Cold Weather Performance - North American 2023

Two nights ago the temp dropped to about -26C and I did not plug my car in over night. Battery was near full. After sitting unplugged in this temp for about 18 hours I started the vehicle and got the "performance reduction warning". The drive battery temp was just to the right of the blue bar. After starting the ICE and driving for maybe 30 min, the drive battery temp hardly moved. When I got home I plugged it in (level 1 EVSE). The temp at time to now remains about -26C. Since plugging it in the app does not give an EV range estimate in km, just a double dash "-- km".

Over night the app reported that it completed its charge. About an hour after that notification the app reported that charging started. 7 hours later the app is reporting about 75% battery charge with a "-- km" range.

I'm guessing that in these temps keeping the vehicle plugged in is best for the drive battery?

Thanks for the update. Did you notice if the battery temperature moved at all after you had it plugged in all night on the level 1?
Glad to hear the car was able to start at -26º.

Yes, the temp was closer to the first white hash mark on the right but not quite there. I drove it after being plugged in all night and morning and still got the performance reduction warning but like I said the temp bar was further to the right than the night before, but not quite warm enough to not get the performance reduction warning.

Based on these two nights I suspect being plugged in, even on a level 1 evse, provides some warmth to the drive battery.

I heard of even more interesting stories...
Although the 12V is good to start the system a lot of complains that in -30C the vehicle will refuse to move, can't start the ICE as well, since the traction battery is shut because of temperature.

Holy crap guys this is terrifying. Been waiting a few months for mine to arrive, but now I'm really worried. -30C is rare where I am, but -20C is common, and I'd definitely still expect my car to start! I've driven a Bolt for 6 years and never knew about the "too cold to operate" message, what a nightmare that would be on a freezing night in an airport parking lot after a long day (for example)...

One question I think for @Lon12, you mention L1 EVSE, that's really not a ton of power, so even staying plugged in over night I don't know if it would keep the battery warm? On L2 my Bolt has access to 7.8kW to keep itself toasty overnight and then to pre-warm the cabin. (I have access to its usage history and when it's cold it will pull 7kw for a few minutes every couple hours while parked)

But, regardless, the Outlander traction battery should always have enough juice to start the dang ICE, the reports of cars not starting at all is inexcusable!

I just finished a long six hour highway drive (600 km) starting out at -30°C warming up to -21° at destination. Learned a lot. Car was in the garage at -2°C to start out and 100% charged.
Thought I would just leave everything in normal mode and see how it handled it. HVAC set to 19° defrost/foot heat. Windows did frost up a little but nothing serious. Lost adaptive cruise control twice for about 10 minutes each time. Came back on its own.
Heat pump does not run below -16° so the engine NEVER shut off. Car behaves like you have selected “Save” mode. Battery only lost about 20% and battery temperature kept dropping. Battery got cold enough that we were in the EV power restricted range. Max 50 kW of EV power. I was getting worried that the battery might get so cold that the car might not be able to run normally. So I turned on EV mode to see if I could warm it up by using it. Again, without the heat pump running the interior cools off after a few minutes. But by cycling EV mode and charge mode I was able to keep the cabin warm enough and warm up the battery. By the time we had reached destination I had been able to empty the battery and warm it up to the middle of the temperature gauge which I think corresponds to around +21°C.

Wish we knew more technical information about this car. Whenever I call Mitsubishi they say to go through my dealership. When I talk to the dealership they don’t know anything and I end up educating them about how it works.
I have no idea how warm a level one EVSE might keep the battery.
The App preheat doesn’t do anything when outside of the heat pump’s temperature limits. Why doesn’t it warn you of that?
The car should also tell you when the heat pump shuts down. Why couldn’t they supplement the heat pump with the old electric heater the previous model had? We shouldn’t have to play with different EV modes to use the battery up.

Here are screen shots of what parallel charge mode looks like and the trip totals:

Great real-life usage details! Good thinking on cycling EV/Charge to warm up the battery, but it's insane the car isn't designed to take care of itself that way, and you lose the cabin heat while doing so. Then like you said, wonder what happens if you just let the battery get colder and colder then too cold, would the car just shut down WHILE you're driving?? :shock:

So to recap:
1) Left outside overnight below -22 (definitely -30) you're f'ed, it won't even start, it's a $50k pavement decoration...
2) Below -16 the heat pump is useless and the battery gets cold, even with the gas engine running(!!)
3) Below -16 the gas engine has to run all the time if you want cabin heat, and power is still reduced

#1 is the most egregious. #2 seems totally avoidable with a gas engine along for the ride. #3 seems par for PHEV course, except the reduced power...

Just doesn't make sense that all there is to manage battery temp is a heat pump that doesn't work below -16, which isn't really even *that* cold! Why not a resistive heating pad or something on the battery housing for extreme cases, maybe not energy efficient, but also not as dangerous as reducing drive power or NOT STARTING at all...

For comparison, there's a video explaining RAV4 Prime heat/cooling system, which is super complicated. Couldn't find any stories of anyone being stuck (not starting) in extreme cold, but lots of stories of the cabin heat not working great in extreme cold.

From the owners manual:
"Battery Too Cold" warning is displayed while driving, contact a certified Mitsubishi EV dealer.
So I would say we still don't know if how the car would handle a really cold battery that happens when driving. It may have a heating method at the lower end that we don't know about.

I just did the return leg of the trip I posted about. It was much warmer, -15ºC to start with and I left the car in both Normal modes like before. HVAC the same. Everything worked well. On the highway doing 100 km/h the Normal mode cycles the engine on and off and uses up the battery charge. After 53 minutes of driving the battery was showing "- - - " for range. But hang on..... !@!??? I took a look at the battery temperature gauge and it was at the hot end almost touching the right white line before the red range! So now we need to know at what battery temperature the active battery cooling system kicks in and how effective it is. I drove for 6 hours and the battery did not cool down very much even though I was driving in -14º to -4ºC temperatures.
The fuel economy was much better with the warmer temperatures and the "Normal" mode operating like it should. Around the 8 litres per 100 km range which is similar to the previous Outlander PHEV we owned.

Here are screen shots after the battery had been depleted:

Trip Total:

Wait, if EV mode was available at all at those temperatures then the vehicle should have been able to cycle by itself the engine on and off.
Or maybe you can do it by switching on and off the heating.
Probably the heating requirement is keeping the engine on but once you go in EV it is overridden.

kpetrov said:

Wait, if EV mode was available at all at those temperatures then the vehicle should have been able to cycle by itself the engine on and off.
Or maybe you can do it by switching on and off the heating.
Probably the heating requirement is keeping the engine on but once you go in EV it is overridden.

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Yes. EV mode was always available and works fine except with the engine off your HVAC heat cools off to the point where your windows will frost over. Because the heat pump does not work, turning the HVAC on and off only removes the air flow. It does not change the fact that the air just keeps getting colder. Selecting full defrost mode does override EV mode and the engine will start to help heat.

Mitsubishi really needs to just display an icon or message to tell you that the heat pump has shut down so it is up to you to control the heat with the various methods available to run the engine. They do seem to always display a message that says to warm the cabin more turn off EV mode. But that is displayed even when the heat pump is running fine.

What I meant by turning the HVAC off is to experiment if the engine will stop, not to keep it constantly off for your entire trip.
Reducing the cold air flow getting fast in to the cabin as well, not keeping it warm for longer but cooling it slower.

kpetrov said:

What I meant by turning the HVAC off is to experiment if the engine will stop, not to keep it constantly off for your entire trip.
Reducing the cold air flow getting fast in to the cabin as well, not keeping it warm for longer but cooling it slower.

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I can't remember if I played with turning the HVAC on and off in normal mode. I did in EV mode. It does slow down the cooling of the cabin with it off but the windows fog up faster without the airflow. At -30ºC you can't turn the HVAC off for more than a minute or two as the windshield frosts over. Even with HVAC (defrost/foot) on I had frost in the corners.
I am tempted to get a 1500W heater and see if it will keep the cabin warm below -15ºC.

Some high end cars have defroster heating elements built into the *windshield* (similar to rear windows, but less visible). PHEV makers should adopt that. In the same way that heated seats and steering wheel uses way less power than cabin air heat, those integrated heating elements would work so much better than blowing hot air constantly (or not, with a lame heat pump). Mitsubishi, are you listening...?? Haha. Oh well too late for us, even if you it becomes an option someday!

Ford have had that for at least 20 years, and not just in their high-end cars. We had it in a low-spec Galaxy people carrier. The only issue we had was the interference you sometimes get when two sets of railings move relative to eachother on the road. You'd sometimes get the wires in the windscreen "rippling" disconcertingly when there was a fence behind

We've been looking at longer-range BEVs recently, and a few of them are starting to have this. Mind you, if you can precondition the car, a frosty windscreen is a non-issue

Was -18ºC this morning. Heat pump not running. So I tried out a 1500W heater. Worked much better than I thought it would.
The humidity does increase with the HVAC off so you have to run the defrost/foot mode for a few seconds every now and then to dry off the condensation on the windows.
I'm not sure about the efficiency of the inverter. Most EVs use upwards of 7 kW for heaters. So I'm thinking this might even be more efficient than running the heat pump at warmer temperatures.

Red Green and McGyver are my heroes. lol
Might have to wrap it with some duct tape just to make it look more home made.

@Lon12 that space heater picture is amazing, I love it! Can't believe it actually works too...I thought those 1500W AC outlets had specific language about *not* being used for heaters, haha, oh well.

ThudnBlundr said:

if you can precondition the car, a frosty windscreen is a non-issue

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I think the point is that below -20°C (esp at -30C) a frosty windscreen is *always and constantly* an issue, as long as there are people breathing inside the car anyway.

be mindful of doing extra leather maintenance with that thing running tho else it'll dry and crack.

As to heated windscreens, my UK 2019 4HS has a heated screen tho perhaps that's more to unstick the wipers?

So far not needed to use it as I'm mostly WFH so the car doesn't see much early morning use. I do note tho that when it is cold, cabin temp stays cold for some time and just blows cold unless the engine is running. Thought it'd have kicked the electric heater in to warm the air but maybe I've missed something. Only had the car a couple months with infrequent use and with the weather hopefully warming up I guess I won't really know till the next freeze...

DaveL59 said:

be mindful of doing extra leather maintenance with that thing running tho else it'll dry and crack.

As to heated windscreens, my UK 2019 4HS has a heated screen tho perhaps that's more to unstick the wipers?

So far not needed to use it as I'm mostly WFH so the car doesn't see much early morning use. I do note tho that when it is cold, cabin temp stays cold for some time and just blows cold unless the engine is running. Thought it'd have kicked the electric heater in to warm the air but maybe I've missed something. Only had the car a couple months with infrequent use and with the weather hopefully warming up I guess I won't really know till the next freeze...

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This thread is about the new North American PHEV with the heat pump instead of the electric resistance heaters that the old PHEV had. The heat pump will not run below -15ºC.
Your 2019 will take a while to warm up even with the electric heater but at least it works in all temperatures.

Lon12 said:

Was -18ºC this morning. Heat pump not running. So I tried out a 1500W heater. Worked much better than I thought it would.
The humidity does increase with the HVAC off so you have to run the defrost/foot mode for a few seconds every now and then to dry off the condensation on the windows.
I'm not sure about the efficiency of the inverter. Most EVs use upwards of 7 kW for heaters. So I'm thinking this might even be more efficient than running the heat pump at warmer temperatures.

Red Green and McGyver are my heroes. lol
Might have to wrap it with some duct tape just to make it look more home made.

IMG_0320.JPG

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Wow, lol nice setup, matching colour too! How much do you think it used from the drive battery?

Not sure of the exact efficiency of the inverter but I have read that they can use about 10-20% above output.
So probably using around 1,800W.
This heater has three power settings. I find the 1500W setting to be too hot if it is warmer than -15ºC.