Fast charging

Hi,I've just had my GX4H a month and as yet not used a public charge point. I did my 1st long trip at the weekend (388miles). I have a ecotricity card but am nervous about using it. I read somewhere that the Outlander has issues when fast charging. I 'phoned my dealer who told me the problem is with ecotricity. I then 'phoned ecotricity who told me it is Mitsubishi's problem. has anyone had any problems? being new to the game of EV driving... How do you get the mythical 146mpg?
East Midlands area.

Wuduslad said:

How do you get the mythical 146mpg?
East Midlands area.

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Never go further than 25 miles at a time!!!!!

I have used the ecotricity fast chargers quite a few times and never had a problem ( well on one occasion it wouldn't talk to the car).
The 148mpg is on the official test cycle over quite a short distance.

Well, the jury seems to be out as regards to the cause of the problem - and I would not hold my breath waiting for a solution. Ecotricity give their service away for free, so they don't have a lot to lose if PHEVs don't use it. At least two members of this forum have had their car disabled during charging on an Ecotricity point - and have needed to be recovered to a main dealer to have the system reset.

As far as the 146mpg is concerned, the key is short distances and frequent charging. As soon as you go far beyond 40 miles, you are driving a large, rather heavy petrol estate car and will get the corresponding fuel economy. If your longest journey is about 20 miles, you will appear to get infinite mpg - though this is a bit of an illusion since you are presumably paying for the electricity to charge the car. If you are paying at normal UK tariffs, your effective mpg will be between about 140mpg and 200mpg even if you never burn any petrol.

I wondered if the 148mpg includes some external recharging. The car is less costly on local/short runs using petrol and home charging but my last car,a Kia Sedona 2.9 turbo diesel was well ahead on long fast runs. Perhaps I've not got to the top level in this EV game yet. Of course there's the zero road tax to take into account as well. It's also brought the fun in driving back!
Black GX4H.

Wuduslad said:

I wondered if the 148mpg includes some external recharging. The car is less costly on local/short runs using petrol and home charging but my last car,a Kia Sedona 2.9 turbo diesel was well ahead on long fast runs. Perhaps I've not got to the top level in this EV game yet. Of course there's the zero road tax to take into account as well. It's also brought the fun in driving back!
Black GX4H.

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It's not hard to get better fuel efficiency out of a modern conventional car on runs significantly beyond the EV range. Charging on the road will improve the running costs a bit, but it adds a lot to your journey time even of you use rapid chargers - and there are question marks over the effect of frequent use of rapid chargers on battery life expectancy. The only way that a PHEV significantly out performs a similarly sized conventional car on fuel economy is if your driving pattern is primarily EV mode trips - averaging around 20 miles between charges.

That said, it is an enjoyable car to drive.

I use the ecotricity machines whenever I go on a motorway journey - about twice a month - and use them both ways on the trip. Never had an issue and had my ev range showing 40 last week so seems all fine.

CJ

I use them several times a week, as the car is on a three year lease I'm not really that bothered about the long term effects, if there are any. The car is usually charged twice a day using the standard method anyway.

I threw away my Ecotricity card as I decided it was not worth the risk.

Before that I was using it approx 2-3 times per week.
After the Ecotricity charger caused my car to shutdown and i need to be towed away I don't want to risk it anymore.
For me, the gain of 20 free miles motoring is not enough, and I don't want to wait 3 hours for a tow truck to get me home again !
It seems Ecotricity blame Mitsubishi and Mitsubishi blame Ecotricity- so I doubt this will be quickly fixed.

BUT- I'm still very happy with the car, as rapid charging is not the main reason I bought this car, just a helpful extra if it was reliable.

As I charge up overnight I'm still averaging 45mpg- which I feel is good considering I'm travelling approx 40k miles every year. My old Prius was only managing 50mpg so I think the Mitsi is doing well considering it is a 2 tonne SUV.

And then there is the 5% BIK....... So I'm very happy !

I just today contacted both Ecotricity and Mitsubishi to get the latest update as I was one of those who had a shutdown when charging last month on the fast dc charger. No commital from either company as yet. Ecotricity acknowledge the problem and say Mitsubishi are still looking into it. The person I spoke to there also said it was only a problem with 2015 PHEVs. This clearly is not correct based on 2014 problems reported on this forum. The Mitsubishi dealer does not know any more than me and said they had a customer who had the same issue last week at the Fleet services. I'm still waiting for Mitsubishi customer services to respond to me. It is about time Mitsubishi grasp the nettle and made a statement on this one way or another. It is not good enough for them to ignore this issue.

So I for now will not take the risk of using these charge points, which is a shame as when away from home it would be very beneficial. On the mpg issue, last month I recoreded an overall mpg of 62 based on a bit of motorway driving. Taking of the longer motorway driving from the calculation I averaged to 70 mpg over the month. I reakon I spent about £36 in electricity charging, which would equate to about 7 gallons of petrol. Therefore my 'real' mpg (taking into account this electricity cost) is between 45 and 47 mpg. I'm happy with is as it is as good as any Diesel car of this size and much lower BIK tax!

I don't think they can infer any relationship between the year of manufacture and the probability of having a problem. It clearly does not always cause a problem - in fact there are plenty of people here claiming to use rapid chargers several times per week without any difficulty. The number of PHEVs on the road is too small - and the number of owners using rapid chargers even smaller - to be able to come to any meaningful conclusion. The trouble is that, although the risk of a problem appears to be small, the inconvenience when it does go wrong is likely to be great. You are only likely to use rapid chargers when you are quite a long way from home and if the car locks up, it has to be towed to a Mitsubishi dealer to be reset - and Mitsubishi is not a Ford or Toyota - the nearest main dealer could be quite a long way away.

OK, I have now received a reply from Mitsubishi customer Service UK.
They are adamant that there is no problem except for incorrect connect or disconnect. See their reply to me.

As you will appreciate we can only relay to you our experience following the investigation under taken which, as you are aware, concluded that when following the charge procedure accordingly the vehicle will charge satisfactorily.

We do note, however, that where charging units are damaged (typically as a result of vandalism) and/or disconnection is made too soon i.e. before the communication display on the unit advises it is appropriate to disconnect, the vehicle may go into ‘fail safe’ mode – this is to protect the vehicle from potential damage as a result.

I am surprised to learn that Ecotricity are suggesting that there is an issue with our vehicles and our charging points as we do not believe this to be the case and, furthermore, our findings were shared with them when we met with them recently. We will re-clarify with them, however, as a result of your feedback.

So can I ask if thise who have had the car shut down, was it because of an incorrect disconnect? I can admit that my shutdown was when I disconnected without following the procedure, but I am still not confident unless I know that is always the case.
Anyway it seems a fix is needed because a complete shutdown is a complete over reaction to an incorrect communication between car and charger!

And, while you can discipline yourself to always follow the "correct" procedures, you are still vulnerable to other people fiddling with the charger and, presumable, to a power-cut forcing an incorrect shutdown.

Thanks for that info Haydrive. It would indicate that a software update is required from Mitsubishi. If the operating system of the car is so vulnerable to accidental misuse or even 'tampering', surely a complete shut down is not the answer. Maybe Mitsubishi should let us in on the re-initialisation method. If it were a PC or similar, a disconnect from the mains and a re-start would clear the problem. How long before they claim it's 'user error' and want to charge us for the call out?

In response to Heydrive I can confirm that when I had the fast charge shutdown the normal operating procedures had been followed and the charge had completed. I posted the "fast charge - complete shutdown" topic a while ago and I think I was one of the first affected.

I agree that user reset should be possible by the driver, as far as Mitsu told me no damage is done to the car. And a word of warning too to anyone unlucky enough to be stranded;, don't let the dealer try and charge you for checking the car - Swindon Mitsu wanted me to cover the cost despite the car being a couple of weeks old and their promo stuff saying ecotricity chargers are compatible. I told them in no uncertain terms to stick the invoice where the sun don't shine!

So what can we do to get Mitsubishi to face up to their responsibility on this?

They are adamant that there is no problem except for incorrect connect or disconnect.

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To be honest, this troubles me somewhat, particularly that Mitsubishi think this is acceptable for a mass market car. I really don't think a car should need me to follow different procedures when doing something fundamental (i.e. Charging), particularly when not following the process can lead to a shutdown that I can't recover without taking the car to the dealer! It's not an arcane piece of industrial equipment, it's a mass market car!!!

So here is my reply to Mitsubishi. I will not let this go until they do something about this issue.

Thank you for your further reply. However I do not accept that this is an acceptable response from Mitsubishi and respectfully suggest that this needs to be addressed at a higher level in Mitsubishi.
Even if it is true that there is only a problem due to faulty charger or connection procedure (although evidence from other owners suggest otherwise), the fact that this can cause the car to be immobilised and needing recovery is an unacceptable situation for a mass produced car that is designed with a fast DC charging facility. Experience from a large number of Outlander PHEV owners in the UK shows that it is far too easy to immobilise the car due to DC charging. There has to be a better solution!

The plain facts are:
1. Mitsubishi recommends using the Ecotricity fast DC charging stations.
2. There can be occasions when this charger will cause a malfunction (either due to incorrect use or faulty unit).
3. When a malfunction occurs it causes the car to immobilise needing a recovery to a EV dealer.
4. Mitsubishi have supplied a car with a particular feature that can cause a serious breakdown situation.

It is points 3 and 4 that is the problem and needs a solution, so that rather than immobilise the car, it should just stop the charging process or at worst be re-set by the roadside.
If Mitsubishi will not take this seriously, then maybe it needs to be taken to an independent consumer agency to look into.

I wait to see what their response is and will let you know. I do think as owner/drivers we should some how collectively put pressure on Mitsubishi to sort this out.

Nice one. Look forward to seeing what Mitsubishi says.

Well done! Why didn't I think of that?
Did you see the short article on BBC's Look North tonight? Apparently there are fewer EVs in Lincolnshire than elsewhere in the UK and sales in the area have fallen. They put it down to lack of public charge points and high cost of using the available points.