Cold Weather No-Start Work Around - Scheduled Warm Ups

[mmbart]

I had an idea on a possible work-around to mitigate the risk of the 2023 PHEV not starting after a night of extreme cold. There is a scheduled warm-up option on the app. If I were to schedule a pre-heat for say every 3 hours (you only get 3 schedule slots to activate at once) would that operation be enough to alter the battery temp? I know the the cabin wont actually heat but simply starting the fans would use some power. It is my understanding that some heat will be created within the battery as it discharges. It's not a perfect fix but if I'm away from home and cannot plug-in and expecting -30 C or lower I might set this up just for a bit more piece of mind.

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on if you think this is feasible or if there are some major flaws.

 

[kpetrov]

That's what I would do if owning that model.
Make it working to activate charging - discharging cycle during the night, especially morning before departure.

 

[tikan]

Someone on one of the forums said that the load from using the heater wouldn't cause enough draw to heat the batteries enough to matter. It's worth a shot but I feel like this would have been a simple fix for Mitsubishi if it would make a difference. They could just program some logic stating that below a certain temperature, cycle the heater on and off to heat the batteries.

 

[mellobob]

I'm not sure about the tech details of the cold weather problem. But, we did have some very cold weather here (-20c to -28c) and I had no problems with mine. I keep my '23 in a car port which is totally exposed to the outside cold, but does keep some of the wind off. My car is always plugged in when it's sitting there ... and, since we are both old codgers without jobs, it'll sit for many days without any use.

I was at the dealer last month and I asked the service manager (a bit of a friend) and asked if they'd had any "dead" cars over the cold period. Had a bit of a conversation and, yes, they had some they had to tow and warm up. However, every one of these had been street parked and NOT plugged in (to the charger! Not to a mostly useless engine block heater).

If you keep the car plugged in during cold you "should" have no problems. Mind you, we don't get real cold like they do up north where -35c to -40c is common

 

[tikan]

I'm not sure about the tech details of the cold weather problem. But, we did have some very cold weather here (-20c to -28c) and I had no problems with mine. I keep my '23 in a car port which is totally exposed to the outside cold, but does keep some of the wind off. My car is always plugged in when it's sitting there ... and, since we are both old codgers without jobs, it'll sit for many days without any use.

I was at the dealer last month and I asked the service manager (a bit of a friend) and asked if they'd had any "dead" cars over the cold period. Had a bit of a conversation and, yes, they had some they had to tow and warm up. However, every one of these had been street parked and NOT plugged in (to the charger! Not to a mostly useless engine block heater).

If you keep the car plugged in during cold you "should" have no problems. Mind you, we don't get real cold like they do up north where -35c to -40c is common

Unfortunately that doesn't work for up here. If you don't have a garage, even if you are plugged in, it will fail once it goes 25C or colder for a few days. I'm taking mine to the dealer on Saturday for the update and will ask the service manager if they have further details. I think part of the issue is once it's that cold, it doesn't use the battery and since it's not using the battery it's not warming up the battery, and the battery isn't taking a charge because it doesn't need a charge. It's a cycle of not using the battery during cold weather so it just gets colder and colder until it won't work anymore at all. Mine was plugged in and > 80% charge but it refused to charge because it was too cold to charge safely. So the plugin was essentially doing nothing (blinking red light near port).

 

[Grandad]

I'm not sure about the tech details of the cold weather problem. But, we did have some very cold weather here (-20c to -28c) and I had no problems with mine. I keep my '23 in a car port which is totally exposed to the outside cold, but does keep some of the wind off. My car is always plugged in when it's sitting there ... and, since we are both old codgers without jobs, it'll sit for many days without any use.

I was at the dealer last month and I asked the service manager (a bit of a friend) and asked if they'd had any "dead" cars over the cold period. Had a bit of a conversation and, yes, they had some they had to tow and warm up. However, every one of these had been street parked and NOT plugged in (to the charger! Not to a mostly useless engine block heater).

If you keep the car plugged in during cold you "should" have no problems. Mind you, we don't get real cold like they do up north where -35c to -40c is common

once the battery (not the air temperature) is cold enough the system will lock out to "protect the battery." Plugging in makes no difference once the battery is either fully charged or too cold to take a charge (-25 according to a conversation with Mitsu customer"service"). The recent software "enhancement" doccumentation reinforces this point when is talks about reducing the speed at which the battery cools after use - if you can get it to start. Telling owners to plug in the vehicle is in many ways like the advice an expectant father to go boil some water while waiting for the birth of a baby. The documents could just as easily say "plug in the vehicle, cross your fingers, and hope for the best."

 

[RossWilliams]

We have a 2018 Outlander PHEV and lived in northern Minnesota with temps down to -40 at night. We had an uneated detached garage and leave it plugged in. We also took winter trips when the car was left unattended for over a month. My solution was to have the automatic ac heat turn on about 2:00 AM every night and the automatic charge turn on once a week immediately after the heat turned off. Tthe car started in the morning when we were home and, with one exception, it started when we returned from our trips. I think the exception was because I screwed up the settings, but I was never sure.

I don't know why it worked. My plan was that turning on the AC would both use the battery and warm it up so that it could be charged. It may also have warmed the garage sufficiently that the temperature of the battery never dropped below its minimum operating temperature. I don't know if the engine kicks in for the automatic AC so it may also have filled the garage with carbon monoxide occassionally. Not really a problem for us since we weren't in it, but would be if you have an attached garage.

 

[littlescrote]

The heating/air conditioning will use about 3kW, that's hardly any current out of the battery compared to the 60kW+ that it can supply, so will do little to warm it.

 

[Lon12]

We have a 2018 Outlander PHEV and lived in northern Minnesota with temps down to -40 at night. We had an uneated detached garage and leave it plugged in. We also took winter trips when the car was left unattended for over a month. My solution was to have the automatic ac heat turn on about 2:00 AM every night and the automatic charge turn on once a week immediately after the heat turned off. Tthe car started in the morning when we were home and, with one exception, it started when we returned from our trips. I think the exception was because I screwed up the settings, but I was never sure.

I don't know why it worked. My plan was that turning on the AC would both use the battery and warm it up so that it could be charged. It may also have warmed the garage sufficiently that the temperature of the battery never dropped below its minimum operating temperature. I don't know if the engine kicks in for the automatic AC so it may also have filled the garage with carbon monoxide occassionally. Not really a problem for us since we weren't in it, but would be if you have an attached garage.

This is a 2023 newer model year issue. We owned a 2018 and never saw any cold start or EV power reduction problems. 2018 has an electric heater. 2023 only has a heat pump that does not turn on below-15°C.

 

[BruceHF]

Hearing all of you talking about charging and warming your cars are you any using the 'Remote Controller' App?
I had it on my old Motorola phone but now I have a new phone and I just cannot pair it at all. I live in the Niagara region where is does not get too cold.
Those of you who have it, have you used this App? How do you find it? Any suggestions how to get mine working?

 

[AndyInOz]

The usual problem is that the device connects back up to the home wifi halfway through the pairing process.

To prevent this, 'forget' the home wifi settings before trying to setup the app, or take the car somewhere else, where it will not be able to link to another known wifi.

 

[tikan]

Hearing all of you talking about charging and warming your cars are you any using the 'Remote Controller' App?
I had it on my old Motorola phone but now I have a new phone and I just cannot pair it at all. I live in the Niagara region where is does not get too cold.
Those of you who have it, have you used this App? How do you find it? Any suggestions how to get mine working?

At least for the 2024 model, the dealer had to register some stuff on their end first. It's barely acceptable, but it does let me start the heat when it's cold.

 

[Grandad]

I had an idea on a possible work-around to mitigate the risk of the 2023 PHEV not starting after a night of extreme cold. There is a scheduled warm-up option on the app. If I were to schedule a pre-heat for say every 3 hours (you only get 3 schedule slots to activate at once) would that operation be enough to alter the battery temp? I know the the cabin wont actually heat but simply starting the fans would use some power. It is my understanding that some heat will be created within the battery as it discharges. It's not a perfect fix but if I'm away from home and cannot plug-in and expecting -30 C or lower I might set this up just for a bit more piece of mind.

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on if you think this is feasible or if there are some major flaws.

Well, I had to get rid of my '23 bacause of the cold no-start problem but this has occurred to me last winter. A couple things discouraged me from going with it:
• the remote start/run cycle was time limited as I recall (10 minutes?) and the climate system, aside from the climate system not warming below -15C without starting the ICE, the fans were effectively low power and the warmth generated from the current flow from the battery even with the charger plugged in to add a replacement charge and the heat created by that seemed so minimal from what I could tell, that the effect wouldn't justify the effort.
• as noted by many, the remote start is less than reliable, particularly in areas where a failure to start would be critical (in my case even at home reliability ran at 50-60%)
• the number of times the vehicle could be remotely started was also restricted so even if the remote start drained enough to generate a bit of heat (a degree or 2) it wouldn't be able to make it through the long cold nights experienced without running out of restarts and getting cold a at any rate.

The same applied to a similar idea proposed by the dealer, that being to plug the unit in last thing at night (if power is available) and set the charger to cycle on/off through the night. Essentially the heat generated by that process was again minimal, and when the battery reached full charge or its temp dropped below -25C it would either not charge at all, or charge so slowly as to ot make any never mind.

The software "enhancement" did/does nothing of significance to change the situation b y simply slowing the rate of cooling but adding no heat to the system. Mitsu all but admits that outright in the circular that accompanying the "upgrade" to owners using wording indicating that this "may" help but "does not guarantee" better cold weather performance, etc., etc., etc.

The real root of the problem traces back to the company's deletion of the battery heater in the '23 and '24 models (although promotional material continued to indicate that such units for "cold weather operation" were "standard" in the '23 model. The sales of these not fit for purpose in the locations in which they were sold was, and continues to be aided by the almost universally positive reviews in the automotive media.

The fix should not rest with the victims of such marketing and faulty engineering to work around, having paid a premium for a PHEV ($10k+). Such is the basis of the pending class action suits in Canada and the US.

It will be interesting to see how Mitsu will handle the issue when the '25 models go to market. If they release a re-engineered system with technology to warm the battery, it will amount to an admission of responsibility for the problem, if not they will have to have a big, red, CYA warning label on the vehicles they continue to sell with engineering deficiencies.

 

[Grandad]

Well, I had to get rid of my '23 bacause of the cold no-start problem but this has occurred to me last winter. A couple things discouraged me from going with it:
• the remote start/run cycle was time limited as I recall (10 minutes?) and the climate system, aside from the climate system not warming below -15C without starting the ICE, the fans were effectively low power and the warmth generated from the current flow from the battery even with the charger plugged in to add a replacement charge and the heat created by that seemed so minimal from what I could tell, that the effect wouldn't justify the effort.
• as noted by many, the remote start is less than reliable, particularly in areas where a failure to start would be critical (in my case even at home reliability ran at 50-60%)
• the number of times the vehicle could be remotely started was also restricted so even if the remote start drained enough to generate a bit of heat (a degree or 2) it wouldn't be able to make it through the long cold nights experienced without running out of restarts and getting cold a at any rate.

The same applied to a similar idea proposed by the dealer, that being to plug the unit in last thing at night (if power is available) and set the charger to cycle on/off through the night. Essentially the heat generated by that process was again minimal, and when the battery reached full charge or its temp dropped below -25C it would either not charge at all, or charge so slowly as to ot make any never mind.

The software "enhancement" did/does nothing of significance to change the situation b y simply slowing the rate of cooling but adding no heat to the system. Mitsu all but admits that outright in the circular that accompanying the "upgrade" to owners using wording indicating that this "may" help but "does not guarantee" better cold weather performance, etc., etc., etc.

The real root of the problem traces back to the company's deletion of the battery heater in the '23 and '24 models (although promotional material continued to indicate that such units for "cold weather operation" were "standard" in the '23 model. The sales of these not fit for purpose in the locations in which they were sold was, and continues to be aided by the almost universally positive reviews in the automotive media.

The fix should not rest with the victims of such marketing and faulty engineering to work around, having paid a premium for a PHEV ($10k+). Such is the basis of the pending class action suits in Canada and the US.

It will be interesting to see how Mitsu will handle the issue when the '25 models go to market. If they release a re-engineered system with technology to warm the battery, it will amount to an admission of responsibility for the problem, if not they will have to have a big, red, CYA warning label on the vehicles they continue to sell with engineering deficiencies.

 

[DodgerOutlander]

Well, I had to get rid of my '23 bacause of the cold no-start problem but this has occurred to me last winter. A couple things discouraged me from going with it:
• the remote start/run cycle was time limited as I recall (10 minutes?) and the climate system, aside from the climate system not warming below -15C without starting the ICE, the fans were effectively low power and the warmth generated from the current flow from the battery even with the charger plugged in to add a replacement charge and the heat created by that seemed so minimal from what I could tell, that the effect wouldn't justify the effort.
• as noted by many, the remote start is less than reliable, particularly in areas where a failure to start would be critical (in my case even at home reliability ran at 50-60%)
• the number of times the vehicle could be remotely started was also restricted so even if the remote start drained enough to generate a bit of heat (a degree or 2) it wouldn't be able to make it through the long cold nights experienced without running out of restarts and getting cold a at any rate.

The same applied to a similar idea proposed by the dealer, that being to plug the unit in last thing at night (if power is available) and set the charger to cycle on/off through the night. Essentially the heat generated by that process was again minimal, and when the battery reached full charge or its temp dropped below -25C it would either not charge at all, or charge so slowly as to ot make any never mind.

The software "enhancement" did/does nothing of significance to change the situation b y simply slowing the rate of cooling but adding no heat to the system. Mitsu all but admits that outright in the circular that accompanying the "upgrade" to owners using wording indicating that this "may" help but "does not guarantee" better cold weather performance, etc., etc., etc.

The real root of the problem traces back to the company's deletion of the battery heater in the '23 and '24 models (although promotional material continued to indicate that such units for "cold weather operation" were "standard" in the '23 model. The sales of these not fit for purpose in the locations in which they were sold was, and continues to be aided by the almost universally positive reviews in the automotive media.

The fix should not rest with the victims of such marketing and faulty engineering to work around, having paid a premium for a PHEV ($10k+). Such is the basis of the pending class action suits in Canada and the US.

It will be interesting to see how Mitsu will handle the issue when the '25 models go to market. If they release a re-engineered system with technology to warm the battery, it will amount to an admission of responsibility for the problem, if not they will have to have a big, red, CYA warning label on the vehicles they continue to sell with engineering deficiencies.

This is indeed one of the biggest concerns with the Outlander. I have a 2024 PHEV, but I bought it after the cold spell last winter. It probably needs a physical warming system to truly solve this, but when I took my Outlander in for its first oil change I recorded my concern which they are well aware of. He told me there is a software update which I got, but he also said it is untested and we don't know if it will help solve this ridiculous concern/problem.

 

[jpetro]

Thank you for the update. Where can I find the Class Action for the US?

 

[kpetrov]

They have called me with an offer to exchange My 2018 for an 2024 model and I just laughed in their "faces"
Told them without battery heater and useless under -15C heat-pump with no option to defrost my windshield when mostly needed... No thanks!

 

[Grandad]

I'm not sure about the tech details of the cold weather problem. But, we did have some very cold weather here (-20c to -28c) and I had no problems with mine. I keep my '23 in a car port which is totally exposed to the outside cold, but does keep some of the wind off. My car is always plugged in when it's sitting there ... and, since we are both old codgers without jobs, it'll sit for many days without any use.

I was at the dealer last month and I asked the service manager (a bit of a friend) and asked if they'd had any "dead" cars over the cold period. Had a bit of a conversation and, yes, they had some they had to tow and warm up. However, every one of these had been street parked and NOT plugged in (to the charger! Not to a mostly useless engine block heater).

If you keep the car plugged in during cold you "should" have no problems. Mind you, we don't get real cold like they do up north where -35c to -40c is common

I agree that you "should" have no problems but the reality is different from experience. With the unit plugged in and the ambient temperature in -20 to -30C range I have had the vehicle refuse to start. Once the traction battery is fully charged, there is no current flow, and with no battery heater (an industry standard and advertised as included in the '23 model, but not) you are in trouble. At -26C, on a milk, bread and eggs trip, when pulling into the grocery store parking lot, having driven at "reduced power" using the ICE for 15 minutes, the dashboard alert indicated that if I shut down the vehicle it might not restart. Mitsu knows there is a problem - it has coded such warnings into software.

 

[Grandad]

They have called me with an offer to exchange My 2018 for an 2024 model and I just laughed in their "faces"
Told them without battery heater and useless under -15C heat-pump with no option to defrost my windshield when mostly needed... No thanks!

Good choice...

 

[Grandad]

This is indeed one of the biggest concerns with the Outlander. I have a 2024 PHEV, but I bought it after the cold spell last winter. It probably needs a physical warming system to truly solve this, but when I took my Outlander in for its first oil change I recorded my concern which they are well aware of. He told me there is a software update which I got, but he also said it is untested and we don't know if it will help solve this ridiculous concern/problem.

Good to raise the concern. The commentary in this forum and elsewhere (mine included) on the "software enhancement" has been generally unfavourable. What the software tweek supposedly does is only to slow the cooling rate of the battery - it does not add heat and relies on the battery being warm tom begin with. Your dealer was right to tell you it's untested but it will be in a few months. IMO Mitsu has not demonstrated good faith in addressing the critical engineering flaw inherent in the '23 and '24 models and the software move merely muddies the waters further.