Some PHEV tidbits

[elm70]

I think that these things will be overcome in the future, just don't hold your breath while waiting, I am sure that Mitsubishi are planning the next model already, and even trying to make allowances for even further developments.

I have always thought that to achieve the SUV go anywhere power and a better off the mark acceleration in EV mode a simple two speed epicyclic gearbox needs to be fitted. This could double the apparent torque at the wheels, and even if only fitted to the back axle of the Outlander PHEV would make a vast difference.

As far as the cabin heating and cooling problem, an investment in a proper 'heat pump' system would make it more efficient.

What I am interested in is how quickly will the power ramp up to from standstill to the new 70kw limit, and how long will it be allowed to sustain this higher level, when only drawing from the 'unchanged?' battery in the new EV mode.

In the future we will see more hybrid cars from different producer using this 4x4 direct drive concept ... but ... this is a different story

About improve torque, for faster acceleration at low speed .. I guess is something Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV team did not care at all ... possibly they will not care in the future too ... there is no need of 2 speed gears ... it will be a "waste" in my view ... Tesla need only 1 gear for have tops speed well over 200km/h and 0-100km'y in less then 4 seconds (and is a similar 2 tons heavy weight car)... so ... PHEV design is already fit for high acceleration .. but PHEV team did not care to invest few cents extra for have this ... it is all matter of high current burst from battery and stronger single gear on the electric motor ... nothing more then this

It is looking like PHEV team care of durability of the drive train, "cheaper" electronic .. and avoiding extra stress to battery for extend its life ... PHEV expect their driver to behave like a granda on the streets ... like being green means to be slow (the success of Tesla prove exactly the opposite)

Same for heating system ... for me is better a slow electric heater .. then starting the ICE as first thing in the morning, after have fully charge the car in the night .. so the point is not which approach is more effective ... is just that PHEV driver should be free to decide when to use ICE for fast warm up the car, and when use electric only for slowly heat up the cabin .. now there is a very dummy automatic system that is a joke (or a shame for the PHEV engineer involved) .. topped by an ECO button that is an insult to every EV driver , and another shame for the Japanese PHEV team

Yes .. they are improving the new car, as you can see on the 2017 model ... but this is the minimum to expect ... but ... making outdate every year the car is a bad business strategy in my book

As said .. possibly they are not Tesla, nor Apple and neither Sony .. so they will ignore to bring little but important firmware upgrade to the current PHEV owners

 

[Tipper]

If you dislike the car so much...why keep it? :roll:

 

[elm70]

If you dislike the car so much...why keep it? :roll:

It is not about to like or to dislike

I "believe" I'm objective ... there are "some" bad design decisions in the car .. that are under fix with the new model.

I don't see why we should hide them only because we own the car

PS: At the moment there are no other 4x4 PHEV car in the market .. except maybe the new BMW 2xx (which I doubt is 4x4 in full EV mode) that is anyhow very new and relative expensive ... else ... I guess I would never consider Mitsubishi .. and for the future I may avoid intentionally this brand (I can understand to be cheap, but not to made bad design to to wrong ideas) ... unless they will care of customers like other brands do

PPS: This PHEV could be an exceptional car .. it has a smart main design ... but here and there they put "bugs" / "mistakes" & "grandpa style approach"

 

[jaapv]

Things might not be as simple as you think - I understand that the addition of the EV button is in combination with a redesign of the accelerator to equalize the response over the different modes. To rebuild the old car to the new specifications may well be prohibitively expensive.

 

[geoffshep69]

On a car as complex as this, with so many features which are different to 'normal' cars, it is always the case that compromises will have to be made and decisions taken about what is the right approach to make the car work for the majority of people.

You go on about these bugs and mistakes, but if they had designed and built the car to a specification that exactly matches what you think is correct, I can guarantee there would be hundreds of other people complaining about bugs because it doesnt work for them.

You can't please all of the people all of the time. Just because you don't like something doesnt make it wrong. Personally I'm not paying £40k to sit in an ice box in the winter so I'm quite happy that the ICE fires up to provide heat much more quickly than the electric heater can. (I do use pre-heating via the app, but thats not the point, if I didnt preheat then I'd be happy to use ICE). If Mitusubishi had designed it so that the default was for no ICE in the winter unless the driver chose to activate it, I'm sure this forum would be full of people complaining about a 'bug' and that it was ridiculous that they needed to press something to get themselves warm in the winter.

 

[elm70]

Things might not be as simple as you think - I understand that the addition of the EV button is in combination with a redesign of the accelerator to equalize the response over the different modes. To rebuild the old car to the new specifications may well be prohibitively expensive.

Accelerator .. is drive by wire , like 99.9% of modern cars.. it is just a signal for the ECU that state how much is pressed the accelerator pedal ..

Mapping this signal inside the ECU .. is basic firmware handling present in all the cars ... so ..

Nope ... nothing complex .. no redesign .. just adding a button in the console .. because it is "cool" .. since it is not mandatory ... ECO button and MMCS would have been enough

PS: I don't like to repeat myself .. but vtech achieved EV mode by sending codes over OBD2 ... so ... the basic function was already there ... like the request starting car heat using a button in the car key ... a hidden feature of the car .. that some marketing guy decide to eclipse

 

[elm70]

On a car as complex as this, with so many features which are different to 'normal' cars, it is always the case that compromises will have to be made and decisions taken about what is the right approach to make the car work for the majority of people.

You go on about these bugs and mistakes, but if they had designed and built the car to a specification that exactly matches what you think is correct, I can guarantee there would be hundreds of other people complaining about bugs because it doesnt work for them.

You can't please all of the people all of the time. Just because you don't like something doesnt make it wrong. Personally I'm not paying £40k to sit in an ice box in the winter so I'm quite happy that the ICE fires up to provide heat much more quickly than the electric heater can. (I do use pre-heating via the app, but thats not the point, if I didnt preheat then I'd be happy to use ICE). If Mitusubishi had designed it so that the default was for no ICE in the winter unless the driver chose to activate it, I'm sure this forum would be full of people complaining about a 'bug' and that it was ridiculous that they needed to press something to get themselves warm in the winter.

We have long thread here discussing how to avoid ICE start for heat up the car .. so it is not only my point of view

We have also a "producer" that sell patches for have sort of EV mode and avoid ICE start for heating

They could make it configurable via MMCS if ICE should start or not for warm up the car .. cost almost zero for Mitsubishi ... and everybody would have been happy

Yes other design aspects... that can make somebody happy and somebody not ... but in this case ... a proper design it would make everybody happy

PS: If you don't care of start engine and wasting fuel and electricity on the same time .. with 40K .. you can get a proper SUV, that is more fun to be driven ... a Porsche Cayenne does not cost much more, and a Macan should be about the same price ... but I guess .. the PHEV choice .. is just a way to trick the tax or other restriction that are country specific ...

 

[geoffshep69]

On a car as complex as this, with so many features which are different to 'normal' cars, it is always the case that compromises will have to be made and decisions taken about what is the right approach to make the car work for the majority of people.

You go on about these bugs and mistakes, but if they had designed and built the car to a specification that exactly matches what you think is correct, I can guarantee there would be hundreds of other people complaining about bugs because it doesnt work for them.

You can't please all of the people all of the time. Just because you don't like something doesnt make it wrong. Personally I'm not paying £40k to sit in an ice box in the winter so I'm quite happy that the ICE fires up to provide heat much more quickly than the electric heater can. (I do use pre-heating via the app, but thats not the point, if I didnt preheat then I'd be happy to use ICE). If Mitusubishi had designed it so that the default was for no ICE in the winter unless the driver chose to activate it, I'm sure this forum would be full of people complaining about a 'bug' and that it was ridiculous that they needed to press something to get themselves warm in the winter.

We have long thread here discussing how to avoid ICE start for heat up the car .. so it is not only my point of view

We have also a "producer" that sell patches for have sort of EV mode and avoid ICE start for heating

They could make it configurable via MMCS if ICE should start or not for warm up the car .. cost almost zero for Mitsubishi ... and everybody would have been happy

Yes other design aspects... that can make somebody happy and somebody not ... but in this case ... a proper design it would make everybody happy

PS: If you don't care of start engine and wasting fuel and electricity on the same time .. with 40K .. you can get a proper SUV, that is more fun to be driven ... a Porsche Cayenne does not cost much more, and a Macan should be about the same price ... but I guess .. the PHEV choice .. is just a way to trick the tax or other restriction that are country specific ...

Yes, its not only your point of view, but just because you, and a small number of others dont like the current design doesnt make it a bug, it just means its something that you are not happy with. Plenty of people, myself included, have no problem with the current set up so what makes you think that you are right and that I am wrong ?

Like I said, its not possible to please all the people all the time, and fixing some of the things that you regard as bugs would undoubtedly result in other people not being happy.

I've never had a car where everything single thing was designed and operated in exactly the way that I wanted. But hey, thats life, thats how things work, and we all have to take decisions on stuff like that every day. If you are prepared to live with something that is not quite to your satisfaction (or a bug as you call it) then thats fine, buy the car, accept that is has the limitation and get on with it. If the design is such a showstopper for you that you are going to whine about it for the lifetime that you own the car, then I'd suggest you shouldnt have bought it in the first place. However, I am very curious as to which car you would buy that meets your exact specification and requirements and has absolutely nothing that you would like to be different.

 

[jaapv]

Things might not be as simple as you think - I understand that the addition of the EV button is in combination with a redesign of the accelerator to equalize the response over the different modes. To rebuild the old car to the new specifications may well be prohibitively expensive.

Accelerator .. is drive by wire , like 99.9% of modern cars.. it is just a signal for the ECU that state how much is pressed the accelerator pedal ..

Mapping this signal inside the ECU .. is basic firmware handling present in all the cars ... so ..

Nope ... nothing complex .. no redesign .. just adding a button in the console .. because it is "cool" .. since it is not mandatory ... ECO button and MMCS would have been enough

PS: I don't like to repeat myself .. but vtech achieved EV mode by sending codes over OBD2 ... so ... the basic function was already there ... like the request starting car heat using a button in the car key ... a hidden feature of the car .. that some marketing guy decide to eclipse

You must reveal your industrial spionage system that allows you to know exactly what design decision was taken for what reason and by whom... :roll:

I agree fully with Geoff. A bug is an UNINTENDED result. A design decision, well, one man's "fault" is another man's feature. No use banging on about it.
So if you want to stop the ICE firing up install Vtech's ICEheaterStop. I removed mine as I didn't like the result.

 

[Steepndeep]

Hi

I think you miss most of elm70's points. With the software you can give the driver the opportunity to configure the car to his/hers liking. And with a PHEV there are, as can be seen in this forum, many different views on how the car shall behave. A customer oriented modern company would definately make use of this to reach a larger audience and have better customer satisfaction. This is clearly where all the industry is going today with Internet of Things and Cloud. I totally agree with elm70s statements and it is really a shame that Mitsu seems to live in the old days.

You can customize ventilation settings and Map guidance etc but when it comes to the real new stuff, the EV mode, they seem to live in the old days. If I choose to prefer driving short distances in a freezebox to avoid having ICE to start I should be able to do so. And is someone else prefers always ICE to start when cold they should be entitled to do so. We would all be happy customers.

As it is right now, although the car may be great, Mitsu as a customer oriented organisation clearly has to learn from others. A firmware upgrade woulld also rise the resale value of the car to every current owners benefit.

 

[jaapv]

There are sure to be tradeoffs. It may be no coincidence that they upped the power together with semi-pure EV.
Still, a design choice, conservative or not, is not a bug.
It must make economic sense too. I have close relations with a camera maker. They routinely offer a facelifted camera after a few years. They also offer an upgrade service for the previous model. Few owners make use of the upgrade, as it makes little economic sense to do so. As upgrades are relatively expensive and do not yield much more in second-hand prices, it is wiser to use the previous model as-is a few years more and trade it in. I suspect that would be the case with Mitsubishi as well.

 

[elm70]

Please ... there are BUGs in the car ... I don't know if your car has better firmware. Mine is a Dec 2013 and who knows if they have every update anything while was doing services (for sure nothing happen few weeks ago when serviced by "amateur" official Mitsubishi here in Poland)

MMCS programming of charging time and remote heat/condition/defrost was not working ... if charging time was set was even not possible to charge anymore the car. Solution was to disable WiFi .. then MMCS start to work again
I call it BUG, not a feature :ugeek:

Again on the MMCS .. the last charge cost, the graph .. is totally wrong ... it top up to 3.5unit ... showing that everyday got the same charge .. only the last charge is shown in number correctly (hopefully) that is between 5 to 9 unit normally
Wanted flat graph ? Overflow of the graph scale ... you may want again to defend blindly Mitsubishi .. but this is a BUG

I never spot any bug in any previous car I owned ... such evident bug in a car is shocking to me ... a sign o vasry bad engineering .. then to the bugs ... we can add many odds (which are questionable features)

I still have to find anybody that understand the ECO function ... consumption does not look to have any impact ... only change is the ICE start when delta temperature is X instead of Y (with X and Y only 3 degrees a part), and less energy is used for A/C and heating .. ... you may call it wanted feature for the "common/generic" customer .. I call it a JOKE

Fact that now in 2017 they add the EV button .. it means they know well it was a mistake 3 years ago to don't have it already in the car .. maybe is even a wanted "mistake" ... just for show improvement and get few customer to sell their old PHEV at a loss and get a new one.

Anyhow ... they got them cheating like VW ... I guess they have focus on different direction right now then not improve the PHEV.
Possibly Renault/Nissan will force some improvement in the mentality in the next months/years ... who knows.

As summary .... it is a car with a fundamental good design ... but many things in the "implementation" got screwed up in the final result

For us owner of old PHEV, the 2017 with EV button will make our model obsolete and with faster depreciation ... having a proper EV implementation will attract more customers for a 2nd hand 2017 model vs the previous one.

 

[elm70]

There are sure to be tradeoffs. It may be no coincidence that they upped the power together with semi-pure EV.
Still, a design choice, conservative or not, is not a bug.
It must make economic sense too. I have close relations with a camera maker. They routinely offer a facelifted camera after a few years. They also offer an upgrade service for the previous model. Few owners make use of the upgrade, as it makes little economic sense to do so. As upgrades are relatively expensive and do not yield much more in second-hand prices, it is wiser to use the previous model as-is a few years more and trade it in. I suspect that would be the case with Mitsubishi as well.

Speaking about camera ...

In the small action camera sector... looking at Mobius or "old" #16 ... the "producer/developer" made his reputation and strong big sales in a very competitive market .. by continuously keeping update the camera firmware

Still in the camera world, sensor , lens and chipset, are something that can't be upgrade .. only firmware can be done

Same as Apple, Tesla and Sony (actually the list can be quite long, including Microsoft, Google, etc) ... they care to upgrade and provide new features to model that are over 3 years old ... yes .. it has some extra costs ... but also it brings mayor benefit ... brand reputation, and customer satisfaction, it is very important for an health future of the company

 

[jaapv]

Please ... there are BUGs in the car ... I don't know if your car has better firmware. Mine is a Dec 2013 and who knows if they have every update anything while was doing services (for sure nothing happen few weeks ago when serviced by "amateur" official Mitsubishi here in Poland)

MMCS programming of charging time and remote heat/condition/defrost was not working ... if charging time was set was even not possible to charge anymore the car. Solution was to disable WiFi .. then MMCS start to work again
I call it BUG, not a feature :ugeek:

Again on the MMCS .. the last charge cost, the graph .. is totally wrong ... it top up to 3.5unit ... showing that everyday got the same charge .. only the last charge is shown in number correctly (hopefully) that is between 5 to 9 unit normally
Wanted flat graph ? Overflow of the graph scale ... you may want again to defend blindly Mitsubishi .. but this is a BUG

I never spot any bug in any previous car I owned ... such evident bug in a car is shocking to me ... a sign o vasry bad engineering .. then to the bugs ... we can add many odds (which are questionable features)

I still have to find anybody that understand the ECO function ... consumption does not look to have any impact ... only change is the ICE start when delta temperature is X instead of Y (with X and Y only 3 degrees a part), and less energy is used for A/C and heating .. ... you may call it wanted feature for the "common/generic" customer .. I call it a JOKE

Fact that now in 2017 they add the EV button .. it means they know well it was a mistake 3 years ago to don't have it already in the car .. maybe is even a wanted "mistake" ... just for show improvement and get few customer to sell their old PHEV at a loss and get a new one.

Anyhow ... they got them cheating like VW ... I guess they have focus on different direction right now then not improve the PHEV.
Possibly Renault/Nissan will force some improvement in the mentality in the next months/years ... who knows.

As summary .... it is a car with a fundamental good design ... but many things in the "implementation" got screwed up in the final result

For us owner of old PHEV, the 2017 with EV button will make our model obsolete and with faster depreciation ... having a proper EV implementation will attract more customers for a 2nd hand 2017 model vs the previous one.

I've got a Dec. 2013 one, and it does not behave like yours, never has. I would suggest corrupted firmware. That actually happened to me. The car developed a fault in the FCM, the dealer could not find it, hooked it up to Japan and they found corrupted lines in the firmware, reloaded it, problem solved.

 

[greendwarf]

Does elm70 getting out of his pram over this remind anyone else of our departed owner carnut? This is starting to sound like working up to justifying ditching the car - so probably not worth arguing further about it :roll:

 

[geoffshep69]

My final comment is in line with what jaapv has said - there is a clear difference between a bug (something which doesn't work as it should do) and a design decision (where something operates in line with the decision taken by Mitsubishi, but an individual driver doesnt like it). I certainly dont recognise the long list of bugs that elm70 apparently has in his car.

Other point is that constant evolution and development means that new / better features will always be forthcoming. The fact that the 2014 and 2016 MY versions dont have an EV button, but the 2017 does, doesn't mean that there is a 'bug' in the earlier versions, it just means that Mitsubishi are learning, possibly listening to feedback, and improving their cars. To suggest that Mitsubishi knew it was a mistake not to include it in 2016, but deliberately decided not to so that people would swap their 2016 for a 2017 model, is quite frankly ludicrous and devalues the other points you are trying to make.

 

[elm70]

I've got a Dec. 2013 one, and it does not behave like yours, never has. I wuld suggest corrupted firmware. That actually happened to me. The car developed a fault in the FCM, the dealer could not find it, hooked it up to Japan and they found corrupted lines in the firmware, reloaded it, problem solved.

Actually the problem with non working timers over MMCS when WiFi is enabled, it has been reported by others too.

So I doubt, it is a corrupted firmware (which would be a very scary luck of QC BTW)

Anyhow ... I guess I said enough about this ... and pointing out defects in the PHEV, it is looking like touching a sensible area to many PHEV owners.

I seem to recall an update in the charge cost module a few years ago.

 

[anko]

I think most PHEV owners are willing to handle "constructive criticism". Dealing with your ongoing bitching at the car and the manufacturer is something else. Especially when you label people that don't agree with you all the way as "fanboys", surely that does not help.

How come one could see this coming, when you asked advice on whether or not to buy this car? You did not agree with the car even before you bought it .... :?

 

[jaapv]

Does elm70 getting out of his pram over this remind anyone else of our departed owner carnut? This is starting to sound like working up to justifying ditching the car - so probably not worth arguing further about it :roll:

Or he really bought a lemon - or an unserviced car and is struggling with inadequate dealers.

 

[maby]

Does elm70 getting out of his pram over this remind anyone else of our departed owner carnut? This is starting to sound like working up to justifying ditching the car - so probably not worth arguing further about it :roll:

Or he really bought a lemon - or an unserviced car and is struggling with inadequate dealers.

No - most of his complaints are genuine, known issues which have been discussed here - he is just less forgiving than most of us!