Mitsubishi has released the first official images of the U.S. version of its 2012 i-MiEV electric minicar, just a week before the car is unveiled at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show.

The company also released some specifications for the little i-MiEV. Against the home-market version, the i-MiEV that will be sold in the States is almost a foot longer, at 145 inches; 4.5 inches wider, at 62.5 inches; and just a hair taller, at 63.5 inches.

The i-Miev is about the furthest thing from a luxury car imaginable. In fact, the thin seats and unpretentious decoration are probably too Spartan for American buyers, particularly in light of a projected price of around $30,000 (before any government kickbacks, incentives, tax breaks, subventions and bribes). And sentencing any adult to prolonged confinement in the rear seat would be in violation of numerous international treaties against the mistreatment of prisoners of war.

On the road, the i-MiEV is a smooth and zingy performer, even in battery-saving "Eco" mode, with a lowish top-speed more than offset in real-world conditions by snappy acceleration. I loved it. Even limited range, the biggest drawback of EVs, shouldn't be too much of a problem on a small car such as this, as it's likely to be used for short journeys.

Anyway, most people would say Steffens turned out to be wrong about the Soviet Union. One of the reasons it eventually failed was its resolute refusal to recognise that markets generally do a better job of deciding what to produce, and what price to sell it at, than a man with a plan sitting in an office in Moscow. And yet if we rely on market signals alone to deal with climate change, there's a risk we won't adopt cleaner technologies quickly enough, and the i-MiEV is a case in point.

Underneath the skin, the hardware is identical to i-MiEVs sold in Japan and Europe, meaning U.S.-bound cars will couple a 63-horsepower electric motor to the rear wheels, along with a lithium-ion battery pack. We hear, however, that the difference may lie primarily in calibration. Sources close to the automaker tell us both regenerative braking and throttle input have been revised for our market, likely to make the i-MiEV more at home on high-speed American highways.