Rapid charging

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brianmccuk

New member
Joined
May 8, 2019
Messages
2
Hi,
Are all hybrid or electric cars restricted on the amount of rapid charges? Mitsubishi said I should only use rapid charging only once every couple of weeks.
Thanks,
B
 
The question is whether you should rapid charge at all. It is expensive, it only gains you 30-40 km before you have to charge again and it wears out the battery.
 
Where does it say you should only rapid charge once every couple of weeks? I hope that’s not true as I rapid charge a lot, often a couple of times a day. As we have a rapid at work and it’s the most likely charger to be available I usually use that, and I use them at motorway services whenever I stop for coffee.
I’ve only got the car for 3 years so only need the battery to last that long however.......
 
It says it on page 3-05 of the Owner's manual (pre-facelift, might be on a different page on later revisions). Note that in the manual, 'quick' charging means ChaDeMo, 'normal' charging means Type 1 (whether from 10A granny charger or 16A EVSE).

* Repeatedly performing only quick charging may reduce the battery capacity. In usual charge normal charging is recommended
* To maintain the capacity of the drive battery, the following is recommended:
. If you repeatedly perform only quick charging, fully charge the vehicle in normal charging mode every two weeks.
. Do not repeat charging near the full charge level.
 
Which is slightly different to jaapv's answer. This is possibly due to the different way charging occurs, in that the Rapid chargers bypass the PHEV control system to slam in lots of energy whereas the normal/fast chargers do this in a controlled manner with the PHEV balancing the flow to protect the individual cells from damage by slowing the process. The only way the Rapid charger mitigates damage is in not charging to more than 80%. Note that there will be significant heating during Rapid charging.

I imagine that the advice from Mitsu to do a "normal" charge every 2 weeks is to allow the PHEV system to adjust individual cells by correcting any imbalances from the Rapid charges. However, there is also the lifetime limit of approx. 3,000 full charges before cell exhaustion. Although the limit of 80% recharge and 30% bottom end reserve help, several Rapid 20 minute charges per day could easily result in only a 3 year battery life. The longer time for normal charging prevents such frequency.

You will find reference elsewhere in the forum to the fact that the 3000 cycle limit is due to battery technology and not Mitsu's design and that the PHEV records all the charging, so that a warranty claim after 3 years would fail if due to "excessive" use of Rapid chargers.

NB. This is my layman understanding of the issue through being a member here since 2014 but, no doubt, others could give a more detailed and technical explanation, if required. :geek:
 
Yes that’s a very different answer and more along the lines of what I believed, doing a Rapid charge only every couple of weeks would ruin my usage of this car.
A minor point, Rapids do not bypass the cars control over the process but are controlled by the car during the process. The car requests the required current and the rapid charger delivers it directly, obviously the available current is vastly higher than using the on board charger.
It’s slightly odd that the car stops the charging at 80% as other EVs happily carry on until full (leaf for example), if you restart the charge the outlander will continue up to 90 something percent, and the charge is tapered by the car.
I can only assume this is a heat issue with the PHEV only having air cooled batteries, or a design issue to stop you fully charging in this manner too often.
 
Craigy said:
A minor point, Rapids do not bypass the cars control over the process but are controlled by the car during the process. The car requests the required current and the rapid charger delivers it directly, obviously the available current is vastly higher than using the on board charger.

That's not my understanding :?
 
greendwarf said:
That's not my understanding :?

I’m no guru and did the courses for EV chargers quite a while ago now but this is how I understand the process to work, it also makes much more sense if you think about it. I never actually worked on rapids any further than running some tests and writing some documentation, however they’re not that complex.
If you were a vehicle manufacturer would you want a third party piece of equipment to control energy delivery into your battery packs? Also, this is something that you can do at a rapid, if you look on the charger it will likely tell you the maximum power available (often 50kW), when it’s charging most display the current and voltage applied. With the PHEV you’ll see that when you multiply the voltage by current the power delivery is much lower than this, this is due to the car only requesting the current it wishes to charge at.
 
Which skirts the price question. One full rapid charge will gain you -say- 35 km of range, far less on the motorway. Balance that against the cost, and there is precious little difference to using two or three litres of petrol.
 
jaapv said:
Which skirts the price question. One full rapid charge will gain you -say- 35 km of range, far less on the motorway. Balance that against the cost, and there is precious little difference to using two or three litres of petrol.

True there is not much in it, though from my calculations I do more mpg (in real terms, calculating all charging costs in to the price) when I charge against when I don’t. It’s noticeable that it works out better when there’s slow traffic for obvious reasons and I tend to save the charge for these times as well as non motorway driving.

It’s definitely cheaper when the charger is on free vend, and considering I’ve only had the car a month and I’ve had this three times means it happens more often than expected. You’re only going to get this if you’re actively charging though!
 
OK - according the Wikipedia article on Chademo it is the connector that controls delivery based on car's ECU request. Make what you will of the sources referenced.

https://www.chademo.com/technology/technology-overview/
http://www.ev-charging-infrastructure.com/media/downloads/inline/takafumi-anegawa-tepco-11-20.1290790915.pdf

Also as the design was specified by the Japanese car manufacturers themselves, the comment that they wouldn't allow a third party to control charging lacks weight. :lol: (With lawyer hat on)
 
greendwarf said:
OK - according the Wikipedia article on Chademo it is the connector that controls delivery based on car's ECU request. Make what you will of the sources referenced.

https://www.chademo.com/technology/technology-overview/
http://www.ev-charging-infrastructure.com/media/downloads/inline/takafumi-anegawa-tepco-11-20.1290790915.pdf

Also as the design was specified by the Japanese car manufacturers themselves, the comment that they wouldn't allow a third party to control charging lacks weight. :lol: (With lawyer hat on)

I haven’t much time but the second paragraph of the first website link states:
“Battery protection

The current is controlled by the vehicle”
 
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