Sincerely dangerous design fault

I have had my PHEV for a month now. Two different passengers have inadvertently knocked the car out of gear. Most exciting, especially on one occasion we were in motorway traffic . Don't get me wrong, the super smooth, super quiet drive is great, but when you have no indication such as the sound of your engine revs going up (and no rev counter) plus the lack of a gate on the gear lever there is a hazard here.

Cheers,

Andrew.

What hazard? Just plunk it to drive again.
But what kind of things are your passengers doing? It takes a bit of contortion to do this. The imagination runs wild, especially if you qualify the situation as exciting....

It happened to me once - nothing exciting, just a bag on the front seat that tipped and caught it. Not sure it is that different from other automatics (except the lack of engine sound point). If you feel it is genuinely dangerous - you should report it directly to Mitsubishi.

I suppose it could be dangerous in certain situations, but probably less of a dangerous design fault than the almost silent running, even with the acoustic alert on - I have had a kid on a scooter go straight across the road in front of me without looking (I was following a tractor so any noise I was making was clearly drowned out by the tractor). In fact, I was planning to email someone (ROSPA perhaps?) to make sure that school kids are being told to LOOK properly in this electric era and not rely too much on listening when being taught road safety. I hope everyone driving an electric car is very sensitive to this - generally I expect we are driving carefully and slowly, although with cars like the Tesla coming out, it does worry me slightly!
Sorry that is a bit off topic, but an important point.

Cheers
H

Sorry to disappoint Jaapv, just a knock of the knee ......not much of a contortion, they weren't even 2.4 metre tall Dutch guys! if you notice it immediately, not a problem, but if you have to take a second or two to work out what is going on, particularly when you are learning to deal with the adaptive cruise fun and games, then it gets exciting for all the wrong reasons! Lucky that the seats are easy to wipe clean.....


Hello Hypermiler,
I have had autos for 20 years before this and never had the problem but twice in 2000 miles?

I was told the car would emit a warning noise sub 20mph, but I have always been inside...must get someone to have a listen for me. When Inasked what the noise would be,rep said...an electric motor! I was hoping for a klaxon, dive bomber or something catchy like that!

The lever has to be held in the N position for at least a coupe of seconds for it to change and it's not easy to do this if sitting normally in the seat with the seat belt on.

The "noise" is quite quiet about the same as the engine at idle -
As drivers of 2ton of metal it is OUR responsibility to be aware of other road users and potential hazards - there is a loud button right in the middle of the big wheel infront of you... Otherwise the big pedal on the floor is always available. :roll:

Not got my PHEV yet but used a Nissan Leaf for 5 days. twice I have been behind cyclists riding 2 abreast who didn't know I was there, a little button that emits an "Electric Vehicle Approaching" recording would have been good

(And if they don't move another one saying "Get the F@?K out of my way") :lol:

Sorry couldn't resist.

The car dropping out of drive is not a problem if you know what caused it. I had the drive drop out while stationery in traffic. No driver or passenger activity. I believe the design of the control joystick is OK, but the PHEV seems to sometimes forget stuff.

A more pressing design flaw, that apparently is not restricted to Mitsubishi designs is what the PHEV does when a wheel speed sensor fails. I can confirm that behind the wheel of a PHEV is not a nice place when this happens. Be warned that all manner of safety systems become activated to make the car un-drive-able. I think the design teams of cars with ABS and ASC etc need to consider designing better smarts in the car to intercept a failed sensor before it can affect these systems. The car computer does know a sensor is faulty, but still allows this corrupt sensor data to be fed into and affect the cars brain to make the safety systems fight each other and the poor driver is taken by surprise with the car pulling left or right and in a PHEV, rapid back and forth motions. Look out traffic or trees. Hopefully upgrades to the car software will address this.