Pure EV mode

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dukeinlondon

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 19, 2014
Messages
49
Location
London UK
I am driving a 2014 model on which there's no way to stop the petrol engine from starting. I think I've read somewhere the newer models do have an EV only or pure EV mode. From which year is that the case ? After the lease expires, I am considering buying a second hand newer model, so would like to know from which year to consider them ? Sorry if I've missed a thread talking about this ? Thanks all
 
Every Outlander PHEV can run in pure EV mode ... but it is needed to:

- Don't start the cabin heating system ... so fan need to be off ... or temperature need to be set to 15C ... needed only if outside temperature and/or car temperature is below 10deg then requested temperature in the cabin

- Don't press ever too much the accelerator ... so ... take care to never request more then 60kw .. or never exit the green area on the power indicator

As far as I know ... also latest PHEV with dedicated EV button .. can't avoid to start the ICE if cabin heating system is activated ... so this new EV button is quite "useless"

PS: Solution would be simple .. in ECO mode ... ICE should never ever started, unless the battery is below 25% of SOC ... but in Japan don't like simple solutions .... they believe they know better what PHEV users want from their cars :oops:
 
Thanks for that, that's disappointing news. The bright side of it is that I will be able to look at older cars without the gimmicky EV button :)
 
It was MY2017 that saw the introduction of the EV button (and electronic handbrake)
 
elm70 said:
As far as I know ... also latest PHEV with dedicated EV button .. can't avoid to start the ICE if cabin heating system is activated ... so this new EV button is quite "useless”.

This is not strictly correct. With the EV mode selected, the cabin heating system does not cause the ICE to start up. You do of course have to be fairly gentle on the accelerator pedal because the ICE has to kick in if the demand on the drive battery exceeds 60kw.

The only slight wrinkle is when you start the car in really cold weather. If the heating was left selected on when the car was last shut down then the ICE will start within a couple of seconds of pressing the “Power On” button. This can be prevented by pressing “Power On” then immediately turning off the heater, then selecting EV mode and then turning the heater back on again.

So, if you want to do a short round trip of say 15 miles, you can always do this without the ICE starting, even in the coldest weather (UK). I find this very useful, others might not.
 
WAH64 said:
The only slight wrinkle is when you start the car in really cold weather. If the heating was left selected on when the car was last shut down then the ICE will start within a couple of seconds of pressing the “Power On” button. This can be prevented by pressing “Power On” then immediately turning off the heater, then selecting EV mode and then turning the heater back on again.

So, if you want to do a short round trip of say 15 miles, you can always do this without the ICE starting, even in the coldest weather (UK). I find this very useful, others might not.
So how is this different from what we had before the EV Priority button?

Also, I am not sure what you write is necessarily correct. From a Dutch web site (Google translated):

However, there are a number of situations in which the engine can still start in EV Priority mode.

For example if the climate control has to work very hard to get the desired temperature in the interior, for example in the morning on a cold winter day or if the car has been in the burning sun for hours. To prevent the air conditioning system from draining the whole battery, the engine will start to provide additional power.
...
The engine will also start if you turn on the windshield heating (defroster)
 
I tend to view the EV button as an 'EV Priority' button, rather than 'Pure EV', as the ICE can still start up in certain circumstances as described above. I think it is just less likely to do so. I don't really go in for switching off heating etc. as I would rather the engine ran for a minute or two to help warm up, and preserve battery for my journey. Running a pre-heat before starting will stop the ICE starting anyway. I have found over the last couple of weeks in cold temperatures it only runs for a couple of minutes which isn't such a big deal, unless you are an EV purist of course.. in which case you won't have bought a PHEV :D
 
I've been driving my Juro 2017 since 4 December. I am using only EV mode with 4WD lock. I am preheating the car for 20 min before every journey, running the cabin heating on 25 Celsius all the time and the battery lasts for 7 miles. I drive to work twice a day - that's 4 miles a day. I am recharging from an ordinary socket every nigh and I set the timer to finish 5 min before I go to work, so the morning preheating is from the mains. Every charge is costing me £1 on average, so far. This car is perfect for my lifestyle.
 
vlado61 said:
I've been driving my Juro 2017 since 4 December. I am using only EV mode with 4WD lock. I am preheating the car for 20 min before every journey, running the cabin heating on 25 Celsius all the time and the battery lasts for 7 miles. I drive to work twice a day - that's 4 miles a day. I am recharging from an ordinary socket every nigh and I set the timer to finish 5 min before I go to work, so the morning preheating is from the mains. Every charge is costing me £1 on average, so far. This car is perfect for my lifestyle.

Have you got those figures right? At £1 for 7 miles, you may as well run on petrol!
 
anko said:
So how is this different from what we had before the EV Priority button?

Also, I am not sure what you write is necessarily correct. From a Dutch web site (Google translated):

I hesitate to get into this discussion with a recognised PHEV expert but here goes. I have no direct experience of pre MY17 cars, only what I have read on this forum. So in my car I can get into it at -2C ambient without pre-heating, turn power on, select EV mode, select +22C heating plus heated seats and then drive 7 miles to my local town. A couple of hours later I can do exactly the same for the reverse journey. The ICE will not operate at any point during these journeys. If I do the same journey without selecting EV mode then the ICE starts as soon as I turn the car heating on and runs for the first couple of miles of the journey each way. I assume that is what a pre MY17 car would do and if so, that is how it is different.
 
WAH64 said:
I hesitate to get into this discussion with a recognised PHEV expert but here goes.
Well, you're more 'going against' the web site I quoted, rather than against me, but both would be perfectly fine. I don't have any personal experience with the EV Priority button myself, so you are the expert in this case. And even if I was ... ;-)

Good thing they solved half of the problem. To bad they didn't go all the way (by making the mode sticky). This afternoon, once more when I started my car to move it out of the charge bay the ICE started because I forgot to turn down the heater when I arrived there. I guess that would still happen with the new model.
 
anko said:
WAH64 said:
Good thing they solved half of the problem. To bad they didn't go all the way (by making the mode sticky). This afternoon, once more when I started my car to move it out of the charge bay the ICE started because I forgot to turn down the heater when I arrived there. I guess that would still happen with the new model.

I don't think it would. The earlier poster said it can be -2, when they start the car with heater set to 22 the ICE does not kick in with EV mode selected. I've only had my 4h a day but with ambient temps at about 4C using the heater did not start the ICE. I managed 35 miles (with charging) and no petrol.
 
anko said:
WAH64 said:
I hesitate to get into this discussion with a recognised PHEV expert but here goes.

Good thing they solved half of the problem. To bad they didn't go all the way (by making the mode sticky). This afternoon, once more when I started my car to move it out of the charge bay the ICE started because I forgot to turn down the heater when I arrived there. I guess that would still happen with the new model.

Anko you are absolutely correct. I think Mitsubishi have got their logic a bit messed up. Heating controls are “sticky” retaining whatever condition they were last shut down in whereas the EV selection is not “sticky”. But these two controls interact and inadvertant starting of the ICE is still a problem if you you are not alert. Quite frequently I am not :lol:
 
WAH64 said:
This is not strictly correct. With the EV mode selected, the cabin heating system does not cause the ICE to start up. You do of course have to be fairly gentle on the accelerator pedal because the ICE has to kick in if the demand on the drive battery exceeds 60kw.

The only slight wrinkle is when you start the car in really cold weather. If the heating was left selected on when the car was last shut down then the ICE will start within a couple of seconds of pressing the “Power On” button. This can be prevented by pressing “Power On” then immediately turning off the heater, then selecting EV mode and then turning the heater back on again.

So, if you want to do a short round trip of say 15 miles, you can always do this without the ICE starting, even in the coldest weather (UK). I find this very useful, others might not.

Thanks for clarification

Good to know that the EV mode is not totally dummy as I did read elsewhere before

Still ... a bit too little improvement ... ECO button should do the same as EV button , so I don't see the point on having two similar buttons...as well ... ICE should never start in my opinion even if accelerator is fully pressed (not even sure it make sense to start ICE even in kick down)

Anyhow ... also on my 2013 taking care of using the heating system .. and after had master the max allowed travel without kick in the ICE .. I'm always driving in EV mode on my old PHEV

PS: Don't start the ICE, no only save fuel, but as well it allows to age better the ICE

PPS: 2019 PHEV is reported to have 25kwh battery .... hopefully there will be no more strange limitation .. and ICE could be off without special setting ... who knows .... maybe they can even offer a battery upgrade for old PHEV cars ... like Nissan does/did on Leaf
 
MikkB said:
I tend to view the EV button as an 'EV Priority' button ...
I think that is what it is called ;-)

MikkB said:
I don't really go in for switching off heating etc. as I would rather the engine ran for a minute or two to help warm up, and preserve battery for my journey.
Again, I am not sure about the new model, but here you may be mistaken. When the engine runs for only two minutes, the coolant most likely does not reach 70 deg C and the thermo valve has not even opened. Yet, in the mean time the electric heater has been blasting away in an effort to warm up the interior. At some point the car changes its mind and decides to rely on the heater rather than the ICE for heating and the ICE is switch off. Fuel totally wasted and battery capacity used for heating. Happend many times to me.

Also, when your trip is well within battery range, why save battery capacity for distance you are not going to travel?

MikkB said:
... which isn't such a big deal, unless you are an EV purist of course.. in which case you won't have bought a PHEV :D
When I tow my caravan, the car uses about 1 liter per 8 km, if not more. Which is totally fine by me, as it serves a purpose. Wasting fuel while the heater is warning up the cabin does not serve a purpose, so IMHO there is no reason to just accept it. Purist or no purist.

Not necessarily related to wat MikkB said, I can accept that people have bought the PHEV for tax reasons. So have I. But personally, I believe that accepting the tax benefits associated with the PHEV being a plug-in hybrid vehicle gives one a (an extra?) moral obligation to 'make the most out of that'.
 
anko said:
...

Also, when your trip is well within battery range, why save battery capacity for distance you are not going to travel?

...

I'll agree with you there - the solution is to add a feature that I suggested two or three years ago and which was not met with enthusiasm. The MMCU should include the option of selecting from a number of "trip profiles" - let me tell the car that I'm planning a short, low speed trip that will be within EV range, or a long, high speed trip with no possibility of recharging - that will then allow the battery management system to make more intelligent decisions on how to use your charge. Going one step further, if you have a route set into the satnav, it could make even more intelligent decisions in order to ensure that you have used up the charge shortly before you arrive.
 
anko said:
MikkB said:
I tend to view the EV button as an 'EV Priority' button ...
I think that is what it is called ;-)

Yep, just clarification for the OP who was suggesting it was a 'pure EV' mode button.

anko said:
MikkB said:
I don't really go in for switching off heating etc. as I would rather the engine ran for a minute or two to help warm up, and preserve battery for my journey.
Again, I am not sure about the new model, but here you may be mistaken. When the engine runs for only two minutes, the coolant most likely does not reach 70 deg C and the thermo valve has not even opened. Yet, in the mean time the electric heater has been blasting away in an effort to warm up the interior. At some point the car changes its mind and decides to rely on the heater rather than the ICE for heating and the ICE is switch off. Fuel totally wasted and battery capacity used for heating. Happend many times to me.

Also, when your trip is well within battery range, why save battery capacity for distance you are not going to travel?

The ICE is running to provide supplementary charge to the battery while under heavy demand (like under acceleration), so the battery will be depleted less quickly, which is helpful. Agreed, if trip is well within range then no point preserving charge, but if not...
 
maby said:
anko said:
...

Also, when your trip is well within battery range, why save battery capacity for distance you are not going to travel?

...

I'll agree with you there - the solution is to add a feature that I suggested two or three years ago and which was not met with enthusiasm. The MMCU should include the option of selecting from a number of "trip profiles" - let me tell the car that I'm planning a short, low speed trip that will be within EV range, or a long, high speed trip with no possibility of recharging - that will then allow the battery management system to make more intelligent decisions on how to use your charge. Going one step further, if you have a route set into the satnav, it could make even more intelligent decisions in order to ensure that you have used up the charge shortly before you arrive.

It sounds complicated

Only thing that is needed is to make "sticky" the ECO mode and the EV mode ... now both get reset and "off" .. at each time the car is restart.

If driver wants to have fast warm cabin using the ICE .. just click off ECO mode ...

Multiple profiles to be select at car start sounds an extra "routine" .. which need to be sticky for be effective ... and for sure way more expensive to be implemented by Mitsubishi

Anyhow ... possibly Mitsubishi can't make ECO and EV mode sticky ... since then don't have 2 bits of EEPROM/FLASH available in the car ... or ... since they believe to know better what is "good" for the car and the car owner
 
MikkB said:
The ICE is running to provide supplementary charge to the battery while under heavy demand (like under acceleration), so the battery will be depleted less quickly, which is helpful. Agreed, if trip is well within range then no point preserving charge, but if not...
Sorry for being a oain in the ass, but ...

When the ICE is started for heating purposes, it will produce enough power to drive the car (only once it is properly heated up, so not even from the start) but it will NOT generate surplus power to charge the battery. Same when fuel level in the tank is below 5 liters.
 
anko said:
MikkB said:
The ICE is running to provide supplementary charge to the battery while under heavy demand (like under acceleration), so the battery will be depleted less quickly, which is helpful. Agreed, if trip is well within range then no point preserving charge, but if not...
Sorry for being a oain in the ass, but ...

When the ICE is started for heating purposes, it will produce enough power to drive the car (only once it is properly heated up, so not even from the start) but it will NOT generate surplus power to charge the battery. Same when fuel level in the tank is below 5 liters.
Don't apologise, it's interesting discussion for me - I'm a new PHEV owner :)

When my ICE starts on a cold morning, the energy flow graphic on screen shows the ICE charging the battery, both when stationary and then driving in series mode. After a couple of minutes ICE stops and then just EV driving.
 
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