Is it bad to rapid charge?.

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TigerTim

New member
Joined
Jan 3, 2018
Messages
3
Hi All,

I'm considering buying a 2014 Outlander PHEV. No longer do mileage to require diesel. I've been doing a bit of research over the past few weeks & thought I saw somewhere that it's not good to rapid charge the batteries. Can't find where I saw it. Anyone tell me if its true or is it OK to give batteries the odd rapid charge.

Thanks,

T.
 
According to the manual frequent rapid charging may affect battery life negatively. However, given the prices charged (pun not intended), it is an unlikely scenario nowadays.
 
I think the answer is that we just don't know at this stage. Mitsubishi warn against it and, intuitively, it would seem likely to put additional strain on the battery. On the other hand, an academic study published a year or so ago came to the conclusion that rapid charging did not damage modern batteries. The PHEV is a relatively young vehicle and we've not had many (any?) examples of complete battery failure yet, so we don't have the data to verify either of these positions. Several owners here have begun to report suspicions of significant loss of battery capacity after three or four years.

My personal view is that, given the short EV range of the PHEV and the inconvenience of stopping for half an hour to take on a rapid charge that will not take me more than 20 miles, it is simply not worth the risk.
 
I suspect it does not lend itself to cell balancing, that may be the reason it is limited to around 80% charge as I understand it. So, eventually there would be significant variations in cell voltages unless the battery is also frequently charged on AC.
 
HHL said:
I suspect it does not lend itself to cell balancing, that may be the reason it is limited to around 80% charge as I understand it. So, eventually there would be significant variations in cell voltages unless the battery is also frequently charged on AC.

The 80% limit has been set due to the facct that charging the last 20% must be done sloooowly.
It therefore would block a fast charger for a while without big benefit.
 
As a owner I was intrigued by the possibility of DC charging on occasion. Yesterday using the Charge Point app that had a registration number that came with the car I found a listing for a nearby Chademo point that the app said was free.

So off I went , found no way to use the ChargePoint withe Evgo DC charger. There was not a capability to put in a charge card but there was a phone number. I called it and was told the only immediate option was a charge of $11.95. That would allow for 30 minutes.

What a deal. The most I could put in the 12kWh battery would be 80% or 9.6 kWH. So for a mere $1.30 per kWH I could potentially under best conditions go 20 miles. This the equivalent of $15 per gallon gasoline. Even if you sign up, which you could not do on the phone, the best deal was $19.95 per month and .20 per minute. 20 minutes in theory should provide the charge to 80%. So if you used it once a week, it would be $4.00 + $5.00 or $9.00 per charge

So now I know why it is referred to as “green” energy.
 
LGAero said:
So off I went , found no way to use the ChargePoint withe Evgo DC charger. There was not a capability to put in a charge card but there was a phone number. I called it and was told the only immediate option was a charge of $11.95. That would allow for 30 minutes.

Yup, welcome to EVgo. I don't know how they are able to stay in business with such insane rates. Unless you have a pure EV that's dead and you have absolutely no choice, I can't see why anyone would ever pay that kind of money.
 
generaltso said:
LGAero said:
So off I went , found no way to use the ChargePoint withe Evgo DC charger. There was not a capability to put in a charge card but there was a phone number. I called it and was told the only immediate option was a charge of $11.95. That would allow for 30 minutes.

Yup, welcome to EVgo. I don't know how they are able to stay in business with such insane rates. Unless you have a pure EV that's dead and you have absolutely no choice, I can't see why anyone would ever pay that kind of money.
EVGo is all over Texas as well. Their 'drive up' prices are pretty bad. They do have better prices for members (20 cents per minute) that brings things into the $4-$5 range, but the $20/month fee only makes sense for folks doing a lot of traveling.
https://www.evgo.com/charging-plans/
 
Looks like the charging points are as expensive in the US as they are over here in the UK :evil: .
LGAero said:
What a deal. The most I could put in the 12kWh battery would be 80% or 9.6 kWH. So for a mere $1.30 per kWH I could potentially under best conditions go 20 miles. This the equivalent of $15 per gallon gasoline. Even if you sign up, which you could not do on the phone, the best deal was $19.95 per month and .20 per minute. 20 minutes in theory should provide the charge to 80%. So if you used it once a week, it would be $4.00 + $5.00 or $9.00 per charge
Sorry to be pedantic but, you are correct in the capacity of the drive battery being 12kWh, but you only get to use about 10 kWh as the car keeps a buffer to prevent damage, so at best 80% is only about 8kWh on a full charge :shock: .
 
Yikes, that fact makes the maths really crazy.
There was a BMW I3 plugged in the charger, but I see that they have a free charging program with Evgo.

I also see there is a program for Nissan Leaf, which is closer to home as Mitsubishi is now allied with Nissan.

It could be a smart move for Mitsubishi to make some arrangement with Evgo for the Outlander. After all we certainly are not talking about much cost for the electricity they would supply!
 
In Ontario Canada, the government has partnered with a company called Koben Systems Incorporated (KSI) to put in DC fast chargers all over the province. However this is a truly mismanaged company run by people who don't care for EV or their infrastructure as the App used to activate the chargers is utter crap, it cost $4.95 just for 'activation' and $0.20/minute of use (which equates to $12/h).

I used a rapid charger once at an Ikea and it did work, but the PHEV does stop at 80% which only grants ~25km on GoM. This is in contrast to the Ioniq Electric charging beside me who could fill it up all the way to 98% before it stopped by itself.

I worked out unless it is <$2/hr to use for any public charger (or a bit more if it is paid parking), it is just cheaper to use gas & charge the PHEV at home where it cost $0.065/kW off peak.
 
I had to have the dealer come out with a laptop to rescue me from a rapid charge point as the car just locked down and wouldn't start. He said that this was likely due to using a rapid charge point in his experience. He basically rebooted the car like you would a PC and that fixed it. Haven't used a rapid charger since.
 
Never had a problem with the car when rapid charging only faulty charge stations :lol: .

However, I stopped using them in UK once they were no longer free, as buying a coffee whilst waiting 20 minutes at a motorway service area just to get about 10 miles worth of 70mph driving just wasn't worth it in either time or money - I'd rather save time and hit the Charge button "on the go" instead. :eek:
 
If I drive alone I'll try to stop at one if they are on-route & pricing isn't expensive. However family isn't as keen on waiting even for 25min for a charge I'm afraid.

I DC Fast charged about ~5 times since getting the car a month ago, and use Level 2 charging primarily since last week after the installation of a Chargepoint Home unit & utilizing public chargers as much as possible.

Only once I had to constantly reset the charge cycle as the charge unit constantly gave me a "Isolation test failure" and stops charging every 2 minutes. I still managed to eke out 65% before I gave up. The other times it was brilliant - I had EV owners giving me looks when I said my Plug-in Hybrid can rapid charge.
 
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