Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Forum

Hello Everyone, new member here after spotting these beauties in Carshop and promptly switching from my Insignia to a 16 plate Phev.

I'm slowly getting used to the car and all its little perks and quirks, (and hunted high and low for 2gb storage ) but overall, still very impressed with the car.

Only thing i miss from my insignia is the memory seats but hey, we cant have it all.

But anyway, i'm left with 2 main questions...

Firstly, has anyone managed to source and install a suitable double USB socket to install into the rear of the armrest to give two usb ports for the kids tablets in the back?
I realise, i can get a cigarette adaptor on a cable form the boot 12v socket, but i just wanted a neater looking job. I also know there is a main dealer one, but it seems very costly given what it actually is.

The second question is probably one thats been asked a million times and is a typical newbie one i guess, but as this is my first EV and there are now several companies bombarding my phone for business i wanted an owners opinion.
Simply put, what is the cheapest home charger you have all seen/installed? There are so many on the market with varying prices, so wondered which ones you have all found to be cheapest to install.
To give an idea, if helps/relevant, i generally charge it up every evening using the supplied home socket cable thingy (sorry for not knowing its technical name) and its taking a good 4 hours on average and i'm in the swindon/wiltshire area of the uk.
This charge time in-itself is a bit of a mystery, as quoted times for a full charge on this is about 5 hours, and apparently gives around 25-30 miles in range.
Mine is usually showing full charge at around 4 hours at most and i'm lucky if it ever shows more than 20 miles on the range. Does this seem normal?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

Hello ackster,

When I bought the PHEV I wanted to get a fast charger but soon realized that it was not needed.

Keep in mind that the PHEV battery capacity is quite small 12 KWH (13.8 KWH on newer models). And the battery is
never discharged to less than 30% of full capacity. So you really need to charge a max of 8-10 KWH to get a full charge.
I live in Quebec city Canada and out here the residential voltage is 120V. The EVSE supplied the the car are thus rated 120V. a full charge on my vehicle takes 8-12 hours depending on the current setting (8 or 12 amps)
As you live in UK your residential voltage should be 240V and thus charging will be much faster than what we have here.

Fast charger are really usefull if you have a full electric car with a much bigger battery capacity.
The Tesla model 3 has a 75 KWH battery. This require a fast charger.
With a regular 120 V charger it could take 3 days to charge it.

Wether or not you need a fast charger at home depend on your driving needs.

If you do several short trips during the day, but daily total is approx or less than 40 km then you don t need a fast charger
Fast charger is only good if you make several runs in a day and come back home in between providing that you have some time to charge.

I can fully charge my PHEV battery overnight with the 120 V EVSE supplied with the car. There are 2 settings 8 amp and 12 amp, Most of the time I charge on the 8 amp setting. If I come in late or if is very cold the 12 amp setting should be plenty to fully charge before the next day. During the day as soon as I get home I connect it so that I get more EV miles if I need to get out again the same day.

Most of my driving in summer is Electric. I drove 1500 km between June 21 and September19 and used approx 35 L through the summer. In winter I drive longer runs, 2 X 100Km to the ski hill and I recharge on a fast (and free) charger at the ski hill in between.

I normally get 35 km per full charge.


JP

It also depends where you are, if you’re in the UK and can use the olev grant to part fund one, it’s worth doing IMO. My next car will hopefully be full BEV so a fast charger is essential.
The grants will stop at some point.

Good choice! (living in Wiltshire).

I guess you want something neater than one of these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-Car-Char ... ect=mobile

Personally I'd mount a panel mount double socket on the back of arm rest, which is held on the car by 4 bolts in the bottom of the box. The existing wiring to the box is a little short so worth snipping some of the cable ties to get better access to the underside:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-Dual-USB ... ect=mobile

The PHEV charges 16 Amps max with the lefthand port, so upping from the 10 amp granny charger (as techies call them - why granny anyone? ) is marginal. I installed a used Podpoint 3.6KW charger so that I could charge in 3.5 hours from empty (my car is reset to the max 38Ah calacity), because I have solar ev panels and also Economy 10, which gives me 3 cheap hours between 1pm and 4pm. I'm retired but you could charge overnight with an off-peak scheme.

The highest reading I've seen after charging is 36 miles, but this was only an estimate from the Guessometer and dropped to 30 miles when I started driving. But it sounds like if you only see 20 miles you should head over to the Technical section and investigate "Resetting"

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Jpleduc - Thanks, i never actually thought of making do with the standard home EVSE but based on my charging pattern, it does make sense. I'm just sure i read somewhere that it wasn't advised to use it as a permanent solution, and only for an occasional charge or short term charging routine. Strangely no-one actually provided any reasoning behind it so i'm guessing its not really an issue to keep using the EVSE.
I've been thinking of just getting an external socket fitted, (currently feed the cable out the window, but its october now ) i was just also a bit worried, as its a driveway rather than a garage, about how waterproof the EVSE is. I've done a bit more research though and it seems a bit of rain does it no harm.

Craigy - Yes, being the uk, i'm sure the grants wont be around forever, but as i have just bought the Outlander, then i'd hope the prices of the faster chargers would come down a bit more before the grant goes. (seriously, an average of £350 for the cheapest with a £500 grant has to be massively inflated by the providers taking advantage of the grant. Its little more than a glorified outside socket). If this happened in the next 4 years anyway, then it would make sense to get on it before any deadline.

Michael - Yes i'd be looking for one of the fitted usb ports cheers. Thanks for the tips on how to get the armrest 'box' off to fit it. I'll get out there tomorrow and see if i can see what you're telling me. I'm guessing its just a case of getting a big enough hole in the back of it.
Would you suggest Tee-ing off the socket in the armrest box, or running a whole new cable from the fusebox?
Thanks for the tip on resetting the battery capacity. I can understand capacity dropping over the years (although 3 years seems a bit premature) but it was the shorter than quoted charge time that got me thinking there was more to it. It definitely feels like it needs some kind of re calibration.

Thanks again for the suggestions

Off the back of the power outlet in the box is simplest, but an inline 2A fuse might be best - imagine if one of the kid's cables goes short, the power outlet can provide a load of amps before its fuse goes, I would imagine.

You'll need a long socket extension to get the bolts undone.

the supplied 10A 3 pin 'granny' charger is actually the best (for the battery health) way to charge regularly, long term, as it's the slowest so the battery heats less and can smooth out. they reckon an occasional charge with the rapid DC socket is also good for it, but i'm not sure how that can be the case.

for a home EVSE, you can get used ones on ebay for ~£100 if you can either fit it yourself or have a cheap and useful sparky that will do it. there's plenty of type 1 tethered out these as people chop in their gen 1 Leafs. i find a tethered EVSE is so much less hassle than getting any cable either out of the car, out of the house or garage etc.

Yes I forgot to mention the sheer convenience of a wall mounted charger.

I found the mains cable on the granny wouldn't reach far enough, so needed an extension, which is not best practice.

There's no practical evidence ever been given for that statement. You're talking about the difference in charging at 1.5kW (0.125C) or 3.6kW (0.3C), neither of which are particularly high. And don't forget that charging at lower wattages is far less efficient than higher ones - the overhead in running the circuits is constant, so more is "wasted" on a granny charger. On our Zoe, it's around 10% on a granny charger.

The reason you should think about not using the granny lead all the time is that they do go wrong quite often. A continuous 10A is at the design limit for a household plug, and any poor connection with the pins or the internal fuse will increase resistance and cause localised heating. 10A will cause a coiled-up lead to melt, and there are quite a few report on here about plugs or sockets overheating, or with the box itself failing. Even if it's fine now, how good will the connections be in 6 months or a year?

As there's still an OLEV grant for a wall socket, I'd future-proof things while the grant is available and install one now. You'll be able to use it for any future electric cars. With a PHEV, I'd go untethered, as the type 1 cable isn't used in many (?any) other new cars sold in the UK - that way you can easily use a type 2 cable which most (?all) other new cars use here.

As already mentioned by others, the choice for a charger is a very personal one. I've chosen for a Newmotion 22kWh. Not because the Outlander needs it (or can even handle it), just because the extra investment compared to a 3.6kWh charger wasn't that high and this way I'm done for a long time regardless of what electric car I decide to buy in the future. I might even give access to others for charging while I'm away from home (for a charging fee of course ). Didn't decide yet if I want to do that.

Charging at the (Outlanders) max of 3.6kWh takes about 3,5 hours for a full charge.

For the USB port in the back I would really like the current usb to be accessable from the storage under the armrest, so I can put my phone inside while beïng connected to Carplay. When I have some time I'm going to check if this can be done. The kids can help themselves with the 230v socket, although I'm not sure yet if the 230v actually works while driving.

Without the 230v it's safe to get a 12v connection from the fusebox and lead it to the armrest so you can mount a 12v socket to meet the kids charging needs. If you have never done this before, I'd advise you to consult a professional to fix it for you as you really don't want to overload any circuit or drain your 12v battery every time the kids leave something in the USB charger