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Poor battery performance
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gwatpe
Well-known member
It would seem that others are also speculating the impact on emissions of a reduced battery capacity. My own experience is drawn from actual driving. I have had the opportunity to confirm again, increased petrol consumption for a 150km round trip of a PHEV with a measured reduced battery capacity. I was able to incorporate a deeper electrical discharge of the battery to make some space for a long downhill regen opportunity and did gain an 0.1L/100km reduction of petrol for the trip compared to earlier drives. Battery usage was restricted to 1/4 of the capacity to keep the test objective with typical EV usage over a longer time, that amounted to about 20% of total km driven.
I did not buy a PHEV to carry out free vehicle testing for Mitsubishi.
I cannot imagine that some software mods would be that difficult for any competent software designer. The PHEV has so much hidden data that could be displayed on another hidden screen. Monitoring of the battery performance could uncover flaws in the car design that could be detrimental to potential sales, but only if there was a problem. Would be an asset otherwise.
It would certainly be beneficial for Mitsubishi to mod an existing car with an upgrade instead of a new design, with the possibility of just adding to the problems. There may be hope for existing PHEV owners to be participants in this with some longer term battery monitoring benefits.
Don't believe a broken battery can be fixed as such, apart from selective cell replacement. The design of the PHEV does not lend itself to easy battery replacement should it be required.
I did not buy a PHEV to carry out free vehicle testing for Mitsubishi.
I cannot imagine that some software mods would be that difficult for any competent software designer. The PHEV has so much hidden data that could be displayed on another hidden screen. Monitoring of the battery performance could uncover flaws in the car design that could be detrimental to potential sales, but only if there was a problem. Would be an asset otherwise.
It would certainly be beneficial for Mitsubishi to mod an existing car with an upgrade instead of a new design, with the possibility of just adding to the problems. There may be hope for existing PHEV owners to be participants in this with some longer term battery monitoring benefits.
Don't believe a broken battery can be fixed as such, apart from selective cell replacement. The design of the PHEV does not lend itself to easy battery replacement should it be required.
It is interesting how local factors affect oppinion of the PHEV. In the UK the tax advantages to owning a low emission car are SOOOOO great that talk of battery performance is pretty much irrelevant for a company car user. The savings in Tax mean that the car could probably do 10mpg and they would still be better off.
Mr gwatpe got me slightly worried so, given that I needed to make a lunchtime trip to the rubbish dump, I decided to run a test...
I plugged up and gave the car a full charge. The weather round here is pretty good at the moment - temperatures between 18 and 20 degrees, dry, sunny - hence no need for heating/aircon or lights. I ran on "Eco" setting and the route was mixed mode urban and rural, relatively flat but with a couple of quite steep hills - both up and down. Traffic was moderate - I did get held up in a couple of slow queues. Speeds were mixed - no more than 50mph and mostly between 30 and 40 mph.
I kept an eye on the energy flow - not paying too much attention to the charge level display - I measured from the start point to the point where the petrol engine cut in and stayed in - it did cut in a couple of times before the battery was flat to give an extra boost for overtaking or the steepest points on hills - the display showed 98% EV at the end of my test.
Bottom line? I got 29.5 miles on battery - at the start, it had been estimating 29!
So, I reckon that means that my battery is in decent condition at the moment - if the air and road temperature had been a few degrees higher, I believe (based on experience with a Prius) that I would have been nudging the mythical 32 miles. I wasn't going out of my way to maximise range - I think I could have squeezed another mile out of it by being a bit more gentle on acceleration...
At the mid point in my route, I stopped off briefly at Ashridge - National Trust park and possible to get "off-road". I tried a hundred yards or so on a relatively bumpy, muddy field and it handled perfectly. It's no Landrover or Landcruiser, so I kept my speed down to walking pace, but it gave the impression of being able to handle quite a lot worse and the steering was fine.
I plugged up and gave the car a full charge. The weather round here is pretty good at the moment - temperatures between 18 and 20 degrees, dry, sunny - hence no need for heating/aircon or lights. I ran on "Eco" setting and the route was mixed mode urban and rural, relatively flat but with a couple of quite steep hills - both up and down. Traffic was moderate - I did get held up in a couple of slow queues. Speeds were mixed - no more than 50mph and mostly between 30 and 40 mph.
I kept an eye on the energy flow - not paying too much attention to the charge level display - I measured from the start point to the point where the petrol engine cut in and stayed in - it did cut in a couple of times before the battery was flat to give an extra boost for overtaking or the steepest points on hills - the display showed 98% EV at the end of my test.
Bottom line? I got 29.5 miles on battery - at the start, it had been estimating 29!
So, I reckon that means that my battery is in decent condition at the moment - if the air and road temperature had been a few degrees higher, I believe (based on experience with a Prius) that I would have been nudging the mythical 32 miles. I wasn't going out of my way to maximise range - I think I could have squeezed another mile out of it by being a bit more gentle on acceleration...
At the mid point in my route, I stopped off briefly at Ashridge - National Trust park and possible to get "off-road". I tried a hundred yards or so on a relatively bumpy, muddy field and it handled perfectly. It's no Landrover or Landcruiser, so I kept my speed down to walking pace, but it gave the impression of being able to handle quite a lot worse and the steering was fine.
gwatpe
Well-known member
Hi Maby,
The predicted range and the ability of a driver to achieve close to manufacturer quoted EV range is very subjective as you are aware. The most important data that you have not provided, and is now probably lost is the kWh of energy that the battery needed to fully recharge at the end of the test.
For the PHEV I have been driving, I have graphs of the way my PHEV absorbed the grid recharge while recharged at home, including the power level as well as the kWh. Unfortunately only on a couple of occasions I ever had to recharge the PHEV from fully empty. A loan PHEV that has been a comparison car, refilled from gauge EMPTY with 10.5kWh. This would have been from the 20% of total capacity. Given that the 10.5kWh would have been equivalent to 80% of the total battery capacity, it works out that this loan PHEV had close to 13.125kWh of total capacity for 100%battery SOC. It is a bit complicated to work out how this relates to battery Ah as the other important data like battery Volts and battery efficiency is not available. If we assume a typical LiIon chemistry of 3.6Vnom per cell and no charging loss. These are fully charged at 4.1V/cell. The terminal voltage that appears on the cell vs %SOC is unfortunately not linear. This is why battery capacity is measured in Amps and hours. Energy is normally measured in kWh, and power in kW. A similar PHEV has given 329V at 86%SOC, so this gives 4.11V/cell. This is higher than I would expect for a LiIon battery at 86%SOC. If the battery above of 13.125kWh total energy had 329V, the Ah would equate to 39.9Ah, only if the voltage across the full discharge was constant. This is actually not how the battery works. The battery capacity seems to be really hidden in rubbery figures and as long as one calculation gives close enough to the 40Ah, the manufacturer spec, so the battery would be considered within specs. The kWh needed for a full recharge could still be a useful guide to the battery performance, and maybe a PHEV owners trigger for more extensive dealer battery capacity analysis.
The predicted range and the ability of a driver to achieve close to manufacturer quoted EV range is very subjective as you are aware. The most important data that you have not provided, and is now probably lost is the kWh of energy that the battery needed to fully recharge at the end of the test.
For the PHEV I have been driving, I have graphs of the way my PHEV absorbed the grid recharge while recharged at home, including the power level as well as the kWh. Unfortunately only on a couple of occasions I ever had to recharge the PHEV from fully empty. A loan PHEV that has been a comparison car, refilled from gauge EMPTY with 10.5kWh. This would have been from the 20% of total capacity. Given that the 10.5kWh would have been equivalent to 80% of the total battery capacity, it works out that this loan PHEV had close to 13.125kWh of total capacity for 100%battery SOC. It is a bit complicated to work out how this relates to battery Ah as the other important data like battery Volts and battery efficiency is not available. If we assume a typical LiIon chemistry of 3.6Vnom per cell and no charging loss. These are fully charged at 4.1V/cell. The terminal voltage that appears on the cell vs %SOC is unfortunately not linear. This is why battery capacity is measured in Amps and hours. Energy is normally measured in kWh, and power in kW. A similar PHEV has given 329V at 86%SOC, so this gives 4.11V/cell. This is higher than I would expect for a LiIon battery at 86%SOC. If the battery above of 13.125kWh total energy had 329V, the Ah would equate to 39.9Ah, only if the voltage across the full discharge was constant. This is actually not how the battery works. The battery capacity seems to be really hidden in rubbery figures and as long as one calculation gives close enough to the 40Ah, the manufacturer spec, so the battery would be considered within specs. The kWh needed for a full recharge could still be a useful guide to the battery performance, and maybe a PHEV owners trigger for more extensive dealer battery capacity analysis.
gwatpe
Well-known member
Chrisdy said:
Chrisdy said:
Chrisdy said:
There is a common theme here. How the battery is used seems to impact critically on how the PHEV determines the remaining battery capacity displayed and thus calculations of range.
The fully discharge before fully recharging may be the only way the PHEV computer program can reliably work out the capacity. This would seem to be quite restricting and there is no mention in any advertising that the car has to be driven a certain way for all systems to function.
I have a $35 coulomb meter on my house Lithium Battery bank [410Ah @ 24VNom, approx 10kWh], that measures Amps in and out of the battery, to 1mA. The meter is calibrated to the Ah of the battery. The meter is set, by fully recharging, or fully discharging the battery once. The meter calculates the % Ah of the battery capacity remaining and this is displayed, as well as the remaining Ah. The current in or out is also displayed in real time, and the time to fully discharge, or recharge at this current is calculated and displayed. The meter plays no part in the battery charging or discharging controls. If the battery ages over time, I will know as the charging controls will prevent the meter showing a full recharge, as the amps in will be lower than the calculated fully recharge amount. I found this meter on EBay and would think that a similar setup could easily be programmed into the PHEV computer to remove the uncertainty that the present programming gives. How hard can it be.
If there is a certain procedure to be followed regularly to recalibrate the PHEV computer, then why is this not clearly described in the manual. This would reduce the trips to the service garage who only seem to flatten the battery and then recharge it to miraculously repair the problem with no explanation of how.
Drivers are not stupid and if a particular drive is needed occasionally to reset things, then at least Mitsubishi can let the driver participate, without them thinking the car is broken first and then looking stupid when service finds nothing wrong, and the car seems to work as it once did.
Indications of poor battery performance should not be based on poor programming. There should be some driver accessible data available and displayed on a car computer screen that can be used to guide the PHEV owner/driver of any diminishing battery performance or function.
The RANGE shown by the phev is based on how the car has been most recently previously driven. This is the best estimate the computer can do of how far you are likely to be able to drive on batteries. The driver should know if they drive faster or use more electric equipment the range will be less than estimated if they drive slower the range will be more.
a meter showing the kWh left in the battery is something entirely different and has no predictive quality and is a pure measurement. Perhaps a display of this will satisfy those with paranoia about their batteries.
CJ
a meter showing the kWh left in the battery is something entirely different and has no predictive quality and is a pure measurement. Perhaps a display of this will satisfy those with paranoia about their batteries.
CJ
gwatpe said:
I do believe that the Mitsubishi battery management is not as sophisticated as it could be - though some here would grumble if they had got it right. I compare it with the battery management in the Prius and the approach is very different. The Prius is a more sophisticated hybrid with the control systems continually playing the petrol engine and battery off against each other. In normal driving, every few hours it will cycle the battery right down to close to empty and back up to full.
I cannot see how anybody can program a car to meet all users and conditions.
The best they can do is to produce reactions to the various modelling of users / conditions which fits in with the hardware provided.
If you look at the various EV, PHEV, Hybrid (or indeed Petrol / Diesel) car user forums you will see all systems have their limitations and advantages.
The adverts always give the best case figures, which are rarely achievable, and salesmen won't engage in real life expectations.
All we can hope is that the customer service is good and truthful, the battery has a 5 year warranty.
Also, if £2000 is the true replacement cost of battery, that is not bad to keep a £30k car going.
The best they can do is to produce reactions to the various modelling of users / conditions which fits in with the hardware provided.
If you look at the various EV, PHEV, Hybrid (or indeed Petrol / Diesel) car user forums you will see all systems have their limitations and advantages.
The adverts always give the best case figures, which are rarely achievable, and salesmen won't engage in real life expectations.
All we can hope is that the customer service is good and truthful, the battery has a 5 year warranty.
Also, if £2000 is the true replacement cost of battery, that is not bad to keep a £30k car going.
gwatpe
Well-known member
CJ1045 said:
Mitsubishi sell mass produced cars and the owner is entitled to know if their vehicle actually meets specifications when sold new, and certainly for a component as critical as the traction battery.
In a PHEV, where the battery capacity plays such an important role in the emissions, and driveability of the car, the driver should have an unambiguous reading of the battery capacity and be able to compare this with the specification over the life of the battery to determine if service was required.
Mitsubishi was kind enough to supply my car with a battery that they measured with approx 50% of the expected capacity loss over the life of the car as NEW and as "without a battery problem".
I just wonder how many of the so called satisfied PHEV owners are missing out on even better battery performance, [which affects petrol consumption figures and emissions figures] because they are unaware of a below spec battery. Battery range Paranoia is valid if a car is sold with a low battery capacity and the driver is suspicious of the the car not being close to advertised performance, but is told all is OK. How much more petrol needs to be burnt with the associated carbon emissions because a manufacturer has loose quality control and under spec cars are released for sale as fully spec.
The 5 year battery warranty does not cover the cost to the driver of the lower battery range and the implications of additional petrol consumed to make up the difference in lower battery performance.
This is a HYBRID car and petrol is expected to be consumed in normal operation. Some drivers may operate in EV only mode, within even the range of a reduced capacity battery and would probably never know there was any problem. Some of my local drives fit this drive type as well, but generally petrol is needed and when 2 PHEV are compared on the same drive types and one returns about a litre more petrol per hundred kilometers [from 6.2L/100km], and this car has the lower battery capacity, then battery paranoia is applicable.
I have to wonder how much of a problem the battery is and how much better informed drivers would be if there was a readout somewhere on the car of the actual battery capacity in Ah, that could be checked against the EMPTY and FULL indications on the battery gauge.
greendwarf
Well-known member
CJ1045 said:
I think paranoia is at bit harsh. gwatpe certainly has issues with his car but, as he says, other users such as myself (went all this week on one charge) may not notice similar problems. There is a wide variety of demands placed on our cars so, when taken with our expectations, inevitably satisfaction levels will vary accordingly.
We don't know enough about each others use, conditions etc. to judge whether comments here are justified or not - but surely this forum is also a place for letting off steam (have I mentioned not being able to get a red one? :twisted: )
However, I am surprised that Australia was considered as launch market given the potential extremes of heat and rough roads compared to Europe (see comments about handling from Sydney). There was a link somewhere in the forum to a lecture on battery performance referring to problems with the Leaf in Arizona & California due to heat and poor temperature control systems.
gwatpe
Well-known member
On a cooler note, the aircon seems to cope very well with the 40+C temps we have already had in AUS this year. Have to admit I was driving the loan car. Will have to wait and see how my own PHEV makes of high ambient temps. Summer is supposed to be long and hot.
PS my last 2 cars were red and I would have liked a third this time.
PS my last 2 cars were red and I would have liked a third this time.
greendwarf
Well-known member
gwatpe said:
I'm glad to know I'm not only one disappointed by not being able to get the red - the diesel on the website looks good :twisted:
BTW I've never been to South Australia only Victoria, NSW & Brisbane but I know their temperature peaks in January - so how hot does it get where you are? Going back to my previous post, with that sort of ambient heat the car will presumably be using energy just to keep the battery cool even when not being driven
gwatpe
Well-known member
Have had 46.5C on occasions. this was accompanied with 2% humidity. Will check again, but I have only seen cooling pipes going back to the rear motor controller area. Will need to look more closely the next time the car is up on the hoist. The cooling pipes are very vulnerable to damage as there is no cover protection. Have now reset the electricity cost screen to $100 per unit and the MMCS will now record recharge kWh with a graph that makes some sense. kWh is a much more useful number to see on the graphs to monitor the battery than a cost that will ultimately be a variable.
Not that hot here yet but did a 200klm trip a couple of days ago (rural roads, 110klm per hour +) outside temp was around 34deg C...aircon was brilliant.
Have also noticed the outlander has excellent flow-through ventilation,probably the best in any car Ive owned. Normally I will have climate control set around 19deg C all year but have found the ventilation so good that unless its a hot day I don't use the aircon.
Have also noticed the outlander has excellent flow-through ventilation,probably the best in any car Ive owned. Normally I will have climate control set around 19deg C all year but have found the ventilation so good that unless its a hot day I don't use the aircon.
greendwarf
Well-known member
gwatpe said:
Wow that's seriously hot although I suppose 2% humidity helps. Friends in Brisbane tell me sometimes they get similar heat blown in from the centre but coupled with the high humidity of being on the coast, which is very uncomfortable
Hi all,
I've been reading the forum for a few days now after getting my PHEV 3 days ago. I thought this post looked like the best place to ask this question so here goes...
It arrived with a depleted battery and was put on charge overnight. After taking it off charge it said 18 mile range. Seemed low but decided to drive until empty and recharge again. I have now done this 4 times and it doesn't show more than 18 mile range. Earlier I took it off charge @ 80% and it said 16 mile range. Do I need to persevere with it and hope it adjusts after a few more charges or should I contact the dealer to get it checked?
everything else about the car seems perfect and I am very happy, although I wish the reversing camera was more like my Lexus RX one.
thanks
Martin
I've been reading the forum for a few days now after getting my PHEV 3 days ago. I thought this post looked like the best place to ask this question so here goes...
It arrived with a depleted battery and was put on charge overnight. After taking it off charge it said 18 mile range. Seemed low but decided to drive until empty and recharge again. I have now done this 4 times and it doesn't show more than 18 mile range. Earlier I took it off charge @ 80% and it said 16 mile range. Do I need to persevere with it and hope it adjusts after a few more charges or should I contact the dealer to get it checked?
everything else about the car seems perfect and I am very happy, although I wish the reversing camera was more like my Lexus RX one.
thanks
Martin
mandcandk said:
Hi Martin and welcome. I'm a relative novice here too but my own recent experience was that it took about 5 days for the range to work its way up to low 30's. However, even though that was only 2 weeks ago, the ambient temperatures were significantly higher then so it wouldn't surprise me if takes a little longer now. I wouldn't panic just yet, give it another week or so to see how it settles down.
gwatpe
Well-known member
Hi Martin,
the predicted battery range is fiction. The low predicted range is telling me that towards the end of the previous drive of your PHEV, the car was subject to high battery consumption. The car does NOT work the range out on the full battery use, but only the last 10 or so minutes of driving. This is why my PHEV returns a predicted range of up to 89km sometimes. I have a steep decent, followed by a few km of gentle downhill to my home, [approx 10 minutes of driving] and regularly the car shows the fictional super optimistic range. After driving with a full battery for a few km, the car soon reworks the range, and by half a battery use of local driving, I have about 20km predicted range for half the remaining battery. I just joke to myself that when I drive the PHEV with a full battery and the super optimistic range, that I am really driving poorly and should not be too concerned. Visitors when they see how quickly the range diminishes ask all sorts of challenging questions that I just avoid answering and I change to the radio screen, as to not blot other good points to the car.
It would be good if the car just had only real instrumentation without the guestimates.
BTW, in AUS shipped PHEV, the charge cost graph screens have a bug that hopefully will be fixed, where the auto scaling does not work properly, and a work around I thought might work to allow kWh to be graphed instead is affected by the auto scaling being restricted between $180 default, and a maximum of $500 per day. Have to leave it at $35 per unit charge cost to get some meaningful graphs to display at all presently.
The measure of the battery performance cannot be based on the predicted battery range. The software in PHEV's delivered to different locations in the world has subtle differences, and possibly a new release in the USA will be backward compatible, and other regions will also benefit with any new tools made available in cars shipped there, to the others regions as well.
the predicted battery range is fiction. The low predicted range is telling me that towards the end of the previous drive of your PHEV, the car was subject to high battery consumption. The car does NOT work the range out on the full battery use, but only the last 10 or so minutes of driving. This is why my PHEV returns a predicted range of up to 89km sometimes. I have a steep decent, followed by a few km of gentle downhill to my home, [approx 10 minutes of driving] and regularly the car shows the fictional super optimistic range. After driving with a full battery for a few km, the car soon reworks the range, and by half a battery use of local driving, I have about 20km predicted range for half the remaining battery. I just joke to myself that when I drive the PHEV with a full battery and the super optimistic range, that I am really driving poorly and should not be too concerned. Visitors when they see how quickly the range diminishes ask all sorts of challenging questions that I just avoid answering and I change to the radio screen, as to not blot other good points to the car.
It would be good if the car just had only real instrumentation without the guestimates.
BTW, in AUS shipped PHEV, the charge cost graph screens have a bug that hopefully will be fixed, where the auto scaling does not work properly, and a work around I thought might work to allow kWh to be graphed instead is affected by the auto scaling being restricted between $180 default, and a maximum of $500 per day. Have to leave it at $35 per unit charge cost to get some meaningful graphs to display at all presently.
The measure of the battery performance cannot be based on the predicted battery range. The software in PHEV's delivered to different locations in the world has subtle differences, and possibly a new release in the USA will be backward compatible, and other regions will also benefit with any new tools made available in cars shipped there, to the others regions as well.
