Registering the App and charging cables

I've just bought a GX4hs 2015 PHEV and there are so many questions I have. Been reading through the forum and already learned a bit.

My first question is about the remote App.
First, there appear to be two apps in the apple app store "Outlander PHEV" and "Outlander PHEV II", does it matter which one I use?

I've tried connecting (registering) the Outlander II app to the car but it won't work, I get the "beep" after pressing th key fob but nothing seems to happen. Also, it now says I've connected the maximum number of devices so how do I de-register devices to start again?

Once I've de-registered, are there any tips on how to make it work.

Also about charging cables?
I'm currently using a standard 13 Amp socket on the outside of the garage and this seems to work fine, although a little concerned so many people talk about getting cables stolen. I'm speaking to Chargemast about getting a home charge unit but thinking whether it is really worth it as I'll rarely need to fully charge it in less than 5 hours. Any thoughts on this welcome.

I've downloaded the Open charge App and for many of the locations it says "membership required." Can anyone tell me membership of what?

I'm looking at buying a seperate cable to use public charge points as I understand they don't usually have cables attached. Any advice on what to buy and how much I should pay?

I'm a bit dissapointed that something as simple as charging is proving so complicated and dealers provide so little information before buying. I'd have also thought that two things were obvious to encourage take up of EVs would be:
1) a standard charging format and
2) manufacturers providing the cables needed with the vehicle

I'm sure I'm going to have loads of questions as there seems to be so much to learn about this car. Thanks in advance for any answers to the above.

DavidWh said:

I'm currently using a standard 13 Amp socket on the outside of the garage and this seems to work fine, although a little concerned so many people talk about getting cables stolen. I'm speaking to Chargemast about getting a home charge unit but thinking whether it is really worth it as I'll rarely need to fully charge it in less than 5 hours. Any thoughts on this welcome.

Click to expand...

Charging with the mains cable is OK, but putting it in the boot when it's raining and the cable is all wet and dirty grows old very fast. I'm really liking my tethered chargemaster point (had it a couple of week's so far) because it saves on all that hassle... I just pull out the plug, close the flap and I'm away.

Like you, I wasn't really too bothered about the need to charge any faster than 5 hours as I mostly just use the car for commuting and there's plenty of hours to recharge before I next go to work... but the faster charging comes in very handy at the weekend when I'm on taxi duty... take the kids to swimming in the morning and back again.. charge for an hour or two... off to the shops and back... charge for another couple of hours etc... The 40% faster charging (16A versus 10A) seems to mean that the car's always ready when I need it.

Of course... you can always just burn some petrol rather than waiting to charge... so whether the chargemaster point is worth the £££ is questionable... but it's certinaly nice to have.

For public charge point use, you need a Type-1 to Type-2 cable (16A or better)...

I got myself a 5-metre one of these so that I could use the free charging points we have at work

http://www.evcables.co.uk/263/Type-1-Type-2-Charging-Cables

.. and I'm very happy with it... and nobody's stolen it yet. The cables are rather pricey, but I understand that they contain a mixture of copper and fibre-optic connections... and the connectors are damn expensive in the first place.

Both the Mitsubishi charger and the EV Connectors plugs have a hole in the release catch on the vehicle plug that can be used with a padlock with a 4 mm diameter shackle.

Thanks for the info.

Fecn
Checked the link and that looks a good option.
Is there any benefit going for the 32Amp cable over the 16 Amp one? I'm presuming that if the charging unit is only 16 Amps it will still work with the 32 Amp cable?

Also: how do you pay to use the public charging units? Do they all have their own card or is it possible to simply use a credit card?

DavidWh said:

I've just bought a GX4hs 2015 PHEV and there are so many questions I have. Been reading through the forum and already learned a bit.

My first question is about the remote App.
First, there appear to be two apps in the apple app store "Outlander PHEV" and "Outlander PHEV II", does it matter which one I use?

Click to expand...

AFAIK there are actually three Outlander PHEV apps (Apple anyway), called 'Outlander PHEV', 'Outlander PHEV I', and 'Outlander PHEV II'. Which one you need depends on various things (parking brake switch or parking brake lever, number of digits in your password :lol: :lol: ) , but if you go into the 'description' within each app (you might need to click on 'more'), it tells you which one you need.

DavidWh said:

Thanks for the info.

Fecn
Checked the link and that looks a good option.
Is there any benefit going for the 32Amp cable over the 16 Amp one? I'm presuming that if the charging unit is only 16 Amps it will still work with the 32 Amp cable?

Also: how do you pay to use the public charging units? Do they all have their own card or is it possible to simply use a credit card?

Click to expand...

There's no real benefit in a 32A cable, although it's more future-proof as 32A will become the standard. I bought a 32A as I had heard of some 32A posts refusing to work with a 16A cable, but I think that's incorrect (or at least very rare).

Each charge provider has their own 'RFID card' (or app), although recently there has been some 'merging'. Which one you need will depend on where you live. Unfortunately there is nothing as simple as a 'turn up and use your credit card'. That would require some serious joined-up thinking on behalf of the government :lol:

I think that the only charge points that don't need an RFID card are the POD Point ones which seem to work through a mobile phone app. They give you the first 15 mins charge for free, but if you want to keep charging you have to log into the phone app and agree to pay them some money. I've never actually tried a public charging point, so don't know for sure.

So does anybody actually use 'public' charge points at all? The only time I used one at a Best Western Hotel (32amp Rolec with my brand new 32amp 'Charged EV' cable) I immediately got a 'charge interrupted due to system malfunction' warning on my dash display which so terrified me I've never dared to use one since (I have a 32amp Rolec at home in my garage, which is 100% reliable so far). I had the horrible feeling that I'd find myself in a 'contact your Mitsubishi dealer' situation. I didn't, it all seemed ok.

But what's the likelyhood of these public use chargers - bearing in mind their potential usage rates - being carefully and strictly maintained, or in fact being damaged by ham-fisted users? I don't think I've ever seen one actually in use, only sometimes an EV parked in the space. I have to say that so far they are not in any way a more attractive idea to me than a petrol pump, which as far as I recall I've not had any problems with for the last 35 years.

Had my car since February, and have only ever used a public charge point once. Having read some of the horror stories on here about things going wrong if you dont follow the correct procedure I was very wary of attempting it at a motorway service station, so I tried it out at the local Ikea. Got it to work (and the bonus of a parking space near the front door) but to be honest it took a few goes to do it successfully and I was pretty nervous about it.

That was with Ecotricity, and at the time it was free, but with the move to a charging structure, and their ridiculous fee where electricity is more expensive than fuel, I wont be using them again. Also have a chargeyourcar card, which I got free with the installation of my home charger, but have never used it. Its about to run out and they want £20 for a new card, but no chance I'll be paying for that.

I reckon that being able to charge at home is the secret to making a PHEV work for you. If you are relying on public charging points, with the associated risks of chargers being broken, and an ever changing (and increasing) cost profile then you could be in for a nasty surprise.

I got my charge point installed for free using the grants available, so I have never used the charging cable that came with the car and I wouldnt ever consider buying another cable for use elsewhere. Given the cost of these, its going to require a hell of a lot of usage at public charge points to recover the initial outlay, especially as 'free' charging seems to have fallen by the wayside.

I guess it depends where you live. I've charged my car most days at a car park in Glasgow - until a couple of days ago this was free (to park and to charge). I imagine this annoyed BEV drivers so much that they complained, and now Glasgow have stopped the free parking (charging is still free though)... If you assume that I should have paid the full £20 a day to park, the lead took all of 8 days to pay for itself
Most public chargers in Scotland are still free, so they get used quite a lot, not just by Outlanders of course... :lol:

I think where you live certainly is currently a significant factor. I live in Stamford, Lincolnshire - an affluant market town full of estate agents, women's clothes shops and coffee bars and we don't have one, single public charge point. Nearby Peterborough and Corby I think do have some, but I try to avoid as they're too crowded (well, most people avoid Corby anyway). So I guess it's currently mostly a city based feature. The point will soon come though when there are so many EV's that I don't know how public charging could work. Imagine if it took half an hour or more to fill-up at a petrol station! You'd need a lot of pumps.

How robust is a PHEV's charging system when it comes to tolerating a malfunctioning charger though? Is it in fact no more significant than a petrol pump that doesn't work properly? Apart from the well documented 'don't un-plug from a superfast 30min charger before it's finished' scenario has anybody actually ever had any charge related electrical catastophes caused by a dodgy charger, or is the PHEV system so damn clever it can't be damaged anyway?

I now only work part-time, but quite often my return journeys will be 30 - 50 miles. As a very new PHEV owner (picked it up today!) all of this info is very new and interesting.

We were not allowed to take advantage of the government grant for a charging point, as although we live on a private road, it's a public highway, and we have to park on the road. We will charge at home with a dedicated 13A point - an electrician is coming tomorrow to make all the connections, and I have prepared the way by making a route for the armoured cable we need to travel through flower beds and under a path over 20 metres to the road.

I have today also ordered a Type 1/Type 2 cable as I intend to use our local free charging point (at the Co-op) and also the free ones in our two nearest towns when I have to go there. Like another poster, I think Mitsubishi should provide two types of cable with the car.

Thanks everyone for the info. Kind of makes me wish I'd come on here before buying the car. I ended up going to my local Mitsu' dealer to get the app sorted, it took a 20 something year old about 10 minutes of fiddling to get it sorted and it now seems to work fine, well as much as it's likely to.

Still not sure about buying the home charger unit and extra cable. I was just in the middle of writing "I think I'm going to stick with home charging on the 13 amp plug at the moment but put a separate socket in the garage, close to the door and then run the cable under the door." When I thought I'd do a little spreadsheet (I like spreadsheets), this shows that at a total cost of of around £281 for the unit and separate cable I would need to save on average 7 ltrs of petrol per month to break even. This means I'd need to do about 3 charges a month at a public charge point to break even, this doesn't include the cost of the charge so it looks like on a financial basis it doesn't really work out. That's disappointing!

i got hold of a fibreglass outdoor Gas/Electricity meter box off Ebay (£20) to fit on the wall. put a circuit breaker and plug in it and then the charging brick secured to the wall by getting a large steel eye hook and threading cable through it and padlocking the loop

i then extended the cable and now have a lead that is 22ft long, easily reaches the car whichever way it is parked in drive. the cable can be wound up and put in box when not in use. it is waterproof an keeps cable out of sight and out of way

I can 100% advocate not bothering with a public charging cable. I purchased a type 1 to type 2 32A cable shortly after acquiring my Outlander, and have never used it - not even once.

When charging is free (much rarer nowadays), you run the risk of upsetting pure EV motorists who might absolutely have a need to charge, and paying to achieve a mere 23 or so miles makes absolutely no sense financially.
Throw in the fact that at 16A you can't charge as fast as the charger can probably supply, you'll find that more often that not you might get only a few miles extra range.

I had a home charging point fitted with the 100% grant back in feb 2015 and opted for the 32A tethered version. Best thing I ever did! No messing around in the boot when I need to charge, and I have never used the included 13A charging lead that was included with the car.
My Outlander is coming towards the end of it's lease and I am replacing it with a pure EV vehicle that will charge at 32A, so it will be a simple £114 swap of the tethered lead to suit the Type 2 socket on the new car. So glad I opted for the 32A unit (Rolec).

The Outlander has served me well and has made an excellent introduction to an electric drive, and I'm now looking forward to pure EV motoring.