8 years of battery use and counting....

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Forum

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NightPHEVer

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 15, 2016
Messages
303
Location
Forres, Scotland, UK. 2014 GX4h with clear rear li
I've now owned my 2014 Outlander PHEV for 6 years, it was 2 years old with 3000 miles on the clock when I bought it. It was previously owned by the Colt Car Company (Mitsubishi UK RIP) It's now done 40,000 miles. So the 8-year battery warranty is no longer there to comfort me through those long, dark Scottish winter nights.

I calculate that I've charged the main battery approx 1300 times (5 days a week minus holidays and 7 months furlough) from a Rolec 16amp wallpod, over the 6 year period. Maybe about 100 of those charges were with the 3-pin charge cable. I don't know for sure how many times it was charged in the first 2 years of its life - I'd take a guess at 300 times? So that means a likely total of around 1600 charge cycles over the 8 years.

It still has the original 12v battery as well. I've sat and listened to the radio every lunch time for the best part of an hour, probably around 1000 times in 8 years. Sometimes with the power button in the red position and sometimes in the blue 'ready' position if I have the heater, heated seat or air-con on as well. So when the weather is warm that's only using the 12v.

I've never used any sort of 'rapid' charger, never used the big socket that is next to the normal one. New EVs in the UK don't seem to have these alternative large sockets any more.

The best Miles Per UK Gallon average I've ever achieved is around 130mpg. I did this over three months this summer just driving to work every day, which is 24 miles up and down hill (Scotland). I didn't put any petrol in it for three months. Warm weather, mostly only using cold air con, or no heating/cooling at all. Didn't go anywhere else though, so all journeys were the same 24 miles. What an interesting life I must lead.

Doing this sort of thing means I do go from 100% charge to 0% (I believe this actually means 30% still left in the battery) every day.

I've read that EV batteries start to deteriorate after 1500 to 2000 charge cycles. I haven't noticed any obvious deterioration in battery range, except maybe when the weather is very cold it perhaps drops a bit quicker. Wouldn't it be handy if the car had both a main and 12v battery condition gauge. My phone has a battery condition gauge. Wouldn't have thought that this was technically impossible, especially considering the numerous other pointless information that is available from within the bowels of the touch screen. It's almost as if Mitsubishi don't want you to know! I'm of the belief that car manufacturers don't expect or want the vehicle to last for more than 10 years anyway. I work in a garage and based on the condition of most cars I see, what with the combination of user neglect and poor quality materials, they don't have much to worry about on that score.

My PHEV is in unusually fine condition - carefully maintained, cleaned and preserved underneath (constant battle against the rust!). I paid cash for it and wish to preserve it for as long as possible. I wouldn't say that Mitsubishi use top quality materials (my 15 year old Smart car is better quality). I also really like my PHEV and don't know what I'd replace it with. Equivalent 4X4 'full' EV's too pricey for me (Skoda Enyaq 4X4 = about £50,000)

So has anyone else owned an Outlander PHEV for this length of time and experienced any battery issues? Has anyone actually worn out or replaced their EV battery?
 
Hiya,

Mine is of a similar vintage, but has done even less mileage!

I noticed yesterday that it has just gone over 30k kilometres.

As you'd expect, no sign of any battery issues.

There was one forum member who did manage to kill their battery, towing a two-tonne trailer every working day, if I recall correctly.

Hopefully they'll spot this and pop in to remind us of the details.

:)
 
Like you guys I purchased my new GX4h in September 2014, I have found the car to be a joy to drive but maybe having to use a Mitsubishi dealer for most work required, a tad expensive.

My milage is also low at just over 61,000 miles and most of the charging of the battery has been carried out using the granny lead. My thinking behind this being that maybe drawing a lower current over a longer period would allow any excess power from my solar panels to be used to charge the car rather than going back to the grid. I never checked if this was the actual case or not. I used a motorway charger once in the early days and was grateful not to have any issues but the risk of things not going smoothly stopped any further attempts.

I am also on the original 12v battery which hopefully I have now not jinxed. I have recently had to replace the front brake callipers after experiencing lower battery milage and will agree with the others that rust does seem to be an issue below the bodywork. The west country weather system does nothing to help this matter.

I had a towbar fitted at new and now use a Thule two bike carrier on this which has worked very well.

My driving style has changed completely with this car, and I feel I have slipped effortlessly into the old man driving category. I enjoy the comfortable higher driving position and have found longer journeys not to be an issue. Thinking about when to use save and when to just let the car do its own thing has become second nature. I use the paddles automatically and cruise control a lot, in all speed conditions, with the hope that it is increasing my battery range.

Like others I look at the new all electric vehicles being created and have been motivated with just how quickly progress has been made, that said, the price requested for these improvements have not convinced me that now is the time to change and I will bide my time for a couple of more years.

The large cargo area suits our lifestyle and having the luxury of a second car means the interior is still quite clean. The bodywork has picked up the usual supermarket abuse, which is annoying, but this is kept somewhat in check by a yearly valet both inside and out.

To conclude, a new car would be nice to have, but right now there is no motivation to make this a reality.
 
We bought our January 2015 4h at 2 years old with 40k on the clock. I would guess it had been a company car and not charged as much for 20k miles a year. It's now done 92k miles, and the battery is definitely suffering: we get a max range of 12-14 miles at this time of year :roll:
 
Yeah I got one of the earliest UK models, registered on 30 June 2014 (GX4h). Now done about 56k miles. Usually charged on a 16A home charger. I did use a rapid charger a few times in the early years, but I don't bother now - tbh I rarely use it for long trips , even our recent holiday to South Yorkshire we took the wife's self-charging Toyota Auris hybrid :lol: :lol:
My commute is about 10 miles each way, and for the first few years I was mostly doing that, usually able to charge for free at a multi-storey car park in Glasgow. It was also used most evenings/week-ends taxi-ing the kids doing their various things (football, horse-riding, whatever), and it did a few holiday trips to northern England or north-west Scotland. I got an e-bike just before the first lockdown, and the kids have (mostly) left home now, so it's now doing less than 5,000 miles a year.
Overall, very happy with the way it's performed. Had a few problems with the brakes, most of which were done under warranty. The GOM usually says 20 miles, although now it's getting colder I think it's probably 15ish miles - I can't quite take it to work and get back without using the ICE. The multi-storey is full (of EVs) by the time I get to work these days!
Wasn't expecting to hold on to a car for this long, but as the replacement is likely to be £40-50K it might have to do me another few years yet... :eek:
 
NightPHEVer said:
So has anyone else owned an Outlander PHEV for this length of time and experienced any battery issues? Has anyone actually worn out or replaced their EV battery?

Got my 1st PHEV in early April 2014 (new) which is the earliest you could buy one here, only the Japanese and then Dutch could get one earlier from memory, and yes the drive battery was replaced under warranty. The heat here has pushed degradation more than most countries I think, even though the drive battery is cooled by air conditioning (AC), as there have been a few PHEVs here that have new batteries.

When dealing with the Mitsubishi engineers in Japan who designed the PHEV, about solving the degradation problem here and other matters this forum asked me to discuss with them, I tried to talk them into converting the cooling of the drive battery to water for the new models instead of AC as there was water cooling already being used on the rear electric motor and other components as seen here:


But even though water has far better thermal properties, I know this through my training as a engineer, Mitsubishi still went with AC cooling on the new model out now but have read the AC cooling has been improved. Noticed when I drove the new model PHEV there is now a display showing drive battery temperature from memory.
 
We have had our MY14 PHEV since July 2017 and had 43,600 miles on the clock. Will be clicking over 151,000 miles in the next couple of weeks. SoH on the battery is around 67% and can still get about 18 miles pure EV urban driving (approx 15 miles on motorway @ 60mph). No longer rapid charge due to stupid unit prices (even for a few KwH).

Just this last weekend, did a 100 mile trip starting with full charge, and got 48mpg (50mph average speed). In all honesty, this mpg (for similar trips_ is very similar to what we were getting when we first bought the car. Back then, typically got about 25 miles EV urban, and about 20 on a motorway, so the loss of a few miles pure EV isn't making that much difference.

Still original 12v battery. Only big issue has been replacement of the exhaust - hole at the CAT joint (common issue, by all accounts). Still, very happy with the car and hope to keep for many years to come.
 
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