8 years of battery use and counting....

[NightPHEVer]

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?

 

[AndyInOz]

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.

 

[somersetstroller]

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.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

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:

 

[jdsx]

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...

 

[Trex]

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.

 

[mellwaters100]

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.

 

[DaveHO]

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?

Mitsubishi UK RIP ? We are still going strong !

 

[greendwarf]

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.

Currently charging mine in the first decent sunshine this week in Sarf Lundun. My SMART meter display shows my consumption fluctuating between zero (or export to the grid) and a few watts as the clouds roll across. Two weeks ago when it was really sunny then, I still wasn't consuming all the output from my panels by charging!

Oh, how I hate "wasting" energy by giving it to the grid for a measly 5p per unit!

 

[Dan2k]

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.

The Current model changed from forced-air cooling to pumped refrigerant.

 

[ronnieracoon]

The Current model changed from forced-air cooling to pumped refrigerant.

 

[ronnieracoon]

I have a new 2024. Purchased in June
I have not discovered that battery temperature indicator you speak of. Can you specify location or where to access

 

[drwho]

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.

I echo your comments on the changes to your driving style. I have gone thru the same transformation, purely because of this car. I'm normally a tad sporty in my driving style, but now find I'm more conscious and interested in smooth driving and being conservative of the fuel/resources being consumed. This 2024 Outlander is the nicest vehicle to drive while in stop and go traffic.
The other day, on the 401, it was stop and go for about 30 minutes. I switched to EV/Eco/One pedal driving and not only was it relaxing, we travelled 10 kms and only used 2 kms of battery due to regen, I suppose.
When set to normal/B5, we get about 3L/100 kms which I'm fine with. A friend of mine has a $90k Jeep Wrangler and he went thru everything it does, but the 2024 Outlander Premium at $60k does quite a bit more, on top of all the dual motor and battery control systems. The Japanese are very good at that.
Anyhoo ... we are impressed so far, and it was comforting to hear of @NightPHEVer 's experiences with his long-term battery.
Happy motoring!

 

[Phev2016]

I echo your comments on the changes to your driving style. I have gone thru the same transformation, purely because of this car. I'm normally a tad sporty in my driving style, but now find I'm more conscious and interested in smooth driving and being conservative of the fuel/resources being consumed. This 2024 Outlander is the nicest vehicle to drive while in stop and go traffic.
The other day, on the 401, it was stop and go for about 30 minutes. I switched to EV/Eco/One pedal driving and not only was it relaxing, we travelled 10 kms and only used 2 kms of battery due to regen, I suppose.
When set to normal/B5, we get about 3L/100 kms which I'm fine with. A friend of mine has a $90k Jeep Wrangler and he went thru everything it does, but the 2024 Outlander Premium at $60k does quite a bit more, on top of all the dual motor and battery control systems. The Japanese are very good at that.
Anyhoo ... we are impressed so far, and it was comforting to hear of @NightPHEVer 's experiences with his long-term battery.
Happy motoring!

I'm another person to change driving style after having the car for 7 years. I've basically calmed down hugely (though I also have a Caterham 7 for fun). I'll also admit to occasional traffic light grand prix starts when a boy racer follows a foot from my bumper then stops next to me at the lights - the PHEV is surprisingly quick with it's high and continuous electric motor torque and brings a smile to my face (and a look of shock from the boy racer) when it jumps a car length ahead in no time at all after the lights turn green!.

 

[littlescrote]

Currently charging mine in the first decent sunshine this week in Sarf Lundun. My SMART meter display shows my consumption fluctuating between zero (or export to the grid) and a few watts as the clouds roll across. Two weeks ago when it was really sunny then, I still wasn't consuming all the output from my panels by charging!

Oh, how I hate "wasting" energy by giving it to the grid for a measly 5p per unit!

Why such a low SEG rate? I get 15p with Octopus. On their Cosy tariff for winter as I have a heat pump. I get much more in summer on Flux, built up £400 credit up to now this year.

 

[Woon Chung]

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.

I read all the postings on this thread and seriously moved by the the feeling caused by using the high level of English, like Hemingway novel. Especially for somersetstraller. I am using other language as native language in US. And learning English is one of the tough subject but I have to learn for a living here. When we read postings on these kinds of forum, most of the typical style is all the way of complaining or searching for the best solution for their worries. But most of the people here are very humble and gentle against the inconveniences, they faced. Adapting to the real facts is the best way we pursuit for the happiness. Actually, You guys even changed your driving habit. I am not in that level yet. I think I built my brain with science and the facts of the physics world, I am still rigid in observing the objects.

Please allow me to write something which will not match with your level of thinking. And please read them as just a gossip level.

The rust of Japanese car has its behind story. From the Kobe steel False data incident during 5 decades, Japanese steel companies lost their reputation in world steel market. Some Japanese engine manufacturer had been suffered for wrong composition of special steel, which was used for cylinder piston ring, and got rust in early use (finally recall all engines which used this product). Nissan and Honda, even Toyota has been suffer for body frame rust seriously not because of paint but because of wrong composition of metal sheet. If Mitsubishi has rust issue more than normal, it could be the result from Japanese Steel fake test for disqualified quality.

When Mitsubishi Engineer start do design PHEV on their ICE cars, the traction battery did not have the level of EV cars battery. Usually in EV car, the traction battery has 500v DC in general. Some has lower and some has higher voltage, depending on technology of battery manufacturer. Mitsubishi applied 292VDC battery for their PHEV application. It is quite low DC voltage. My guess on this is that their E-motor did not designed for high power. Since E-motor uses the electric directly from traction battery, there is high possibility to match the battery power to Motor capacity, considering energy consuming rate of the motor. If I am wrong, please correct me. Hence, we can track back to the real reason of CHAdeMO port design on PHEV. CHAdeMO power station supplies over 500v to 600v dc. which is quite high voltage. So there is a rumor that if you charge PHEV battery from CHAdeMO station with High voltage, it will somehow give bad affect on the battery eventually. The engineers had the different circumstances in Japan in 2013, not like other country car manufacturer. They experienced severe disaster by Tsunami in 2011 and this cause the explosion of Nuclear Power Plant. They lost power totally and Mitsubishi E-MiEV did a good job for helping in this area together with Leaf. Both are pure EV car and has CHAdeMO port for fast charging. The engineers' basic mind have been sticked with such a glorious job which their EV car did during the disaster, and affect the design in their next new PHEV model. They thought it should be capable to handle the disaster of power outage with bigger battery, since Japan has frequent damage from earthquake. So they designed CHAdeMO port for V2L purpose, not for charging the battery purpose alone. Single J1772 port is good enough for charging Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, considering the capacity of 12kwh traction battery. No need for fast charging for this size of battery. Even more, CHAdeMO charging stations are not famous in other countries except Japan because CHAdeMO is the invention of Japanese. In developing period of PHEV, they also invented 120V AC 3000W Pure sine wave inverter with CHAdeMO adapter for emergency V2L usage, but not for sale. They advertised this for Medical Emergency Equipment, which is used in Hospital or Firefighter facility. In actual production, they didn't supplied such inverters to customer, instead they install it inside and you can find 120v/240v AC outlet as a part of expensive option, like GT model in US with US$6k. My personal curiosity pursuits, why they have CHAdeMO port, and concluded like this. Mitsubishi Engineer's awkward concept of V2L with CHAdeMO, delivered by 2011 disaster, misleads the design and they have no time to correct it before mass production. Believe it or not. Its up to you. The fact is that don't even think about charging PHEV at CHAdeMO station by paying high cost, which may cause the battery trouble in the near future.

Another big serious misunderstanding is related with SAVE/CHARGE button. Those are not totally related with any way of gas saving functions. Rather, those are for using more gas in some how. Because it support only for the purpose of preparation for instant high power required occasions. Just like when you need high power from the ICE only car, you step on the gas pedal hard and then transmission lower the gear for high power from the engine. ICE cars do not need any preparation for this action, but PHEV needs a certain way of preparation. Those buttons are preparing the battery for instant high power occasions for PHEV. HEV does not need any preparation for Sport mode because they do not have big battery to be charged. If you do not prepare the battery properly by using these buttons, you fail to use E-motor for high power because lack of energy in battery and let ICE runs alone with 131HP, against your intention. In order to use this, you have to be familiar to all information of the road and have a picture which point you need high power or not. According to such an investigation, you have to prepare the battery level high by using SAVE/CHARGE functions before you arrive at that point. Manual says you need minimum 20 minutes to charge battery before you enter this spot. However, using high power according to the road condition is the way to spend more gas, eventually. SAVE/CHARGE selection itself will not affect much of fuel consumption significantly, only if you do not use the high power during the journey. It means do not try quick start, do not pass, maintain slow speed in uphill driving within the limit of E-Motor power (80 hp) capacity. Do not create the situation to use SAVE/CHARGE function. Maybe this will change your driving habit. Drive within the limit of E-Power capacity.

It is true that car makes driving habit. I once had a Boxster for commuting for 6 years. The driving was fantastic. It changed my taste of driving totally. But after replacing it with SUV, my driving habit came back to normal, with continuous complaint about acceleration and handling. Still I compare other cars with Boxster.

I have been living and thinking with useless curiosity, which makes no money.

This is all for today. Good Luck to all of you

 

[greendwarf]

Why such a low SEG rate? I get 15p with Octopus. On their Cosy tariff for winter as I have a heat pump. I get much more in summer on Flux, built up £400 credit up to now this year.

I'm impressed - £400 credit (although I haven't submitted my summer export reading yet). Do you use your panels to charge the PHEV?