ICE running unnecessarily?

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Carnut

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
260
Location
Poole Dorset
Full charge last night. 29miles claimed, set off this morning the following was OFF.... 'Charge', 'Save'.'Air-con', all lights, heated seats etc etc
ON 'Eco', heater>windscreen.
ICE came on immediately . then went off for a short period, then on again, then off, but in 7 miles spent 90% of the time ON.
WHY did the ICE keep coming on. I had 5 leaves so was not driving like a lunatic. the only time I could make the ICE go off was on a trailing throttle. I tried regen from 0-5, made no difference, tried heater off & on (no air-con) no difference.
Any ideas??
Thanks.
 
If the heater is on and the outside temperature outside under 10 degrees the ICE will come on to feed the heater initially. It will switch off after a few Km. Switching off the heater may work, but often one will need to set the interior temperature to minimum, switch off the heater and restart the car to supress the ICE completely. I don't bother, it is just a fraction of a litre of petrol and I dislike cold feet. Too lazy to switch on pre-heat too :) timer won't work, as I have variable times of departing in the morning.
 
I noticed mine was starting the ICE somewhat unnecessarily too.

Now I just ignore the whole thing and JFDI!, I leave the heater set where I like it to be and even leave the aircon on at times just as I did with my old BMW diesel.
I do check that my wife hasn't left the heated seats on as the switches don't toggle on/off. :roll:
 
I may well be contradicted as I am only a 'newby'.
But as far as I am aware, th only piece of electrical kit requiring the ICE to fire up or the EV milege to drop dramatically is the air con. Seats, lights, wipers heater blower all come from the 12v battery.
I have a voltmeter plugged into the ciggy lighter socket (Ebay) it registers 14.3v all the time until something else is turned on and one of the things that cause a voltage drop are the seats.
I would have thought they took more than the air con, so I can't understand why that has to come off the 300v battery.
 
Carnut said:
I may well be contradicted as I am only a 'newby'.
But as far as I am aware, th only piece of electrical kit requiring the ICE to fire up or the EV milege to drop dramatically is the air con. Seats, lights, wipers heater blower all come from the 12v battery.
I have a voltmeter plugged into the ciggy lighter socket (Ebay) it registers 14.3v all the time until something else is turned on and one of the things that cause a voltage drop are the seats.
I would have thought they took more than the air con, so I can't understand why that has to come off the 300v battery.

It's because 'fast charging' of the main battery (eg DC ChaDeMo/Ecotricity at UK service stations) could require the battery to be cooled. It uses the air con. :)
 
As repeated from last winter - if you set the temp to 15c then you can blast out cold air from the aircon and the ICE will not start even if the outside temp is below 10c. You will, of course, die from hyperthermia eventually. :eek:
 
Tipper said:
Carnut said:
I may well be contradicted as I am only a 'newby'.
But as far as I am aware, th only piece of electrical kit requiring the ICE to fire up or the EV milege to drop dramatically is the air con. Seats, lights, wipers heater blower all come from the 12v battery.
I have a voltmeter plugged into the ciggy lighter socket (Ebay) it registers 14.3v all the time until something else is turned on and one of the things that cause a voltage drop are the seats.
I would have thought they took more than the air con, so I can't understand why that has to come off the 300v battery.

It's because 'fast charging' of the main battery (eg DC ChaDeMo/Ecotricity at UK service stations) could require the battery to be cooled. It uses the air con. :)
The battery has its own cooling system, "YES", but this is not the same system as the aircon.

The Aircon can draw multiple kW at times, and this would place a high demand on a 12V battery, with associated demands on any recharging systems. Eliminate this by powering directly from the traction battery. PHEV should be powered ON, with READY light, so at least the fan draw is topped up with the DC-DC converter. Same goes when powering any high demand electrical appliance from the 12V system.

There is a little pump above the wheel well on the RHS of the vehicle for RHD PHEV, that I believe is the battery cooling system pump. The plumbing has metal pipes as well.

There is another system, with Blue coolant in my PHEV, with own semi transparent tank, that is part of the electrical cooling for Generator and EV motors. mainly larger dia, low pressure rubber piping systems.

The aircon has 2 zones in the passenger compartment, and there are 2 return pipes from the evaporator, and only the 1 condenser. In operation, the condenser pipe, has a blue service valve cap marked "H" will be warm to hot. The liquid line, thinner pipe with blue service valve cape marked "L". The Evaporator return pipe, bigger aluminium, has a join behind the ICE, will be cooler. This pipe has insulation on it inside the cabin and behind the heat shielding in the engine bay.

Access to a good exploded view of the PHEV showing individual systems would eliminate a lot of the speculation.
 
Carnut said:
I would have thought they took more than the air con, so I can't understand why that has to come off the 300v battery.
Oh no...
The aircon (only cooling/drying, without heating) uses ~1800 Watts (out of the drive battery)
The heated seat only takes ~100-150 Watts out of the 12V aux battery.
 
Brand new (3 days) Outlander PHEV Business Nav, had the same issue the first 2 days, googled and the solution for me is to set the inside temp to 15 degrees (no AC). The ICE does not start and we currently have -20. Sometimes it starts for a very very short period below -15 but it turns off immediately.

With temp set to 20 degrees (as indicated by Mitsubishi in order to minimize ICE) the ICE runs almost continuously, at 15 degrees (inside temp, -15 outside) almost never, but if I increase by 1 degree the inside temp to 16 it's a huge difference. It seems that the colder it is outside the colder you have to have inside the car to prevent the ICE from starting. At -10 I could have 17 degrees inside without the ICE starting, but at -20 I need to go below 15 inside. Need to mention that if you set 15 inside the car it blows mostly cold air so I am not sure whether 15 means that the heating is off completely...

But my questions really is, why does the ICE also power the car once it's on to heat the car, if it only would run at minimum rpm to heat the car to let's say 20 degrees it wouldn't consume that much petrol, but once it's on it starts to power the car as well, which is absurd as the first day I drove 40 km and because I had 22 degrees inside (-10 outside) the car the ICE was on all the time and EV was down to 40% an I consumed 6 litres/100 km, like my old car more or less. When I got home I still had plenty of battery. This is indeed a bug in the program/design since if I set the inside temp to 15 the ICE does (almost) never start at -20 outside.

If Mitsubishi considered the ICE to be more efficient at heating the car (like I have read in some forums) then it should only do that unless told (by me) to power the car as well, that would enable me to drive the car only with battery until it's empty and only having the ICE heating the car with minimum petrol consumption, and not sending additional power to the battery/wheels.

I drive mostly 50 km a day in a cold country and it seems crazy to have an EV that consumes 50% petrol when I have plenty of battery since there is no good reason for it and I can force it to only run on battery but then I have to freeze!

I'll contact Mitsubishi right away, this is too bad for the environment, which is the reason why I bough a PHEV in the first place.

Iggy
 
A "pure EV" mode has been regularly called for and discussed on here. Apparently a member (vtechtuning, I think) is working on it, but whether that's purely for performance, I don't know. I do know I won't be using his mods until the warranty is well out of life!!
 
15c certainly seems to be the way you tell the car not to provide heat on all EU cars and, although you will still freeze to death, you can, of course, kill the icy blast, at least, by turning off the aircon for short periods between demisting sessions.

However, I think you are wrong about stopping the ICE driving the car. This is a "normal" 2 litre engine in the usual position in the car not a small auxiliary motor, as used in air-cooled cars etc. You are using the "waste" heat from driving to provide heating and the ICE needs to be under load to provide that quickly & efficiently - the reason you are always advised not to leave a car standing with the engine running on start up in winter but to drive it!

Furthermore, once you are moving the "wind chill factor" would remove the generated heat from the coolant very quickly (especially at -20) and so re-start the ICE anyway. I suspect, having had to use engine generated heating (Gxh3) this week at 3c, that this is what happens - there did seem to be periods when the ICE went off although the battery level remained fairly static. I assume the car was then driving on the previously generated electricity before the coolant temp drop re-started the ICE (similar to Save). Clearly, the colder it is then the shorter the periods of inactivity until you get to the point where it is running, in effect, continuously.
 
@greendwarf I agree with what you wrote and though more or less the same, but then, do you think the ICE would really consume the same amount of gas if only producing the minimum amount of energy to keep it warm and powering the heating system as it requires right now when having inside temp > 15 degrees? I mean if I drive 25 km (again in -10 to -20) with heating on (let's say 20 degress inside temp), the ICE kicks in almost constantly and gas + electricity consume +- 6 litres/100 km during that trip, that means the ICE takes about 1,5 litres for the trip. Does the ICE really need 1,5 litres if it only were to heat the car?

Also, I see in the different monitors that once powered on the ICE is actually producing electricity and feeding the battery which is totally unnecessary (unless it's doing it with the power it should create anyway to heat itself to provide 20 degrees heating) since I would have enough battery for the trip and back.

And one more thing, the car says it drove about 50% on battery and the rest on gas, of course the gas required to heat the car is included in that calculation I guess but I'd like to see the car saying that it drove 100% on battery and used 1,5 litres gas to provide heating. And as many others have stated a pure Electrical mode should of course be default on this kind of cars, in particular when apparently the ICE doesn't need to be on at all to provide any vital functionality to the car besides heating the interior, had that been the case it would have been a different story.
 
Indeed, 15 deg C means OFF. At least in European models.

Your observations are correct: when the ICE starts for heating, it will also be used to drive the car. Personally, I think that is fine. Once started, lets use it. The more you do with a running engine, the more efficient it gets. I was annoyed not be the fact that it drives the car, but by the fact that it does not also recharge the battery in the process and will not engage parallel mode at higher speeds. Recharging the battery while propelling the car comes at relatively little extra cost and allows for some extra EV langer later on.

Indeed, on a short trip you do not need that extra EV range (assuming you can charge on your destination). In these cases you do not need the battery to be recharged but in these cases you would not want to use the engine at all. Not for driving, not for heating. Unfortunately, there is no button that allows us to tell the car not to engage the engine. An awful lot has been said and written on that subject (look up EV ONLY). Mitsubishi seems not willing to accommodate our wishes. Forum member vtechtuning is looking into a possible solution for this (what many of us consider) design flaw.

Edit: somehow I only saw the response to the opening post, not the opening post itself. But yes, vtechtuning is / will be looking also at the heating side of EV ONLY (or Pure EV), so he says.
 
I would consider that the EV button should do more than it does at the moment. Only running the ICE in NORMAL mode when the accelerator was floored would be a start, when there was battery range remaining. Other modes would not need to be altered.
 
anko said:
Indeed, 15 deg C means OFF. At least in European models.

Your observations are correct: when the ICE starts for heating, it will also be used to drive the car. Personally, I think that is fine. Once started, lets use it. The more you do with a running engine, the more efficient it gets. I was annoyed not be the fact that it drives the car, but by the fact that it does not also recharge the battery in the process and will not engage parallel mode at higher speeds. Recharging the battery while propelling the car comes at relatively little extra cost and allows for some extra EV langer later on.

Indeed, on a short trip you do not need that extra EV range (assuming you can charge on your destination). In these cases you do not need the battery to be recharged but in these cases you would not want to use the engine at all. Not for driving, not for heating. Unfortunately, there is no button that allows us to tell the car not to engage the engine. An awful lot has been said and written on that subject (look up EV ONLY). Mitsubishi seems not willing to accommodate our wishes. Forum member vtechtuning is looking into a possible solution for this (what many of us consider) design flaw.

Edit: somehow I only saw the response to the opening post, not the opening post itself. But yes, vtechtuning is / will be looking also at the heating side of EV ONLY (or Pure EV), so he says.
It is a bit of a pity that the factory has not given the reason for the compromise they chose, now it can be considered a design flaw whilst it might be a well-founded design decision.
 
Mitsubishi in the Netherlands (who kinda happen to be the Mitsubishi Europe as well) have given a reason:

They consider heating by means of just the electric heater too slow and therefor too uncomfortable for the driver / passengers, when temperatures are "extremely" low. And they do not want to give the driver the option to decide, as that would make the driving experience less "normal car like" / less trouble free.

I have told them that their design turned out to be extremely uncomfortable to many of us, as many decide not to use the heater at all on shorter trips, so their decision has backfired. Unfortunately, I was not able to convince them.

Also they claim heating by means of engine heat is more efficient. Which is certainly true on "beyond EV range" trips. But it may not be true on other trips. And it is of no relevance when your trip starts in an emission free zone.

I can also come up with a reason for the engine not recharging the battery when it is started for heating purposes: the car aims at maintaining an as low as possible SOC in order to prevent you from arriving at a next charge station with still some usable charge left in the battery, after having burned fuel. Not knowing how long your drive will be, it decides it is not efficient to put extra charge in your battery, as you may not use it up.

Both last arguments could be resolved if only the car knew whether the next charge point was within your remaining EV range. As the car does not know, we would need t be able to tell it:

If it is within EV range, then do not use the engine for heating and do not try to increase SOC.
If it is outside EV range, do use the engine and, while the engine is running, increase SOC as well.

I have also asked them (early 2014) if there was a link to the Satnav such that setting a destination could / would alter the decisions made by the car. There was none, they said then. And I believe them.

Mid December I sent them another mail after my engine started when I had to move my car 11 meters from a non charging bay to a charging bay. I can only do this in EV mode when I remember to shut down the heater upon arrival, which definitely is not a trouble free experience. I did not get the standard response. Instead they promised me to get back to me after the holidays.
 
iggys76 said:
@greendwarf I agree with what you wrote and though more or less the same, but then, do you think the ICE would really consume the same amount of gas if only producing the minimum amount of energy to keep it warm and powering the heating system as it requires right now when having inside temp > 15 degrees? I mean if I drive 25 km (again in -10 to -20) with heating on (let's say 20 degress inside temp), the ICE kicks in almost constantly and gas + electricity consume +- 6 litres/100 km during that trip, that means the ICE takes about 1,5 litres for the trip. Does the ICE really need 1,5 litres if it only were to heat the car?

One problem is that operating in -10 to -20 must be at the extreme of the car's design parameter. It rarely gets that cold in Japan and certainly most markets (e.g. California) will never see that sort of temp. especially for what is primarily a city car.

However, the effect of "wind chill" can be significant, at -20 it feels like -35c with a 2KW per sq m cooling effect at 30 mph. Even on a typical winter's day in UK at 5c the cooling effect is still 1KW. So the, assuming the bonnet is about 2 sqm, the ICE has to produce 2KW just to maintain coolant temp in normal urban driving for me in Sarf Lundun before providing heat to the inside of the car.

Perhaps one way round this for those in cold climes would be radiator blinds for the cooling duct at the front of the car like in the "good old days" - we used pieces of carpet or that new fangled aluminium foil in my youth. ;)

PS. Anko - I think Mitsu's answer fits in with above and I think there is a big difference between "uncomfortable" and what you describe which is "inconvenient". However, the example of moving the car only 11 meters is very exceptional surely? - and if not, then presumably, like me, you would have the car in "not heat" mode by default. Even if this was after a longer journey, where you needed cabin heat, did you not kill the heating a few km from destination to save precious fuel? ;)
 
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