EV ONLY MODE

[PolishPilot]

I do not understand this thread. The PHEV starts up in EV mode. If needed it starts the ICE.

You are wrong.
It starts the ICE immediately in the garage, with full battery.
Not only it wastes fuel just for heating, it cannot charge the battery,
because it is full, but also by keeping the battery full it prohibits
the PHEV of using any regenerative braking.
This is plain ridiculous, the result is 1 0-15 mpg on first 10 miles!!!

If it is cold it needs to warm up the ICE, but it start as soon as possible if it is not needed.

Why does it need to warm the engine, if it is not supposed to use it,
and when the cabin can be heated by electric heater???

Because the PHEV starts up in EV mode it is not necessary to have any EV button. There are Charge button for charging the battery and Save button for maintaining the battery level.

Wrong again: IT DOES NOT START in EV MODE !!!

Why, if there is a button to maintain battery level,
there is no button to maintain the fuel level?
Where is the logic?

Please get some experience with the car before you complain.

I have enough experience, I have it for over half a year, 5000 miles,
I use it almost daily for a 10 mile trip, I know what the car is doing!!!

The system in the car is quite good at selecting the needed mode. It is not often we have use any off the buttons here in Norway. When it is cold the latest version of the pre-heating give a very good temperature on the ICE so it do not start at 0 degrees Celsius.

Maybe you drive for longer trips, but for me the result is:
- ICE starts in the garage, by +5 degC,
- when I start moving I have no regen braking in spite of B5,
- even with the ICE running the car does not warm up to the set 20 degC
even by the end of the 10 miles trip.
- I am burning about 2 l of gas for this 10 miles trip every day
- without ICE running I would have burned 0 (zero) litres.
- I make ad hoc decisions to drive, I have no time to preheat.

Do you understand now?

Do you understand now, why I am upset?

 

[todgefast]

The work around is clever but quite tedious!

Sorry. Clarify?

I was referring to the method of stepped 0.5c increase in cabin temp. while keeping an eye on the electric heater power draw to stop engine starting it's warm up cycle.

 

[anko]

The work around is clever but quite tedious!

Sorry. Clarify?

I was referring to the method of stepped 0.5c increase in cabin temp. while keeping an eye on the electric heater power draw to stop engine starting it's warm up cycle.

Ah, ok. Thanks! Normally, at 3 deg C I don't need that procedure after 20 minutes of preheating.

 

[todgefast]

Ah, ok. Thanks! Normally, at 3 deg C I don't need that procedure after 20 minutes of preheating.

You are right, but from my experience if I don't leave within a few minutes of pre-heat ending, the coolant temperature reduces enough to trigger the ICE!!!!

 

[anko]

Ah, ok. Thanks! Normally, at 3 deg C I don't need that procedure after 20 minutes of preheating.

You are right, but from my experience if I don't leave within a few minutes of pre-heat ending, the coolant temperature reduces enough to trigger the ICE!!!!

Absolutely true. Same happens when you take off and do not set the aircon high enough. As the heater doesn't have to work for a while it gets time to cool down to a point where the car decides it is to cold ...

 

[PolishPilot]

So, if you push hard for some change in the software, even BMW will acept it and give in.

Recently they offer a fix to i3 known problem, of loss of power.

Maybe also Mitsubshi will eventualy give in and offer an EV only option software upgrade.

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/03/12/bmw-i3-with-range-extender-glitch-software-update/

 

[maby]

So, if you push hard for some change in the software, even BMW will acept it and give in.

Recently they offer a fix to i3 known problem, of loss of power.

Maybe also Mitsubshi will eventualy give in and offer an EV only option software upgrade.

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/03/12/bmw-i3-with-range-extender-glitch-software-update/

Well, you never can tell - but the BMW issue was a bit different - an indisputable fault rather than a design decision....

 

[Kim]

I'd be very happy if they'd only fix the algorithm bug in the Wh/km display.....

 

[phil4146]

Maybe you drive for longer trips, but for me the result is:
- ICE starts in the garage, by +5 degC,
- when I start moving I have no regen braking in spite of B5,
- even with the ICE running the car does not warm up to the set 20 degC
even by the end of the 10 miles trip.
- I am burning about 2 l of gas for this 10 miles trip every day
- without ICE running I would have burned 0 (zero) litres.
- I make ad hoc decisions to drive, I have no time to preheat.

Interesting - I drive a similar pattern - 10 miles, no planning so no pre-heating but see something different:

ICE starts in the drive at +5C but mine stops in less than a mile - sometimes less - only thing I do is hit the Eco button and turn off 'Auto'
Regen won't work as there is nowhere to put the regenerated power - designed that way so no fault
Agree on speed of warm up but in my case I think its because I use Eco and turn off Auto - still playing with that.
But 2l to do 10 miles - think you might want to talk to your garage - don't know about everyone else but the engine seems to stay on too long compared with my experience.

 

[pjvik]

I see that there some comment on my own comment earlier.

My comments are based on driver the PHEV Instyle+ 16000km through 1 year in temperatures between -10 to +30degrees C.
Most of the time the temperature have been around 5 to 7 degrees. We use 30min preheating in the morning for job commuting, the return it normally start in a garage with 10 degrees.
Depending of temperature sometimes the ICE runs for some minutes. In the coldest days it run approx 10 minutes before stopping, when it is used without preheating.
For this year we have had the car we have used in average approx 2.5l petrol pr 100km. We are very satisfied with the car.

I have read an article about a test drive in one of the prototypes, these cars had an EV button. The journalist commented that the control system function so well that the EV button was not needed.

If the ICE is running all the time there is probably some errors on it.

 

[anko]

I have read an article about a test drive in one of the prototypes, these cars had an EV button. The journalist commented that the control system function so well that the EV button was not needed.

Let me guess: this test was performed in summer time? Or they did a test where they went well beyond EV range. Especially the latter is very likely. On longer trips, the EV mode is not missed. At least, not by me.

I do agree, with proper pre heating (which requires planned trips) I do not miss an EV button. But some trips cannot be planned.

Also, there is another scenario that annoys the hell out of me. This week, I drove to work (26 km) in a pre heated car, pure EV. I parked my car at a charge point, 1 km away from work. I choose to walk back and forth to work for this, even though driving home on publically charged electricity is more expensive for me than driving home on gas. So, I did this purely for environmental reasons. When I went to pick up my car after 4 hours (I wanted to make the charge point available to others), as soon as I started the car, the engine fired. Why: I left the heater on and it was 'only' 6 deg C. I totally hate it when this happens :evil: The least you can say is that the EV control does not function optimally. And how could it, not knowing where or how far I am going? This is one of the reasons we need an EV only button. And why it needs to be On by default. IMHO

 

[chasingamy]

Removing the fuel pump fuse ( fuse # 14) did not cause any issues or displayed faults until I then turned the climate control system on to auto. If you turn the heater on with the fuse missing you do get a scary looking fault message instructing you pull over as soon as it is safe to do so and call 999 (or some such nonsense). Shutting the car down, turning the heater off and restarting cleared the fault message.

I learned this just a few days after I bought the car and became annoyed that the ICE started when it was cool outside or, I put my foot down just a little too far, etc. After 2 weeks ownership I ran two wires and an in line fuse to a switch I installed in the cabin near the tail gate disable button in the consul. Presto, instant EV only, on demand; if I run low on battery and or head off on a long trip, I switch back to what I think is MMC's well developed algorithm of ICE, charge EV cycling. Now the car works as I WANT IT TO, not the way MMC think the average Joe wants it to.

This makes a great car, brilliant! Pure EV, even if it is a little cool outside (I then just turn on the heated seat usually anyway) you can drive it like a rental! Point and shoot without the ICE firing up, its always quiet and a few less trips to the petrol station.

I do hope MMC develop and retrograde this into the ECO button, but I have it now and it took all of 10 minutes.

 

[chasingamy]

Could someone give it a quick try and pull out the fuse for the fuell pump and tell us, what error message/warning sign apperars on the displays?

Haha. Indeed.

Removing the fuel pump fuse ( fuse # 14) did not cause any issues or displayed faults until I then turned the climate control system on to auto. If you turn the heater on with the fuse missing you do get a scary looking fault message instructing you pull over as soon as it is safe to do so and call 999 (or some such nonsense). Shutting the car down, turning the heater off and restarting cleared the fault message.

I learned this just a few days after I bought the car and became annoyed that the ICE started when it was cool outside or, I put my foot down just a little too far, etc. After 2 weeks ownership I ran two wires and an in line fuse to a switch I installed in the cabin near the tail gate disable button in the consul. Presto, instant EV only, on demand; if I run low on battery and or head off on a long trip, I switch back to what I think is MMC's well developed algorithm of ICE, charge EV cycling. Now the car works as I WANT IT TO, not the way MMC think the average Joe wants it to.

This makes a great car, brilliant! Pure EV, even if it is a little cool outside (I then just turn on the heated seat usually anyway) you can drive it like a rental! Point and shoot without the ICE firing up, its always quiet and a few less trips to the petrol station.

I do hope MMC develop and retrograde this into the ECO button, but I have it now and it took all of 10 minutes.

 

[anko]

Nice. But don't you get the same error message when you depress the accelerator a bit too far?

 

[chasingamy]

Hello Anko,

No, it only seemed to display the fault when I tried to run the climate control in auto.
The rest of the time, I can drive it like I want, full throttle whatever, no fault message.

Curiously, this morning and for the first time, the fault display appeared even with the climate control turned off. It was a little cool this morning and maybe the system tried to cycle the engine based on outside temp (climate control off) and hence, faulted out?

In any event, I stopped and restarted and the fault cleared. Never the less, apparently not as clean a fix as I had hoped. I would still like MMC to fix this faulty design element in a software upgrade.

 

[Trex]

Hello Anko,

No, it only seemed to display the fault when I tried to run the climate control in auto.
The rest of the time, I can drive it like I want, full throttle whatever, no fault message.

Curiously, this morning and for the first time, the fault display appeared even with the climate control turned off. It was a little cool this morning and maybe the system tried to cycle the engine based on outside temp (climate control off) and hence, faulted out?

In any event, I stopped and restarted and the fault cleared. Never the less, apparently not as clean a fix as I had hoped. I would still like MMC to fix this faulty design element in a software upgrade.

Hi,

When I pulled the fuel pump fuse as seen in this discussion the fault that showed up was ACC calibration needed. Go figure.

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1326

Regards Trex.

 

[anko]

I had to try for myself Observations:

- Indeed "ACC service required" and "EV System service required" messages, not immediately after flooring the accelerator, but short time thereafter. Indeed, these messages go away after a restart.
- Car feels much faster than before at speeds below 40 - 50 km/h. Car doesn't feel much faster than before at speeds above that. Of course because it cannot be much faster on just 60 kW. But maybe also because under normal circumstances it is easier to drive close to the EV limit at higher speeds. You have more time to watch the dials, more control.
- Power meter in the dash goes little bit into the white part of the scale / energy meter in MMSC turns red. So, more than 60 kW is delivered by the battery. Or at least, so it thinks.
- Initially 0.2 liter / 100 km of fuel consumption was reported, later brought down to 0.1 :shock:

I assume the car is programmed to show at least some consumption, as soon as it tries to fire the engine, regardless of how much fuel was actually consumed. Otherwise, it woud be possible to drive 50 EV km, floor the accelerator to start the engine and still see 0 l / 100 km, which could be seen as awkward. But who will tell?

 

[chasingamy]

Update on running EV only mode,
The strange experience I had this morning when for the first time ever in EV mode (not running the climate control in auto) the message of "EV system requires service" appeared; has not happened again today.

To refresh everyone; I have been running the vehicle without the fuel pump fuse in-line (switched with a small button I wired into the fuse box and back to the cabin) for sometime with no fault warnings (unless I tried to use the heater/climate control). This morning however, it did flag the "EV system requires service" on the instrument panel, even though the heater was off. I suspected the annoying auto-start if its a little cool outside feature tried to engage and waste petrol.

After stopping and restarting the fault cleared. Later in the day I've been driving it like a get-a-way car and no fault messages. So I am guessing that it was the idiotic, "burn some petrol because it is a little cool outside feature" was the indeed the culprit. Apparently the boys at MMC are not as worried about the ICE NOT starting to provide "fast" get-away car mode (semi-useful) as they are about the useless "petrol burn if the driver doesn't want heat but it's under 10c outside" feature.

Al in all, EV mode makes it a much more relaxing car to drive. I can go as far as I want in EV and choose petrol burn when/if I want it and don't worry about the ICE cranking up when I don't want or need it to.

 

[anko]

I've done three 'stints' without the fuse. In all there of them, the warning lights came on within about 10 seconds ofI flooring it. Definitely no heater or aircon on, so can only be related to power demand for driving. And it kind a makes sense. The electronics want to fire up the engine and it fails. Why would it matter what the reason for firing up the engine was?

You sure you have pushed hard enough?

 

[chasingamy]

Anko,

I have pinned the throttle to the floor! I don't hold it there long and this may be why I don't get faults.