Consumer Reports in their March issue, tests the Ford Focus EV and the Mitsubishi MiEV, which I will get to in the next paragraph. But they have also driven the Smart ForTwo Electric Drive, Toyota RAV4 EV, Chevrolet Spark EV, the Honda Fit EV and the Fiat 500e, all of which will appear on the market soon. Here is what they had to say: “The Smart is priced at just $25,000 before tax credits. The Spark is the first vehicle to be compatible with the new DC Fast Charger standard. We briefly drove the Fit, and found it to be quick, efficient, and fun to drive. The Fiat is agile and charges relatively quickly. And the RAV4 has a decent range and a big cargo area.” CR will publish a full test of the Tesla Model S soon.
They liked the Ford Focus EV much better than the MiEV. The Ford's 143-hp gets the car up to 60 mph within 10.2 seconds, but they say the car feels faster than that. The Focus does the quarter mile in 18.0 seconds and accelerates from 45 mph to 65 mph in 5.4 seconds. Braking from 60 mph to a stop took 140 feet in the dry and 154 in the wet. The battery pack is 20 kWh, which provides a range of 80 miles, based upon CR's tests. The car has an on-board 6.6 kW charger, which can fully charge the battery pack in less than 4 hours, at 240 V. On a 120 V circuit the charging time is 16 hours. The car has no “Eco” mode and using the electric heater cuts into the range “significantly”. The car got about 3.18 miles per kWh, or the equivalent of 107 mpg. The car is fun to drive, but has a touchy throttle and brake and they hated the MyFord Touch controls. Major options on their car was the leather seats and a power driver's seat. In general they seemed to like the car. The tested price was $40,990. CR gave the Focus an overall score of “78”.
But they did not like the 63-hp Mitsubishi i-MiEV. The car felt cheap, puny, tinny, slow, jouncy, and clumsy. Its interior never gets warm enough in cold weather and its four passengers are very cramped when riding in the cabin. The car took 14.7 seconds to get to 60 mph, did the quarter mile in 20.7 seconds and took 9.1 seconds to get from 45 to 65 mph. Braking from 60 mph to 0 took 132 feet in the dry and 146 feet in the wet. In their test the car only went 56 miles on a charge and took between 6 and 7 hours at Level 2 and 21 hours at 120V to fully charge the battery pack. The car got the equivalent of 111 mpg. They say that the Mitsubishi's ride is “awful”, with harsh impacts and the ride is choppy even on the highway. The car feels clumsy in the corners and the “cabin feels dated and cheap”. The steering wheel is too far away and the pedals were too close. Plus the seat doesn't go back far enough for a comfortable driving position. They really got a kick out of the car's navigation system which displays the location of gas stations rather than charging stations. The tested price of the car, with the navigation system, quick-charge port, rear camera and a battery warming system, was $33,630. The i-MiEV received an overall score of “34”.
