Are Mitsubishi Missing A Trick?

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Highspen

Active member
Joined
Jun 15, 2014
Messages
30
Location
Letchworth Garden City UK
Quite a few years ago when I admit that times were a little better for me, I owned a 2006 Maserati 4200 Coupe which had a SIM Card slot on the dashboard, which when an ordinary SIM card was installed, allowed the car to communicate with the world and not just as an on-board fixed car phone, but as a data transfer tool through its somewhat primitive version of MMCS. Once again I stress that was a 2006 car.

This morning I will have to stand within a few metres of my 2014 Mitsubishi in order that I can communicate via my iPhone to give and receive data commands through wifi. Really? wifi?

Is this really 8 years of progress? :roll:
 
It a bit poor indeed and further limits the app usefulness. For me it is limited to switching on the aircon. Something that'd be useful even when the car is parked at home is access to long term trip and charge computer data.
 
ideally, there should be gsm/3g/4g connectivity via an onboard sim. the car should attach to the home wifi network automatically when in range as be the preferred connection method, and when out and about it might as well be via bluetooth given the range.

so in short, yes. they are.
 
Do bear in mind that GSM/3G/4G is not good for incoming connections, so you would not be able to offer the same functionality as the WiFi app over a mobile phone connection. Your mobile phone (or other 3g/4g device) does not have a public facing IP address that external devices can connect to - it gets a private network address from the mobile phone network and connects to the internet via a NAT server - works fine for outgoing connections, but not for incoming. There are mobile phone providers that will give you a public IP address, but only at a significant price premium and the fact that the world is close to running out of IP addresses means that you have to give a good reason for wanting one!
 
maby said:
Do bear in mind that GSM/3G/4G is not good for incoming connections, so you would not be able to offer the same functionality as the WiFi app over a mobile phone connection. Your mobile phone (or other 3g/4g device) does not have a public facing IP address that external devices can connect to - it gets a private network address from the mobile phone network and connects to the internet via a NAT server - works fine for outgoing connections, but not for incoming. There are mobile phone providers that will give you a public IP address, but only at a significant price premium and the fact that the world is close to running out of IP addresses means that you have to give a good reason for wanting one!
That’s where VPN services or even commands pulls come in play :)
 
OK team, interesting that this thread is still running after all this time. I ended up ditching the useless Mitsi and buying a Tesla. I am now on my second Tesla (Model S P100D) and can't believe how shockingly bad the Mitsi was in nearly all regards when compared to the Tesla.
 
Highspen said:
OK team, interesting that this thread is still running after all this time. I ended up ditching the useless Mitsi and buying a Tesla. I am now on my second Tesla (Model S P100D) and can't believe how shockingly bad the Mitsi was in nearly all regards when compared to the Tesla.
Is it allowed to swear and call names? Tesla is only three times as expensive :twisted:

BTW: how does it tow?
 
A very good and valid point Anko, however I never had a tow bar fitted to my PHEV so it is difficult for me to compare. I do however have a friend that has fitted a 'bar to his Model S and although it "pulls like a train" his range has been hammered and he only gets 250 miles on a charge. But wait .... that was what I was getting on the PHEV with a full battery and a full tank.

I also do agree that the new P100D was eye-wateringly expensive, and difficult to justify on price but on the plus side in the last two years I have visited almost every country in Europe (some on multiple occasions) and it has not cost me a single penny in energy on the Supercharger system so there are compensations I suppose. Plus 0-60 mph in 2.4 seconds never gets old, but that is the kid in me even at 64.

We kept the first one (a P90D) as we wanted to be a 100% electric family and it has now done 60,000 miles and still has not had any warranty work and not even a set of pads and only one set of tyres. Surprising really for an American car which quite frankly really should be absolute rubbish.

Please do not misunderstand me here; I was thoroughly committed to the PHEV which I thought was a bold move against the use of fossil fuels (with its 22 mile battery range and its 2 tonnes and a thirsty petrol engine pulling the 2 tonnes). Whilst I has the PHEV I was evangelical about it. Never really came to terms with charging it up at motorway services mind, kind of seemed to be a bit silly to spend all that time charging and only getting 22 miles. Then again, I came to the PHEV from a Maserati which to be honest did a one-car attempt to deplete the planet of petrol.

I look back at the PHEV and kind of wish that Mitsi made more of a statement about carbon use and had put a 50kW battery and a 1.0 liter Range extender petrol engine in. That would have made the PHEV an absolute class-beater, instead of being a something and a nothing.

I suppose you would rather I left the group now that I no longer have a PHEV. I had forgotten that I was still live :shock:
 
Ha, GSM is more expensive than WIFI shocker, mitsu didnt even put wifi on every outlander.

Wifi has some advantages, doesnt need gsm network so will work anywhere though gsm is probably a better overall solution.
 
GSM/LTE would be more expensive, unless it was bundled into the purchase price, which in my case it is (Tesla). Wifi certainly has advantages if you are static and very close to the router, or if your system allows bridging via a mobile device, but then if you are relying on your mobile device for band width then it IS going to be dependent on a GSM signal just as an on-board SIM would. Ergo Wifi does not solve the problem on its own where LTE with plus independent Wifi is providing a more complete solution.
 
Highspen said:
I suppose you would rather I left the group now that I no longer have a PHEV. I had forgotten that I was still live :shock:
Not at all. If only you could / would be a little bit more considerate towards those that cannot afford Maserati's or top of the line Tesla's and have to settle for crappy old PHEV's ;-)

BTW: The towing question was meant to be rhetorical. The Model S was not designed for towing and (at least over here) it is illegal to tow anything with them. Chances are insurance companies will not pay up in case of an accident.
 
Strange car history from "Highspen" ... from a Maserati to a Mitsubishi and then back to Tesla

In a sense it is a good thing for our Mitsubishi PHEV ... since this PHEV was selected also by people that have can pick up almost any car in the market independently by the price

I'm not surprise that our PHEV can be look inferior to an old Maserati or a new Tesla (btw, the only connection between Maserati 4200 and Tesla S , is that both are very well designed (from the aesthetically point of view) ... quite odd in this context to see the Mitsubishi as selection, since our PHEV it is not really a beauty champion

Back to the GSM vs WIFI

Technology wise, a GSM/3G/4G module is just few dollars (no more then 10 USD) more expensive then a WIFI module

But , a GSM module will require a permanent server running on the net (which will have administrative cost for Mitsubishi, and the duty to make this 99.9999 available) , but mainly people are not willing to buy and put a SIM car in the modern car ... so Mitsubishi would need to buy and keep a multi year contract world wide for a SIM in each car sold .. and these type of agreement with mobile network operators are expensive and as well they cost a lot of extra administration work

I agree that WIFI on our PHEV sucks ... and a GSM service will be great

The question is: how many PHEV customers will be willing to pay 500/700 euro extra for their PHEV for have this GSM service.

Anyhow ... Mitsubishi does not even need to build up the know how for handle GSM services ... as far as I know multiple car companies buy this service from 1 or 2 providers .. for example BMW buy this service from Volvo
 
Our cheap 2015 Renault Zoe has a SIM card which allows me to set things like timings for charging and preconditioning, and I can remotely query the range. It also texts me when it starts and stops charging. This is supposedly a cost service, but we got 3 years free when we bought the car secondhand last year.
 
I would not call a Zoe a cheap car.

I was checking on BMW site in UK ... and the BMW 6AP remote connection ... is a basic option also for BMW 1 .. so I could not find how much BMW could charge for this service

So ... possibly the cost should not be so much high, since is an included option also for a "cheap" 20k BMW 1 model.

BTW ... BMW use WirelessCar system which is a company owned by Volvo ... which does provide the service also to Jaguar, Nissan, Fiat BEV, etc ... but possibly not to Renault.

If Fiat can pay for this service on a Fiat 500e ... maybe also Mitsubishi could offer the same for reasonable price

Anyhow ... this is looking the future ... the cheap WiFi in the PHEV should have an end of life soon.
 
ThudnBlundr said:
We bought our 2-year-old model for £5000, and you can get new ones for £12k. I'd call that cheap, especially compared to a new £35k basic Outlander, or over £45k with options.

It sounds cheap but it is not, at least for me.

The ZOE has the battery in leasing ... so you bought a car without battery, that in an EV it is around 50% of its value.

So .. a new ZOE once adding the battery would be 24k .. and a used one would be 10k

PS: A 4y old outlander it can be found for less then 15k .. this is also relative cheap

PPS: The price for a replacement battery for the PHEV is around 9k ... so this means a Outlander less battery would be around 26k new ... not that expensive for the "size" of the car
 
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