Prospective Buyer - Query on in motion charging.

[gwatpe]

I have regularly driven my PHEV up a 4.5km long, 16% grade towing a fully loaded trailer while on the cruise control at 100kph speed limit and passed a slower vehicle by accelerating past without dropping into series hybrid. With a depleted battery, the PHEV will not maintain speed in series hybrid mode due to lack of battery.

I guess you have seen the Turtle by then?

Maintains 14L/100km at 100kph with about 40-50kW of electric help up the hill.

Silly Q, but how do you know about the 40-50kW?

Never seen the turtle. Had car run out of petrol and battery and still no turtle. Maybe AUS shipped cars are missing this software. Will have to try this again one day with the new PHEV.

The battery kW is available both on the EV map screen as well as the Trip Info screen. The L/100km is from my trusty OBD2 HUD. Instrumentation only makes some sense in parallel hybrid mode. Series hybrid only has no breakdown for battery charging power.

BTW if you have run out of battery while towing, chances are that recharging while stopped, or with a cord is the only way to get the battery level back up.

On a longer trip with several petrol stops, or even days between recharging opportunity, it is highly likely that the driver will forget to press the save button and yes this impacts heavily on how the PHEV drives from that point onwards. My simulated testing of how my sticky save solution operates, has seen the battery level deplete slowly over a couple of days, and this has very little impact on how the car drives. The absolute efficiency of the car has little bearing on my overall drive.

When petrol is unavailable, the EV only aspect will become important. I don't see this happening before the end of the car warranty period. Hopefully I will have a sticky CHARGE / SAVE button option before I begin extended travels, and will be able to objectively comment on how it works for me.

 

[anko]

The battery kW is available both on the EV map screen as well as the Trip Info screen.

Like I said: silly question. I was thinking about the power meter that doesn't make a distinction between electric and mechanical power

 

[jaapv]

... - and the car is more responsive if you don't allow the battery to run completely flat. ...

I have driven that car for over a year now and for well over 35000 Km and I cannot say that I ever noticed any lack of responsiveness with the battery “ flat” - which is logical as it is not flat at all - it has nearly 10% working charge left... To me this is an Internet myth.

For most cases, I would agree. But we all know it is possible to exhaust the battery to a point where it WILL become less responsive, the so called Turtle mode. For example by continuously depending on the responsiveness of the car or by trying to pull a caravan uphill. Somehow, it seems that either Maby's driving style or his driving environment makes him reach that point faster than others. And he tries to prevent that from happening by guarding his SOC. Or ... he confuses the sound of the revving engine with a "no can do" sign.

Well, I have driven the car, packed to the limit and skibox up a 1900 m high incline starting with 7 KM on the clock last Sunday, and I did not see turtle mode once, it just did it. The only time I ever saw the warning for power loss was when I was in a hurry, driving the car, again full load and with skibox @ 160 KpH up a long Autobahn incline - it did not go into Turtle mode and the warning disappeared by lifting off the right foot for half a minute, never to appear again. Turtle Mode (called Limited Power Mode by Mitsubishi) can certainly be attained but one needs to push the car beyond the limit for a long time - Giving this as a reason for twiddling the buttons is just spreading FUD imo.

 

[nick2b]

jaapv

Screaming like a banshee- that depends entirely on your driving style - if you demand full power the car will give you full power. Treat the accelerator like an on-off switch and it will react exactly the same as an automatic with kick-down or a CVT. That is max revs

No it doesn't. It has nothing to do with driving style or the implication of your statement.
It has everything to do with what happens on steep hill climbs with no battery charge.
Sorry if this clashes with your 'pro-PHEV at any cost' standpoint
(and by the way, I like the car - generally)

 

[maby]

jaapv

Screaming like a banshee- that depends entirely on your driving style - if you demand full power the car will give you full power. Treat the accelerator like an on-off switch and it will react exactly the same as an automatic with kick-down or a CVT. That is max revs

No it doesn't. It has nothing to do with driving style or the implication of your statement.
It has everything to do with what happens on steep hill climbs with no battery charge.
Sorry if this clashes with your 'pro-PHEV at any cost' standpoint
(and by the way, I like the car - generally)

and accelerating hard off the lights with no battery charge. It is just a more enjoyable car to drive with 50% or more of battery.

 

[greendwarf]

...

I drive it as a normal car which includes accelerating off the lights reasonably hard and not creeping up hills. I certainly dislike the high revving engine that goes with doing either of these on a depleted battery .

I don't understand this comment. If I did either of these things in my previous 2 litre car I got high revs, as well - because of the low gearing involved. :?:

 

[jaapv]

jaapv

Screaming like a banshee- that depends entirely on your driving style - if you demand full power the car will give you full power. Treat the accelerator like an on-off switch and it will react exactly the same as an automatic with kick-down or a CVT. That is max revs

No it doesn't. It has nothing to do with driving style or the implication of your statement.
It has everything to do with what happens on steep hill climbs with no battery charge.
Sorry if this clashes with your 'pro-PHEV at any cost' standpoint
(and by the way, I like the car - generally)

Well, I am doing 2700m mountain passes at the moment, and the SOC has nothing to do with the activating moment of the series hybrid mode. Kick down and it will activate.

 

[anko]

Well, I am doing 2700m mountain passes at the moment, and the SOC has nothing to do with the activating moment of the series hybrid mode. Kick down and it will activate.

I too think the responsiveness of the car is only reduced when you (are about to hit) hit rock bottom with the SOC. But, wrt the above statement, how often can you reach 40+ mph on a 2700m mountain pass? I would think most of the time you will be going a lot slower, resulting in series hybrid mode by default. Unless you have enough to SOC to maintain EV drive during the climb. And then, the actual SOC does matter.

 

[jaapv]

Just watch me

 

[Trex]

Hi,

My 2c is I can notice the roughly 13% power loss (I think I correctly calculated this figure) when the Phevs SOC is empty according to the gauge ie the Phev is noticeably sluggish to me when the drive battery is "empty" .

Regards Trex.

 

[anko]

So, how did you calculate this 13%? Thanks.

Edit - In another topic you wrote "17% power reduction (turtle mode)", as in power is reduced only when SOC drops to 17%, not already at 30%. And this is what I was going by. Interestingly enough the difference between 30% and 17% is ..... 13%, but that must be a coincidence.

 

[Trex]

So, how did you calculate this 13%? Thanks.

Edit - In another topic you wrote "17% power reduction (turtle mode)", as in power is reduced only when SOC drops to 17%, not already at 30%. And this is what I was going by. Interestingly enough the difference between 30% and 17% is ..... 13%, but that must be a coincidence.

From your pdf anko it says voltage when full 328v (4.1v per cell) so divide 60000 watts (60Kw the battery can provide) by 328v gives the amps the battery must provide ie 182.9 amps which is close to 5C discharge (40ah battery).

The pdf also says min voltage 284v (3.55v per cell which I think would have to be when gauge shows empty ie 30% real capacity. 3.2v is often considered the lowest you should go with lithium-ion) multiplied by 182.9 amps gives 51943.6 watts or 51.9Kw.

Now we have lost approx. 8Kw (60-52) divided by 60Kw we started with gives 13.3%.

Regards Trex.

 

[anko]

Fair point. But who says max discharge current at high SOC is equal to max discharge current at low SOC? Maybe they did not maximise discharge current but power output instead?

BTW: I may be wrong, but if I am not mistaken, max power output of the battery is (like it is for the generator) 70 kW, as 10 kW is lost in the DC / AC conversion.

 

[Trex]

Fair point. But who says max discharge current at high SOC is equal to max discharge current at low SOC? Maybe they did not maximise discharge current but power output instead?

BTW: I may be wrong, but if I am not mistaken, max power output of the battery is (like it is for the generator) 70 kW, as 10 kW is lost in the DC / AC conversion.

So are you saying that at a high SOC they are decreasing amps and low SOC they are increasing amps to have the same power output throughout the full range? Maybe, but it sure does not feel like it when I drive my Phev.

Whether there is 10Kw lost in conversion or not 60Kw is all the battery can provide to the wheels but it would make a difference to discharge rate which in my example would go from 4.6C (182.9 amps) to 5.3C (213.4 amps) .

Regards Trex.

 

[anko]

So are you saying that ...

Neh. I am not. I am just trying to come up with possible reasons why, except for you only one or two other guys, nobody has mentioned this and why Mitsu is not saying anything about it ...

What you feel, I guess, would be that the engine kicks in earlier, rather than that you have less power available? Because, from a "total system power available" perspective, you would be talking about 6.5% of 120 kW, only noticeable at speeds above 58 km/h (minus 6.5%).

 

[Trex]

So are you saying that ...

Neh. I am not. I am just trying to come up with possible reasons why, except for you only one or two other guys, nobody has mentioned this and why Mitsu is not saying anything about it ...

What you feel, I guess, would be that the engine kicks in earlier, rather than that you have less power available? Because, from a "total system power available" perspective, you would be talking about 6.5% of 120 kW, only noticeable at speeds above 58 km/h (minus 6.5%).

Where I first noticed this sluggish behaviour was at set of traffic lights on a trip to Sydney nearly a year ago. The petrol motor had stopped pulling up at the red light and while waiting, but as soon as I got a green light it was noticeable reluctant to move away with same accelerator force as previously applied when the battery was not empty ( my wife and 2 sons were on this trip and they also noticed how much delay I had getting going) and no, there was no hill or fast start needed.

Well I pressed the charge button straight away and got the SOC up to about 1/4 on the gauge and then pressed the save button and never noticed the sluggishness again and have never let the SOC go that low again on trips away in low speed areas ( in parallel mode I regularly do just before hitting the charge button again but you know that story).

Regards Trex.

 

[anko]

Hi Trex,

Thanks for the heads up. But somehow, reading your story, I get the impression your statement is based on one single experience. Wouldn't it be worth while taking the risk of allowing the SOC drop once more and see if it happens again?

And yes, I do understand dropping and raising SOC on the motorway

Cheers,
Anko

 

[maby]

I suspect that the Outlander uses fuzzy logic in its control systems and that the behaviour is not terribly deterministic. Like gwatpe, I've got into the habit of keeping the SOC quite high most of the time and it does seem to reduce the incidence of over-revving engines and sluggishness off the lights - but this weekend I took off from the lights at the bottom of a moderate hill which I climb several times each week. The car had just come off charge and was at 90% charge give or take a little - but this time the engine revs went high and stayed there till I got to the top. Normally, I would expect to make it up there without the car even breaking sweat.

 

[anko]

And the plot thickens .... :mrgreen:

 

[jaapv]

It is exceedingly simple: if the ICE is stationary the car has to start it up first to deliver full power and appears sluggish. If it happens to be idling the car is quick off the mark.add the tendency of the human mind to find spurious correlations and the conundrum is explained.