Lon12
Well-known member
I've always enjoyed Gary's video's. So sad that Mitsubishi will not support their vehicles or honour their battery warranty.
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Update from Gary Reed
- Thread starter Lon12
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It seems to be a common problem with all EVs, not just Mitsubishi. Our Outlander PHEV was showing its age, and Mitsubishi have withdrawn from Europe, including Britain, so we decided to replace it while it still had some trade-in value. Ford were beginning to promote their Explorer EV SUV and we decided to take a look. Initial impressions were positive and we put our names on the list to reserve one when they started to ship. I've never been convinced by pure EVs - they really don't fit well with our pattern of usage which consists of a few short trips each week plus a round-trip of around 200 miles with no possibility of charging. But the figures for the Explorer seemed to be potentially acceptable - a quoted range of around 270 miles on a charge - and a battery warranty of seven years.
After we had been on the waiting list for a couple of months, we were invited to a launch event at the UK headquarters of Ford where we would be able to see an early test model. We were a bit disappointed with the car - it was smaller and more cramped than the pictures suggested - but the real problems started when we began to explore battery life. The salesman warned that the 270 miles was very optimistic - a figure of 220 was more realistic. This was, of course, on the delivery day and would drop off steadily with time. Six or seven years later, it would probably be scraping around between 150 and 170 miles - which would not meet our requirements. Oh, and that battery warranty was a rather informal thing - it did not specify a maximum degradation before it kicked in - the salesman was of the opinion that if the range dropped below 150 miles, they would probably fix it, but that fix would consist of taking it apart to replace individual cells. But if it has degraded to the point where one or more cells require replacement at seven years, all the others are also showing their age - you are looking at a continual cascade of cells needing replacement which is disruptive at best and will continue after the warranty has finally run out...
For me, this is the biggest problem with EVs and PHEVs. Range is improving and there are relatively few drivers who could not cope with the available range from a modern high-end EV, but you need at least twice, if not three times, your range requirement at new if you are going to be able to accept the car ten years down stream. The manufacturers don't seem to understand it - or, more likely, are choosing to ignore it because they don't have a solution that leaves them with a viable business model. We have a 25 year old diesel Landcruiser on the drive outside. We bought it from new and it has close to 200,000 miles on the clock - it looks tatty these days and it rattles a bit when you start it, but there is absolutely nothing that it can't do as well today as it did 25 years ago when we brought it home for the first time.
We cancelled our reservation on the Explorer and bought a new Nissan X-Trail ePower instead. It's what the Outlander should have been - a petrol car with an electric transmission that uses a small Lithium battery as a sort of electric supercharger. The EV range is just over a mile - though there is no reason to use it since you can't plug it in and every mile it travels will be driven by petrol. The lithium battery will still wear out - though one might hope that its life time will be better since it seldom moves from 50% charge. But it's not much bigger than a briefcase, so one might also hope that the cost and disruption of replacing it will be a lot less than that of a full size EV battery. It is a lovely car to drive and, after about four months of ownership, the fuel consumption is slightly better than the lifetime consumption of the Outlander that it replaced.
Martin
After we had been on the waiting list for a couple of months, we were invited to a launch event at the UK headquarters of Ford where we would be able to see an early test model. We were a bit disappointed with the car - it was smaller and more cramped than the pictures suggested - but the real problems started when we began to explore battery life. The salesman warned that the 270 miles was very optimistic - a figure of 220 was more realistic. This was, of course, on the delivery day and would drop off steadily with time. Six or seven years later, it would probably be scraping around between 150 and 170 miles - which would not meet our requirements. Oh, and that battery warranty was a rather informal thing - it did not specify a maximum degradation before it kicked in - the salesman was of the opinion that if the range dropped below 150 miles, they would probably fix it, but that fix would consist of taking it apart to replace individual cells. But if it has degraded to the point where one or more cells require replacement at seven years, all the others are also showing their age - you are looking at a continual cascade of cells needing replacement which is disruptive at best and will continue after the warranty has finally run out...
For me, this is the biggest problem with EVs and PHEVs. Range is improving and there are relatively few drivers who could not cope with the available range from a modern high-end EV, but you need at least twice, if not three times, your range requirement at new if you are going to be able to accept the car ten years down stream. The manufacturers don't seem to understand it - or, more likely, are choosing to ignore it because they don't have a solution that leaves them with a viable business model. We have a 25 year old diesel Landcruiser on the drive outside. We bought it from new and it has close to 200,000 miles on the clock - it looks tatty these days and it rattles a bit when you start it, but there is absolutely nothing that it can't do as well today as it did 25 years ago when we brought it home for the first time.
We cancelled our reservation on the Explorer and bought a new Nissan X-Trail ePower instead. It's what the Outlander should have been - a petrol car with an electric transmission that uses a small Lithium battery as a sort of electric supercharger. The EV range is just over a mile - though there is no reason to use it since you can't plug it in and every mile it travels will be driven by petrol. The lithium battery will still wear out - though one might hope that its life time will be better since it seldom moves from 50% charge. But it's not much bigger than a briefcase, so one might also hope that the cost and disruption of replacing it will be a lot less than that of a full size EV battery. It is a lovely car to drive and, after about four months of ownership, the fuel consumption is slightly better than the lifetime consumption of the Outlander that it replaced.
Martin
Gary is one of the guys saying to me ABC (always be charging) and fully charge all the time.
Well if you don't care about the battery it won't last, that's the reality.
Since his check engine is on and nobody can find errors, obviously and the warranty is questionable why he don't mod his vehicle and install and real EV switch like I did?
I know it is not drivers business to do so, but since he cares so much about real full EV mode and experimenting...
BTW gas consumption in conventional vehicle when they have 100k on the clock in not the same as when they were new... it's the way of life
Well if you don't care about the battery it won't last, that's the reality.
Since his check engine is on and nobody can find errors, obviously and the warranty is questionable why he don't mod his vehicle and install and real EV switch like I did?
I know it is not drivers business to do so, but since he cares so much about real full EV mode and experimenting...
BTW gas consumption in conventional vehicle when they have 100k on the clock in not the same as when they were new... it's the way of life
JuanHwuDrives
New member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2019
- Messages
- 1
I'm going to have to check your past posts about that EV switch mod, lol.
My last DBCAM was in August and I'm already past my previous ATL SOH. I'm considering getting what I need to do it myself, as it's getting expensive.
70k on the odometer, 72% SOH.
Fancy McDancy
Active member
I'm sorry, but what the hell are you talking about? What's a DBCAM, and what's an ATL let alone a SOH?
DBCAM is an procedure that measure and brings back battery to its actual SoH - state of health. ATL is all time low I suppose.
As I understand it DBCAM tries to get all the cells back to the same voltage? But if their are dud cells in the battery it won't be able to do it. Until it's possible to take one apart ( If you can get it out ) and check the cells or block of cells to get an idea. Found a YouTube video "Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV batterypack teardown" It is a 13,8 kWh batterypack. with 8s Yuasa LEV 46 modules, I think they have about 10 or 12 cells in each module, quite a job and you really need to know what you are doing. Oh I should also mention that the person who did the video also weighed the unit, I think he says it's 68 Kilo's
A few years back I had a 2010 Prius (Not Plug In) and I found that their was some one in the US who was re-furbishing the batteries and fitting them for $800 when the dealer was charging about $4000, I hope that this sort of facility will happen for the PHEV Outlander. But if you've seen the YouTube video, it's quite a job to get the unit apart after it's been taken out of the car.
A few years back I had a 2010 Prius (Not Plug In) and I found that their was some one in the US who was re-furbishing the batteries and fitting them for $800 when the dealer was charging about $4000, I hope that this sort of facility will happen for the PHEV Outlander. But if you've seen the YouTube video, it's quite a job to get the unit apart after it's been taken out of the car.
They maybe right... I have said it brings back battery to ACTUAL not desired state of health.
Whatever BMU measure during DBCAM that's it. It may be 10% improvement or it may stay as it was, even go lower.
Getting all the battery cells to the same voltage is another operation that they call cell smoothing.
The DBCAM procedure forces the battery monitoring unit to measure the battery actual capacity instead of relying on its estimated capacity. It doesn't change anything to the actual battery performance, just what the car thinks. Some PHEV, especially the 2018 model, are very bad at estimating the battery capacity and think that the battery degrades a lot quicker than it actually does. The DBCAM puts it back to the real capacity and it can give you back a few miles.
