Use of heater solely on battery?

[Daniel]

As a newbie of 400 miles I have not yet figured out how to use the heater without ICE on regular short city five mile or so journeys for which I will primarily use the vehicle. My ICE kicks in regardless of every permutation tried (including Eco Mode) which defeats the object of 'battery only' on short journeys. With winter coming on windscreen demister is a must. THANKS!

Daniel
GX4h

 

[maby]

You are quite right, it does.

It does depend to some extent on the ambient temperature - below about 8 degrees, it seems to be almost impossible to stop it, above 8 degrees a pre-heat and use of eco mode makes it less likely. GX4s with their electric heaters are less likely to run the engine for heat, but it is not guaranteed. GX3s can only heat the car via the engine.

At risk of making myself even more unpopular with some here - it's a hybrid - it does burn petrol. Many here are inventing design requirements that the Mitsubishi engineers did not work to.

 

[Daniel]

You are quite right, it does.

It does depend to some extent on the ambient temperature - below about 8 degrees, it seems to be almost impossible to stop it, above 8 degrees a pre-heat and use of eco mode makes it less likely. GX4s with their electric heaters are less likely to run the engine for heat, but it is not guaranteed. GX3s can only heat the car via the engine.

At risk of making myself even more unpopular with some here - it's a hybrid - it does burn petrol. Many here are inventing design requirements that the Mitsubishi engineers did not work to.

REPLY : So in my situation then, it appears that to solely demist the windscreen on a short journey I have to use a two litre ICE below 8 degrees.

Thanks for your prompt response.

Daniel

 

[maby]

You are quite right, it does.

It does depend to some extent on the ambient temperature - below about 8 degrees, it seems to be almost impossible to stop it, above 8 degrees a pre-heat and use of eco mode makes it less likely. GX4s with their electric heaters are less likely to run the engine for heat, but it is not guaranteed. GX3s can only heat the car via the engine.

At risk of making myself even more unpopular with some here - it's a hybrid - it does burn petrol. Many here are inventing design requirements that the Mitsubishi engineers did not work to.

REPLY : So in my situation then, it appears that to solely demist the windscreen on a short journey I have to use a two litre ICE below 8 degrees.

Thanks for your prompt response.

Daniel

In principle, yes. I see that you have a GX4h, so you will significantly reduce the demand on the petrol tank by pre-heating, but there will be circumstances in the coming cold weather when you burn petrol to warm the car up despite the fact that you have plenty of charge in the battery. I also have a GX4h - I took my wife to the station this morning at 6:30 having forgotten to set the pre-heat - it is a round trip of about 2 miles and the engine was running for about half of it.

 

[WattCar]

At risk of making myself even more unpopular with some here - it's a hybrid - it does burn petrol.

On an earlier thread I merely queried why the ICE couldn't cut-in at a lower temp than 10C. After all, if you are doing a short trip which you think likely to be within battery range you won't want to use the ICE. If its close to zero, then there my be good reasoning for it to come into play.

I'd like to say that your advice and knowledge on this forum is of great help to all.

 

[Newspaperboy]

Really appreciate everyone's comments. I'm in danger of revealing my ignorance, but would a 12v portable car aux heater be of benefit.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200w-Ceramic-Car-Heater-Cooler-Keep-warm-Instant-heating-cooling-winter-summer/251701190164?_trksid=p2054897.c100204.m3164&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140407115239%26meid%3D0621c782258940d3ab2032bfa6c79321%26pid%3D100204%26prg%3D20140407115239%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D30%26sd%3D400809127140

I've a 7 mile commute so I'm not anxious about losing battery range. Charging points at both home and work. So increased battery use is fine.

I guess my only thought is that the ICE is going to kick in regardless of what temp you set vehicle cabin. Maby is right it is a hybrid after all - I have to be careful of my expectations.

 

[jaapv]

The main battery is not 12V. The 12 V auxiliary battery is quite small, it does not have to drive a starter motor. But it is essential to start the car up.
So if you put a heater in the 12V circuit it will drain the 12V battery faster than the main battery can replenish it - leaving you stranded with a nearly full main battery and empty start-up battery.

 

[maby]

At risk of making myself even more unpopular with some here - it's a hybrid - it does burn petrol.

On an earlier thread I merely queried why the ICE couldn't cut-in at a lower temp than 10C. After all, if you are doing a short trip which you think likely to be within battery range you won't want to use the ICE. If its close to zero, then there my be good reasoning for it to come into play.

I'd like to say that your advice and knowledge on this forum is of great help to all.

You have to bear in mind that the car's control systems have no way of knowing what journey you are going to make. Are you going to drive 2 miles or 200 miles? Are you going to be driving at 30mph, or 70mph? You can give it a few clues through the "Charge" and "Save" buttons, but those are very blunt tools. The optimum strategy for minimising fuel consumption will depend on those factors - if you really are just going to drive 5 miles to the office, spend the day there and drive 5 miles back home, then you probably have enough power in the battery to not need to start the petrol engine. On the other hand, if you are planning to drive 30 or 40 miles (or more), then heating the car from the battery is probably a very poor strategy - you will have to run the engine for part of the journey anyway and heat is an unavoidable by-product of running the engine - so why not run it early in the trip and get the car warm with the waste heat, leaving the battery for the latter part of the trip?

The designers of the control systems will have set up mathematical models of the car and experimented with strategies. They will have conducted some surveys of patterns of use and set up the strategy to try to give decent fuel economy over a full year of typical mixed mode use. They will not always have it right - and there is scope for different usage patterns in different countries invalidating some of the rules - gwatpe, for example, is disappointed with some of the decisions the car makes - but he lives in Australia - a very different environment to Japan.

You could argue that they should give the driver more control of energy flow, but the techno-geeks here are not representative of their full target market - they are trying to present the car as a simple alternative SUV that turns in better than average fuel consumption and avoids a few unpleasant taxes. They could easily scare off the average customer if they present a complex control panel that allows you to tweak all the parameters and patch energy through several different pathways.

As the technology develops further, they may refine the control systems. It seems to me that PHEVs equipped with satnav could do a lot better if any route programmed into the navigation system was taken into account. I visit my mum one evening most weeks (about 20 miles) and drive round the M25 to our boat most weekends (about 70 miles at high speeds) - all the information is in the satnav to automate the decision as to when to save and when to charge.

 

[Newspaperboy]

just have to comment on how fast you guys are, and how knowledgeable. If only all tech support was this way. Many thanks.

 

[WattCar]

....You could argue that they should give the driver more control of energy flow, but the techno-geeks here are not representative of their full target market - they are trying to present the car as a simple alternative SUV that turns in better than average fuel consumption and avoids a few unpleasant taxes. They could easily scare off the average customer if they present a complex control panel that allows you to tweak all the parameters and patch energy through several different pathways.

You're quite right of course - all we need is an 'EV only' button which probably is overridden by the electronics near to zero degrees. I must try to remember we are all pioneering here!

 

[rtw]

I have a feeling without owners having the insight from maby and others on this forum, Mitsubishi dealers are going to be plagued with owners' queries about this issue as winter progresses.

The general impression you get from the marketing of the PHEV is it will run on the battery for a while before using any petrol. This is the idea that people buy into and therefore when they discover it's not quite that simple, at best it'll be a phone call to the dealer for an explanation and at worst cars will start going back to the dealer with claims they're not functioning correctly.

I suspect how the cabin is heated is not the first thing on the mind of people who are coming to an EV from a conventional ICE car. As maby says, the average customer isn't going to be a techno-geek.

Am I being overly pessimistic about the way people think?

 

[jaapv]

I think you are being pessimistic. We had a considerable number of cars coming through last (admittedly quite warm) winter over here and it was not a major issue.

 

[maby]

I have a feeling without owners having the insight from maby and others on this forum, Mitsubishi dealers are going to be plagued with owners' queries about this issue as winter progresses.

The general impression you get from the marketing of the PHEV is it will run on the battery for a while before using any petrol. This is the idea that people buy into and therefore when they discover it's not quite that simple, at best it'll be a phone call to the dealer for an explanation and at worst cars will start going back to the dealer with claims they're not functioning correctly.

I suspect how the cabin is heated is not the first thing on the mind of people who are coming to an EV from a conventional ICE car. As maby says, the average customer isn't going to be a techno-geek.

Am I being overly pessimistic about the way people think?

The important thing to remember is that you have to take a holistic view of fuel consumption. The majority of owners are just interested in their running costs at the end of the month and not having to pay the congestion charge. A few here are eco-nuts who take the consumption of a cup-full of hydrocarbon as a personal insult. If you are able to drive a reasonably large 4WD at speeds up to 70mph for a month and get fuel consumptions approaching 50mpg, then realistically speaking burning a few pints of petrol is a minor consideration. In its favour, the engine on an Outlander PHEV is usually pretty quiet - most of the time I'm not sure if it is running without selecting the energy flow display on the MMCS. Less paranoid owners probably will not notice the few minutes that it runs on a cold morning.

 

[Regulo]

If you've got an hour or so to digest it, and can be bothered, have a look here:

http://insideoutlander.boards.net/thread/470/workaround-prevent-start-cold-weather

My brain was so hot after reading it, I didn't need any additional heat from the car!

 

[Paddlepower]

On my 3H I'm turning the temp down on the blower which still de-mists quite well and keeps it in EV only. Can anyone tell me why I have to have cold air blowing down to my feet at the same time as the up air is selected, am I missing a setting somewhere?

Going to get bored of keeping it to EV only soon, fully agree with Maby about the use of the engine when needed but I'm at 800 miles and still on £20 petrol so good to keep it going for a bit longer

 

[Paddlepower]

If you've got an hour or so to digest it, and can be bothered, have a look here:

http://insideoutlander.boards.net/thread/470/workaround-prevent-start-cold-weather

My brain was so hot after reading it, I didn't need any additional heat from the car!

Thanks for the link, but after the first part all I could think of is my old school days...... If Andrew had six apples and gave one to three friends on every third day of the second week of each month for one year then how many times did he have to visit the apple tree!!!!!

 

[WattCar]

If you've got an hour or so to digest it, and can be bothered, have a look here:

http://insideoutlander.boards.net/thread/470/workaround-prevent-start-cold-weather

My brain was so hot after reading it, I didn't need any additional heat from the car!

Thanks for the link. It makes interesting reading. It seems some Dutch owners are are quite het up about the cars inability to run on EV only when it drops below 8-10C. They've been running theirs since last winter so their experience is ahead of ours. There's also some interesting replies from Mitsi and convoluted possible solutions from owners. I might try to make sense of it after a good nights sleep.

 

[maby]

On my 3H I'm turning the temp down on the blower which still de-mists quite well and keeps it in EV only. Can anyone tell me why I have to have cold air blowing down to my feet at the same time as the up air is selected, am I missing a setting somewhere?

Going to get bored of keeping it to EV only soon, fully agree with Maby about the use of the engine when needed but I'm at 800 miles and still on £20 petrol so good to keep it going for a bit longer

I'm guessing that you are hitting the "screen demist" button - try poking the "Mode" button instead. The demist button just turns the fan up high and biases the flow towards the screen - controlling it manually from the mode button and fan speed controls, you should be able to direct all the flow up to the screen.

 

[maddogsetc]

On my 3H I'm turning the temp down on the blower which still de-mists quite well and keeps it in EV only. Can anyone tell me why I have to have cold air blowing down to my feet at the same time as the up air is selected, am I missing a setting somewhere?

Going to get bored of keeping it to EV only soon, fully agree with Maby about the use of the engine when needed but I'm at 800 miles and still on £20 petrol so good to keep it going for a bit longer

I'm guessing that you are hitting the "screen demist" button - try poking the "Mode" button instead. The demist button just turns the fan up high and biases the flow towards the screen - controlling it manually from the mode button and fan speed controls, you should be able to direct all the flow up to the screen.

I think it's the other way around actually - if you use the mode button there is no option for demist only, the only demist function available also includes air to the feet. If you want demist only you have to use the demist button. Not 100% certain but that's how I remember it.

 

[greendwarf]

On my 3H I'm turning the temp down on the blower which still de-mists quite well and keeps it in EV only. Can anyone tell me why I have to have cold air blowing down to my feet at the same time as the up air is selected, am I missing a setting somewhere?

Going to get bored of keeping it to EV only soon, fully agree with Maby about the use of the engine when needed but I'm at 800 miles and still on £20 petrol so good to keep it going for a bit longer

I'm guessing that you are hitting the "screen demist" button - try poking the "Mode" button instead. The demist button just turns the fan up high and biases the flow towards the screen - controlling it manually from the mode button and fan speed controls, you should be able to direct all the flow up to the screen.

I agree about using the blower to de-mist especially on short trips but what is also curious is that on my Gx3 there is condensation on the inside of the screen before I get in - something I have never seen on any car I've ever had. Anyone else get this?