Driving Google’s Plug and Play

This week I was privileged to pay a visit to Google’s Sydney headquarters, and have a look over, and a ride in, one of their two Mitsubishi MiEV electric vehicles. Named “Plug” and “Play”, Google have acquired these cars in order to help assess and promote the viability of electric cars within the general community.

Plug and Play

These cars look, to all intents and purposes, just like your normal four-door, wheel-at-each-corner hatchbacks. I was surprised at the spaciousness of the interior: I’m nearly six feet tall, and, with the front seats moved forward, there was more than ample space for my legs in the back seats. Plenty of headroom too.

And being a hatchback, there was also lots of storage behind the rear seat, accessible both from within the cabin, as well as from outside; the hatch cover lifted high for easy access.

Google's Justin with the MiEV

Being an electric vehicle, it’s quiet. Very quiet. Turning the ignition on caused a couple of electronic beeps, and a low hum from the A/C, but that was it.

Driving around, we went on a loop from Pyrmont, through Sydney’s morning traffic across the top of Darling Harbour, down Sussex St and then back across Stonehenge returning to the Sydney Googleplex. We were sitting in the back, talking, conducting the interview, with virtually no background noise whatsoever. When noise did intrude upon the conversation, it was from outside, from other vehicles. This car makes a great mobile office environment.

Which is a part of what Google do with their cars: these are used as their floating fleet vehicles, available to Sydney staff for use when they need to travel around town, to meet with clients and such, instead of having to pay for taxis.

But their use goes well beyond a replacement for taxis: staff at Google are encouraged to employ a green attitude, and they’re trying to get a zero green footprint in terms of their staff’s daily commute to and from work. They’ve implemented an internal tracking system, whereby staff can register how and when they, for instance, get to and from work. They calculate green credits for everyone’s journeys, and one weekly there’s an auction amongst the staff, with the prize being the use of one of these cars for the weekend.

Google's MiEV Electric Car

I think that’s beyond cool: it’s a progressive attitude that encourages staff to be environmentally conscious.

But let’s get back to the cars, for a moment. Many people think that electric vehicles emit no emissions; they would be wrong. While it’s true that electric vehicles emit no tailpipe emissions, it’s not accurate to say that they’re emissions free. The emissions are merely shifted to another location.

In Sydney’s case, that might be to the coal fired power stations in NSW’s Lake Macquarie region. That’s where electricity is produced, and it’s consumed by these cars, for which Google have installed a couple of dedicated charging stations in the basement car park of their Sydney offices.

The MiEV's Fuel Inlet.

The power input for the cars draws upon a 30 amp power supply, and is located in the normal spot you’d expect to put in the nozzle from a fuel pump. Hook the cable up to the charging point, plug the other end of the cable into the car, and away it goes.

Starting the charging process

With a full charge (maybe three to to four hours from flat), the cars have a range of around 160 Km. Performance felt very good, but that’s also the nature of electric vehicles, which develop maximum torque at zero revs.

These are not cars for your weekend away though. Rather, my impression is that these would make a great city car, where distances are relatively short: commuter trips to and from work, shopping trips, taking the kidlets to and from their weekend footy games; that sort of thing is exactly where I could see this sort of car shining.

And the interior space, coupled with its diminutive external size, makes it ideal for these sorts of trips.

Listen to the interview/drive …

Part 1

Part2

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