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Mitsubishi i
The diminutive Mitsubishi i tries hard to please with its cute charm and green conscience
With its big Disney eyes and its squashed baby nose, the Mitsubishi i car just begs to be loved. Even its name, while clearly hoping to borrow a little iPod cool, is a play on the Japanese word “ai”, for love.
Half pet, half motor, it looks as if it’s on day release from Teletubby land. And with its “sense of fun” (the press pack reads like a lonely hearts ad) you just know that here is one of a new breed of motoring good guys.
The battle for ultimate speed and power may belong to Lamborghini and Ferrari, but a whole new frontier of competitive niceness is opening up for the cuddly people.
Drivers who wouldn’t be seen dead in a Toyota Corolla are happily pootling around north London in a petrol-electric Toyota Prius, radiating self-righteousness, while west London is awash with battery-powered G-Wiz quadracycles resplendent in animal-print paint jobs. You may have a Range Rover Sport and a private jet parked out back, but to get in with the in-crowd you also need a little bundle of automotive eco-consciousness to prove your caring, sharing, Noughties credentials.
The i is the latest addition to the do-gooder motoring league and it likes to think of itself as practical, comfortable and stylish too. It is part of the Japanese K-car class of motor; that’s short for kei jidosha – Japanese for light vehicle – and was established in 1949, long before carbon-offsetting and when corn was still made into flakes, not fuel. K-cars were given tax breaks for being small, light and economical, and for using minimal raw materials – a priority in a country with so few natural resources. This is the first to be sold in the UK.
The i has a conventional internal combustion engine but the lightweight (partly aluminium) construction helps give it fuel economy better than 50mpg and CO2 emissions of 114g/km – just 10g/km more than the Prius.
Mitsubishi has produced an urban family car with room for four but with the turning circle of a Smart Fortwo (give or take a few millimetres). The i is shorter than the tiny Toyota Aygo and thinner than almost anything else on the road, even the Smart Fortwo, by about 8cm. It’s so narrow, you can squeeze past a hulking great MPV on a carlined city street, dispensing with the need for frantic eyeballing to check out who will be first to reverse.
But inside, it doesn’t feel small. The roof is higher than in a conventional small hatchback, and the engine, unusually, is mounted towards the rear, allowing for a much longer-than-usual wheelbase. There’s even room for an ample boot – 246 litres – which compares favourably with the handbag-sized luggage hold of a C1.
The interior is cheap and cheerful in the manner of an Ikea flat-pack. It’s far from luxurious, but it just wants to give you a great big hug with its soft curves, dash-mounted tissue holder, hypoallergenic seat fabric and deodorising roof lining, to remove unwanted smells and “volatile organic compounds”.
The i is in its element on crowded city streets, and its strange looks and luminous paint (mine was bright yellow) mean that no other road user can fail to spot its cheeky form.
Just don’t be tempted to take it for a blast on the motorway in a storm. Because it’s then that the cutesy little i car gets ever so slightly scared – its driver even more so. Suddenly the i’s attractive high roofline gives gale-force winds extra bodywork to buffet, and the three-cylinder 659cc 57bhp engine starts to sound like a bathroom extractor fan, with about as much power.
It’s when the going gets tough like this that you start to crave a big, bad motoring behemoth. Skittering along the M11 in torrential rain, thunder rumbling, I was lusting after something a little more butch.
The i has enough quirks to attract attention, but is that enough to win round its target audience of young and funky, green-conscious city dwellers? This Mitsubishi desperately wants to be as cool and distinctive as the new Mini or Smart car. In publicity shots it manages to look edgy and futuristic, but parked on the driveway it just looks a bit odd.
Pensioners, however, seem to like the i, according to early UK market research. It’s cheap (just over £9,000), easy to park, and maybe they’re a little less worried about appearances.
The Prius never won any awards for style, at least not until it appeared alongside owners such as Cameron Diaz. And like the Toyota, the i will soon be exempt from the London congestion charge if Ken Livingstone goes ahead with plans to link the charge to emissions, allowing cars CO2 with emissions under 120g/km free access to the city centre.
It will have to compete for the green pound with a rapidly growing number of low-emissions models from other mainstream manufacturers. Audi recently announced it has cut the CO2 emissions of its A3 1.9 TDI to 119g/km. Volkswagen has launched the Polo Bluemotion, with emissions as low as 99g/km, making it road-tax exempt, and plans to launch Bluemotion variants of all its models to designate the eco-conscious version in each range. Volvo has a similar plan, starting with its C30 Efficiency, Ford has the Focus ECOnetic, and Skoda has its Greenline models.
The i’s trump card might come if Mitsubishi puts the prototype electric version, the i MiEV, into production. This model apparently has a top speed of 81mph, a range of 81-99 miles, and should knock the leopard-print spots off a G-Wiz. Without it, the i could be left behind in the race to go green – especially as it takes 15sec to chug to 62mph and flatlines at 84mph.
Vital statistics
Model Mitsubishi i
Engine type 659cc, three cylinders
Power/Torque 57bhp @ 6000rpm
Transmission Four-speed automatic
Fuel/CO2 54.6mpg (combined) / 114g/km
Performance 84mph/0-62mph: 14.9sec
Price £9,084
Verdict 
Rating Practical but too timid for big roads
The opposition
Model Citroën C1 £6,995-£8,825
For Cute, cheap and cheery
Against Bit of a bone-shaker, tiny boot
Model Smart Fortwo £6,900-£15,470
For Distinctive looks, build quality
Against Poor space, high spec is costly
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