New to PHEVs. Just purchased a second hand 2018 Outlander

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Phunkaeg

New member
Joined
Dec 6, 2020
Messages
3
Hi All,

Probably like many of you I promised myself that the next car I purchased would be electric. With 3 kids, working for myself, and 6kW Solar on the roof, there were many factors that were needed in order to get the right car for our family.

The Outlander was the way to go. But a new one was out of my price range, so I started looking into second hand.
Found a 2018 model, with 45,000 km on the clock.

I've been really excited, the original dream was to use the advertised 40-50km on EV mode to do the errands, and charge during the day under the power of the sun.
But gosh, I'm finding the fuel efficiency to be horrendous.
I am going to start writing down the trips I do, and how many km's I get out of the EV mode, but even then, once the battery is drained, the fuel level seems to just evaporate!

There seem to be so many ways of driving this car, that it's a bit confusing. Plus, I don't know how far the batteries would have degraded over the 45,000km from the previous owner. (It was a council owned car)

Now, I have seen that there is a wealth of knowledge on this forum already. And I've only just started reading, so I've got a lot to learn, but I figured that it would be best to be specific about my questions.

First question. Is there a way to check if the batteries are just not great anymore? I'm taking it to the Mitsubishi service center on Tuesday to get the Wifi
SSID/password scanned. Because it didn't come with the car from the dealer. I mentioned whether they could do a battery diagnostic on the car, and they said it didn't work that way. But they didn't say it with much confidence so I'm doubting them somewhat.

Secondly, am I just driving it wrong?! - So far, I had just been putting the car into Eco mode, setting the regenerative braking to B3, and then just trying to drive carefully. I figure I'd get much better range with the Air-con off, but in the Australian heat, it's just not a pleasant thing to do.

Thirdly, is there a checklist of other things to check for newbies like me. I think I read somewhere that keeping the tyre pressure high is really important for some reason, things like that I guess.

Lastly, every now and then the proximity sensor will ping even when there are no cars around. And once the wiper started up for no reason. Are these things I should be concerned about, or are they common gremlins? (I've actually never had a car with proximity sensors before)
 
Depends what you mean by horrendous - its a 2 ton car with the aerodynamics of a brick, so you need to share figures with us if you want some advice. But petrol consumption has little to do with battery health. Ignore the guessometer, what actual distance do you get out of a full bettery?

BTW summer down under - dust will set off the auto wipers even in the UK.
 
The simplest way to judge about battery degradation is to check how much energy is taking to charge the battery from completely empty to full.
Set electricity cost to 1$ in charging menu and post the cost of full charge here.
Other way is if you have elm327 dongle and connect it to OBD2 port but since you are asking probably you don't have it.
 
Check the SatNav warning for Red Light Cameras. Three loud dings a couple of hundred metres before a red light camera.
I seldom use the ECO mode and range varies from about 38klm up to 60klm. Although the 60klm distance is from just casual 60-75 klm/h on country roads with no stop start required. Not one for the aircon personally, unless the family is in the car and then it is easier when talking than having a window open.


2020 Red Excced
Gippsland Victoria
 
Thanks for the responses so far.
It's been a bit hard to gather the data personally. As my wife has been doing the daily driving for the most part.
I have ordered an OBD2 Bluetooth scanner, as well as the watchdog app.

When I get more data, I'll post it here
 
Congrats on the PHEV and welcome to the forums!

You'll find plenty of advice on here on how to get the most out of the vehicle, but just a couple of quick thoughts on the questions you raised:
- air conditioning doesn't use much energy so I'd definitely keep it on rather than swelter. Cabin heating in the winter uses much more energy and you will definitely see reduced battery range in cold weather.
- having the tyres properly inflated will make a difference to economy
- if you really want to get the best range out of the battery, leaving it in B3 isn't the best way to go. Even with regen you always lose energy when you slow down and speed up again, so once you're up to speed you're better to keep coasting along as much as possible. Leaving it in B0 helps with this as you don't inadvertently brake just by lifting off the throttle - but of course you still get regen when you use the brake pedal. I drive in B0 most of the time and only paddle up to higher regen levels when going downhill or slowing down for lights etc.
- as others have said, it's a big heavy brick of a car, so it does take a lot of energy to haul uphill or at highway speeds, both of which will burn through the battery pretty quickly and consume a fair amount of fuel when you're running the petrol engine. The best way to save energy in these situations is just to drive more slowly - but of course that's not always practical. The fact that it has a small petrol tank also adds to the sense that you're getting through a lot of fuel if you're on a long journey out of battery range. On long journeys with the battery depleted my sense is it's still a bit more fuel efficient than a petrol SUV of the same size.
 
So I got a bluetooth OBD II adapter, I can connect it to my phone, but when I go to run the Watchdog app, and set it to start recording, it seems to disconnect the OBD from the phone. And the watchdog app says "ODB II device not supported" or something like that.

I don't know if this is a problem with the OBD II Dongle, (This one from amazon.com.au )https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B077PQW63W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1, or my phone (Oneplus 6T)

Oh well.
So then I set the Cost to charge in the car computer to $1 to monitor the cost for recharge.

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Do these full charges (the 12th and the 14th) represent how much the car should be costing for a 0-100% charge @ 1$ per KW?
I'm not sure what figure to expect.
 
jaapv said:
Are you sure that electricity costs you 1$/kWh ?

he's probably sure that it doesn't, it's just that by setting it to a unit of 1, you have an easy way to see how many kWh have been charged without having to do any maths.
 
Phunkaeg said:
So then I set the Cost to charge in the car computer to $1 to monitor the cost for recharge.

Do these full charges (the 12th and the 14th) represent how much the car should be costing for a 0-100% charge @ 1$ per KW?
I'm not sure what figure to expect.
If those charges on 12th and 14th are full and your battery holds approximately 7.5kWh then the state of health is around 59%
The watchdog is showing 80% on mine with 10.3kWh.
 
I have a 2017 PHEV with about 75000kms. I have also set my cost per kWh to $1 for the purpose of easily recording the amount of charge. I have also used a wall power outlet meter to measure how much power goes into the car. Both agree at about 6kWh for a full charge.

What does that suggest my state of health is and what are your calculations based on?

Thanks in advance for any help. :)
 
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