Mitsubishi I-MIEV

City commuters and first-time EV buyers are the people who usually look at the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, because it was built around short-range electric motoring rather than long-haul flexibility. By our assessment, its clear strength is the way it makes an electric car simple: tiny footprint, quiet running, and easy urban parking. The limit is built into the idea itself, since this is a very small early-generation EV and not a car for broad-distance confidence or a roomy cabin. In practice it feels stripped back and very city-shaped, with the battery-and-motor setup doing the job without much drama. It sits among the earliest mass-market electric hatchbacks, before the current crop of better-packaged EVs raised the bar. That makes it interesting as a pioneer and less compelling as a one-car answer for everything, which is the point where the name stops being enough and the compromises start speaking for themselves.