The i MiEV represents the “pinnacle” of Mitsubishi’s green technologies, and, what with the current push to make Vancouver the greenest city in the world, the timing is pretty good. This is a completely clean-running, zero-emissions vehicle; according to the company, even taking into consideration its overall emissions and costs during construction, it emits just 30 percent of the carbon dioxide that a similarly sized internal combustion car does. When it hits the road in Canada—probably within a year—the i MiEV’s expenses per kilometre will be one-third those of a comparably sized gas-engined car, and during recharge, it’ll cost one-ninth of what it costs to fill up a conventional automobile.

Built on Mitsubishi’s “i” minicar platform, the i MiEV is propelled by a 330 volt, 16 kilowatt, 63 horsepower electric motor located in the front of the vehicle. It has a rear-wheel-drive layout, and its batteries are of the lithium-ion variety. Mitsubishi is claiming that the i MiEV will accelerate from zero to 80 kilometres per hour a second and a half faster than its gas-fuelled counterpart, which has been on the market in Japan for the past five years or so. It can reach a top speed of over 130 kilometres per hour, seats four adults, and weighs about 1,080 kilograms.

More importantly, it has a cruising range of at least 120 kilometres, and can be recharged via a 110-volt or 220-volt household plug or a dedicated quick-charge system. When it comes on-stream in North America, this latter arrangement will be in the form of a small kiosk that will get the system to 80 percent of a full charge in about 30 minutes. Using a 110-volt plug, recharge time is 14 hours, half that with 220 volts.

Eventually, Yanagawa envisions quick-charge stations in parking lots throughout the city. “Most drivers in Vancouver drive about 30 kilometres a day, so range and recharging should not be an issue,” he says. Just to be on the safe side, the i MiEV has a “limp-home” mode that will give you a few more kilometres if you drain the system completely. Unlike General Motors’ ill-fated EV-1, the i MiEV won’t suffer damage if the system is entirely depleted. Yanagawa claims the Yuasa-made batteries will last at least 10 years or 150,000 kilometres.

Behind the wheel, the i MiEV is simplicity itself. Just turn the key, wait a few seconds for the system to power up, put it in drive, and away you go. It has all the usual conveniences, such as air conditioning, power windows, a stereo system, and so on, and performance is actually quite lively.

One of the intriguing things about electric vehicles is that torque and power are available almost instantly, with no “spooling up” or engine rpm buildup. The i MiEV’s torque output is pegged at 133 foot-pounds, which is almost double that of its gas-engined counterpart. It easily keeps up with traffic, and has an “Eco” setting to help conserve even more power. It also features regenerative braking in order to recapture energy when decelerating. As an urban runabout, it would seem to do the job nicely.

The powers that be seem to think so, too. Part of the reason Yanagawa was here was to sign a memorandum of understanding between Mitsubishi, the provincial government, the City of Vancouver, and B.C. Hydro that will see at least one test i MiEV added to the fleets of both B.C. Hydro and the city, with more cars being added as they become available, probably in the fall. Mayor Gregor Robertson took one for a quick drive downtown, and declared that he was “thrilled” that Mitsubishi had decided to debut the i MiEV in Vancouver. It’s far too early to talk about price, but unofficially, the i MiEV will probably start in the low $20,000 neighbourhood.

A few questions about the viability of this fully electric car remain, however. For starters, its purported range of 120 kilometres is based on driving the vehicle slowly, in perfect weather, on flat ground, with one occupant, with no accessories being used. As well, the i MiEV’s performance in the depths of winter is still a huge unknown, occupant protection in a crash has yet to be determined, and the whole quick-charge-station scenario is very much up in the air. “We haven’t put the i MiEV through any cold-weather testing at this point,” Yanagawa admitted.

In short, what may work in Vancouver won’t necessarily cut it in Toronto, or Winnipeg, or Montreal.