We heard yesterday about reports in a Japanese newspaper that PSA Peugeot Citroen and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation would be working together on electric cars. Today, Mitsubishi and Peugeot released a statement describing their joint efforts, and it gives us a better idea of what we can expect:

• The project "will run over several months, relates to the development, the manufacture and the use of an electric powertrain for small urban vehicles."
• Working on EVs together " would be mutually beneficial."

The full details are available after the jump. PSA will bring its experience with EVs and electric powertrains to the joint effort, and Mitsubishi will contribute work from its Lithium Energy Japan joint venture (with GS Yuasa) "which is to supply large capacity and high performance lithium ion batteries for the i MiEV" (above). But wait, "over several months"? Is that all? Does this mean we're close to seeing results or just that the two companies only want to share a little bit of their own information?

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Mitsuibshi i MiEV.

Previous G8 summits have seen talk about biofuels and GEM electric vehicles. This year, the EVs are getting a bit of an upgrade, with ten Mitsubishi i MiEV electric vehicles available for officials at the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit in Japan in early July. Media representatives covering the conference will also be able to ride in the zero-emission jellybeans. MItsubishi said in a statement (after the jump) that it hopes "attendees of the G8 Summit will find a new appreciation for the superior practicality and environmental viability of electric vehicles."

The Summit will cover a wide variety of topic, from environmental concerns to African development to the world economy. The Prime Minister of Japan, Yasuo Fukuda (also the G8 Summit chair), said that, "Global warming is a huge challenge, and humanity has no time to lose. The international community must urgently strengthen efforts to resolve this issue." He hopes that a Japanese proposal called the Cool Earth Promotion Programme will pick up support in Hokkaido.

The Mitsubishi i MiEV electric vehicle is not standing still. In an announcement from Tokyo today, Mitsubishi announced that the jellybean will be on display at the Beijing International Motor Show that starts next week. In the press release about this (which also tells us that about the new Lancer Evolution and is pasted after the jump), Mitsubishi calls the MiEV "a symbol of the company's approach to environmental issues and with a view to introduction on markets outside Japan." That sure sounds like the forces pushing to bring this car to production are not being silenced from within the company. This would be good - no, great - news.

Also, as an addition to our post the other day about the i MiEV videos the other day, tipsters Yanquetino and Amtoro point us to one more video featuring the cute little ride. This video shows the MiEV being unloaded from a transport truck and, as Yanquetino explains, a lot more than that:

Unless I am interpreting the numbers incorrectly, it looks like the engineers take the iMiEV on a hill-climbing test run, from 663m (2,175 ft.) to 2,450m (8,038 ft.), a total vertical ascent of 1,787m (5,863 ft.) over a distance of 28.7km (18 miles).

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the video occurs at 5 minutes, 15 to 25 seconds, when they are going back down the mountain. It shows that the power gauge is now below zero, in the negative numbers, thanks to regen. You can also see that the battery charge is at about 75%. And at 5:21 you'll actually see the charge move another bar closer to full.

I'll just add that the video seems to be dated 2007/11/07 (according to a date at the bottom of the player). Who knows where things stand today. Thanks to Yanquetino and Amtoro for the tips!

When we drove the jellybean on wheels (the Mitsubishi i MiEV) at the New York Auto Show last month, we were pretty swept away. This is one nice EV. Maybe we weren't quite as enthralled as the kids in this commercial for the all-electric car, but we're still in favor of the i MiEV making it to showrooms soon.

While my Japanese has gotten seriously rusty ever since I moved away from Japan in 2001, you don't even need my level of understanding to get something out of these videos. As our tipster Yanquetino wrote:

They are worth seeing, IMHO. The second one is especially informative. Despite the Japanese, you can still catch words like "braking," "CO2," "engine," "motor," "battery," etc. (I guess these are all imported from English). More importantly, they provide the specification numbers in Arabic numerals and symbols (14 hours full charge with 110V, 7 hours with 220, 30 minutes to 80% at charging stations, 160 km range, etc., etc.).

I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually port these movies over to English, but for now... they are understandable! Evidently Mitsubishi is committed to bringing the iMiEV to market in Japan. Let's hope that they'll bring them here soon afterwards!

(If you're in favor of the i MiEV in the U.S., don't forget to sign this petition.)

When I watched the commercial, I understood the part where the voiceover says "It's like a cell phone" when the woman plugs the car in. I think it also says "Running on zero" at the end, which means running on zero CO₂ emissions. In this clip, a more technical description of what the i MiEV is all about, a vision of what driving an electric car could be like is laid out. I describe this clip after the jump.