Cold Weather No-Start Work Around - Scheduled Warm Ups

[mmbart]

I had an idea on a possible work-around to mitigate the risk of the 2023 PHEV not starting after a night of extreme cold. There is a scheduled warm-up option on the app. If I were to schedule a pre-heat for say every 3 hours (you only get 3 schedule slots to activate at once) would that operation be enough to alter the battery temp? I know the the cabin wont actually heat but simply starting the fans would use some power. It is my understanding that some heat will be created within the battery as it discharges. It's not a perfect fix but if I'm away from home and cannot plug-in and expecting -30 C or lower I might set this up just for a bit more piece of mind.

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on if you think this is feasible or if there are some major flaws.

 

[kpetrov]

That's what I would do if owning that model.
Make it working to activate charging - discharging cycle during the night, especially morning before departure.

 

[tikan]

Someone on one of the forums said that the load from using the heater wouldn't cause enough draw to heat the batteries enough to matter. It's worth a shot but I feel like this would have been a simple fix for Mitsubishi if it would make a difference. They could just program some logic stating that below a certain temperature, cycle the heater on and off to heat the batteries.

 

[mellobob]

I'm not sure about the tech details of the cold weather problem. But, we did have some very cold weather here (-20c to -28c) and I had no problems with mine. I keep my '23 in a car port which is totally exposed to the outside cold, but does keep some of the wind off. My car is always plugged in when it's sitting there ... and, since we are both old codgers without jobs, it'll sit for many days without any use.

I was at the dealer last month and I asked the service manager (a bit of a friend) and asked if they'd had any "dead" cars over the cold period. Had a bit of a conversation and, yes, they had some they had to tow and warm up. However, every one of these had been street parked and NOT plugged in (to the charger! Not to a mostly useless engine block heater).

If you keep the car plugged in during cold you "should" have no problems. Mind you, we don't get real cold like they do up north where -35c to -40c is common

 

[tikan]

I'm not sure about the tech details of the cold weather problem. But, we did have some very cold weather here (-20c to -28c) and I had no problems with mine. I keep my '23 in a car port which is totally exposed to the outside cold, but does keep some of the wind off. My car is always plugged in when it's sitting there ... and, since we are both old codgers without jobs, it'll sit for many days without any use.

I was at the dealer last month and I asked the service manager (a bit of a friend) and asked if they'd had any "dead" cars over the cold period. Had a bit of a conversation and, yes, they had some they had to tow and warm up. However, every one of these had been street parked and NOT plugged in (to the charger! Not to a mostly useless engine block heater).

If you keep the car plugged in during cold you "should" have no problems. Mind you, we don't get real cold like they do up north where -35c to -40c is common

Unfortunately that doesn't work for up here. If you don't have a garage, even if you are plugged in, it will fail once it goes 25C or colder for a few days. I'm taking mine to the dealer on Saturday for the update and will ask the service manager if they have further details. I think part of the issue is once it's that cold, it doesn't use the battery and since it's not using the battery it's not warming up the battery, and the battery isn't taking a charge because it doesn't need a charge. It's a cycle of not using the battery during cold weather so it just gets colder and colder until it won't work anymore at all. Mine was plugged in and > 80% charge but it refused to charge because it was too cold to charge safely. So the plugin was essentially doing nothing (blinking red light near port).

 

[Grandad]

I'm not sure about the tech details of the cold weather problem. But, we did have some very cold weather here (-20c to -28c) and I had no problems with mine. I keep my '23 in a car port which is totally exposed to the outside cold, but does keep some of the wind off. My car is always plugged in when it's sitting there ... and, since we are both old codgers without jobs, it'll sit for many days without any use.

I was at the dealer last month and I asked the service manager (a bit of a friend) and asked if they'd had any "dead" cars over the cold period. Had a bit of a conversation and, yes, they had some they had to tow and warm up. However, every one of these had been street parked and NOT plugged in (to the charger! Not to a mostly useless engine block heater).

If you keep the car plugged in during cold you "should" have no problems. Mind you, we don't get real cold like they do up north where -35c to -40c is common

once the battery (not the air temperature) is cold enough the system will lock out to "protect the battery." Plugging in makes no difference once the battery is either fully charged or too cold to take a charge (-25 according to a conversation with Mitsu customer"service"). The recent software "enhancement" doccumentation reinforces this point when is talks about reducing the speed at which the battery cools after use - if you can get it to start. Telling owners to plug in the vehicle is in many ways like the advice an expectant father to go boil some water while waiting for the birth of a baby. The documents could just as easily say "plug in the vehicle, cross your fingers, and hope for the best."

 

[RossWilliams]

We have a 2018 Outlander PHEV and lived in northern Minnesota with temps down to -40 at night. We had an uneated detached garage and leave it plugged in. We also took winter trips when the car was left unattended for over a month. My solution was to have the automatic ac heat turn on about 2:00 AM every night and the automatic charge turn on once a week immediately after the heat turned off. Tthe car started in the morning when we were home and, with one exception, it started when we returned from our trips. I think the exception was because I screwed up the settings, but I was never sure.

I don't know why it worked. My plan was that turning on the AC would both use the battery and warm it up so that it could be charged. It may also have warmed the garage sufficiently that the temperature of the battery never dropped below its minimum operating temperature. I don't know if the engine kicks in for the automatic AC so it may also have filled the garage with carbon monoxide occassionally. Not really a problem for us since we weren't in it, but would be if you have an attached garage.

 

[littlescrote]

The heating/air conditioning will use about 3kW, that's hardly any current out of the battery compared to the 60kW+ that it can supply, so will do little to warm it.

 

[Lon12]

We have a 2018 Outlander PHEV and lived in northern Minnesota with temps down to -40 at night. We had an uneated detached garage and leave it plugged in. We also took winter trips when the car was left unattended for over a month. My solution was to have the automatic ac heat turn on about 2:00 AM every night and the automatic charge turn on once a week immediately after the heat turned off. Tthe car started in the morning when we were home and, with one exception, it started when we returned from our trips. I think the exception was because I screwed up the settings, but I was never sure.

I don't know why it worked. My plan was that turning on the AC would both use the battery and warm it up so that it could be charged. It may also have warmed the garage sufficiently that the temperature of the battery never dropped below its minimum operating temperature. I don't know if the engine kicks in for the automatic AC so it may also have filled the garage with carbon monoxide occassionally. Not really a problem for us since we weren't in it, but would be if you have an attached garage.

This is a 2023 newer model year issue. We owned a 2018 and never saw any cold start or EV power reduction problems. 2018 has an electric heater. 2023 only has a heat pump that does not turn on below-15°C.