Prospective Buyer - Query on in motion charging.

[mountfa]

Hi All,

My existing company car lease is up later this year and I am looking at an Outlander Gx4h as my next vehicle.
One of the things I haven't been able to glean from the Mitsubishi docs is how the charging behaviour works once the battery range has been exhausted ... So I'm hoping one of you existing owners could help me out here.
Whilst most of my journeys are relatively short and only upto around 35 miles which would obviously be well suited to the PHEV, every few weeks I need to make a 120 mile journey.
Now assuming the PHEV is fully charged before I leave I should get approx 30 miles on battery before the ICE kicks in ... But what I can't figure out is whilst the PHEV is running off the ICE will it also be charging the battery?
In other words if I do the first 30 miles on battery and then 60 miles on ICE am I likely to be able to complete the last 30 miles on battery again or will the PHEV just maintain charge level (so empty in this case) whilst running on the ICE and I would need to complete all 90 remaining miles on ICE?
I know that there is a charge button you can press, but do you need to press this when the PHEV is already running on the ICE and if you do press this whilst already running on ICE does it increase your consumption?

 

[spellinn]

Once your usable battery capacity is depleted, the PHEV cycles between charge/battery usage using the last remaining 10-20% of battery capacity. This means that you'll still mostly use battery at low speeds, and the ICE will keep kicking in frequently to give it short top-up bursts, with regen adding charge here and there.

You can hit the charge button to force the ICE to fully replenish your battery, but it's not a cost effective use of petrol as you'd be better off arriving at your destination empty and recharging from the mains there.

Cheers

Neil

 

[mountfa]

Thanks for the reply Neil.

So if I get you correctly after my first 30 miles the ICE will essentially keep topping the battery up whilst motion and then switch back to using that charge again at low speed.
So if say my middle 60 miles was motorway mileage it should charge the battery for all that time thus giving me a reasonable amount of battery to complete the last 30 non-motorway miles?

 

[BeeJay]

Thanks for the reply Neil.

So if I get you correctly after my first 30 miles the ICE will essentially keep topping the battery up whilst motion and then switch back to using that charge again at low speed.
So if say my middle 60 miles was motorway mileage it should charge the battery for all that time thus giving me a reasonable amount of battery to complete the last 30 non-motorway miles?

Nope, in my experience, when driving along the motorway between 65 and 80(ish) with an empty battery it will generally get up to about 1 or maybe 2 miles of battery range from spare/regen and then use that up until the battery is 'empty' then top it back up again until it gets to 1 or so miles of charge then use it again - rinse and repeat... This is 'hybrid' driving.

If I know I am going to need say 15 miles of non-motorway at the end of my journey, I will hit save when I have about 15 miles left, then turn save off as I leave the motorway. It still goes through the same save/use cycle as if the battery was empty, however holds the battery level at roughly where you pressed save give or take a mile.

The only way you can get the battery level to rise while driving is to use the 'charge' mode, but you have to be in really desperate need to run at the end in battery only as this is hellishly inefficient.

 

[Chrismac13]

In my daily routine I have found that if you are driving above 60mph for a considerable period it is more efficient to use charge than save. As the difference in fuel consumption is only marginal & that at that speed any pure ev running is depleted very quickly. Obviously this only relates to my driving style others may find it more efficient using save.

 

[maby]

I used to try to plan my use if the battery to minimise fuel consumption but quite honestly the benefits are too small to make it worthwhile - and the car is more responsive if you don't allow the battery to run completely flat. These days I run in save mode until the distance to my next charging point is slightly more than my predicted EV range, then switch to normal mode and use up the charge. I usually have the satnav on set to my destination unless the distance is very small and the display shows the distance to my destination (typically home) - I can compare that with the predicted EV range to decide when to turn Save off.

 

[jdsx]

On a 120-mile journey, assuming you don't want to stop to 'rapid' charge on the way (it's probably not worth it), I would aim to cover the slowest 30 miles or so on EV, and the rest on petrol by use of the 'save' button. Obviously this is only a guide. (I never use 'charge', except on occasion when I go on a long-ish trip to the football and need to heat the car up after standing in the freezing cold for two hours! Then it's worth its weight in gold to use the battery to get in to a warm car!)

 

[jaapv]

I used to try to plan my use if the battery to minimise fuel consumption but quite honestly the benefits are too small to make it worthwhile - and the car is more responsive if you don't allow the battery to run completely flat. These days I run in save mode until the distance to my next charging point is slightly more than my predicted EV range, then switch to normal mode and use up the charge. I usually have the satnav on set to my destination unless the distance is very small and the display shows the distance to my destination (typically home) - I can compare that with the predicted EV range to decide when to turn Save off.

I have driven that car for over a year now and for well over 35000 Km and I cannot say that I ever noticed any lack of responsiveness with the battery “ flat” - which is logical as it is not flat at all - it has nearly 10% working charge left... To me this is an Internet myth.

 

[mountfa]

Thanks all for the replies, much appreciated.
So it seems there is no one answer to this one, will depend on several factors and I'll need to experiment with using save or charge to see which works best on this type of journey if I do indeed go ahead and get the PHEV.

 

[nick2b]

You should also be aware that you won't get anything like the 35 miles on a single charge, you should budget on 25 tops, unless you live at the top of a hill and only drive in summer.
And even if you do, you'll need plenty of charge left in your battery on the return journey to get back up said hill without the car screaming like a banshee.

 

[jaapv]

Screaming like a banshee- that depends entirely on your driving style - if you demand full power the car will give you full power. Treat the accelerator like an on-off switch and it will react exactly the same as an automatic with kick-down or a CVT. That is max revs.

 

[gwatpe]

Screaming like a banshee- that depends entirely on your driving style - if you demand full power the car will give you full power. Treat the accelerator like an on-off switch and it will react exactly the same as an automatic with kick-down or a CVT. That is max revs.

The PHEV is not pleasant to drive in the higher power demand situations in series hybrid mode. Better to have the PHEV operating in Parallel hybrid mode and get the power assistance from the electrics as needed.

If only the PHEV could remember to hold a particular set mode when powered ON. The driver could then just turn it OFF to use up some battery when the additional power benefit was not needed before a recharge opportunity.

I would expect that operating the PHEV more often in parallel hybrid mode by use of the save button could result in increased absolute petrol economy. This is difficult to measure as using even a small portion of the battery has a relatively large impact on the returned car calculated petrol economy. It is only when the recharging opportunity is unavailable that the real benefit on the longer trips of saving the battery can be seen.

My driving style has me using the CHARGE mode primarily when the save button has been forgotten to be pressed and the battery has been depleted by mistake. The base price of petrol relative to GRID electricity is only marginal for me and ICE recharging is now only just, less cost effective. Local pricing will dictate personal uses. Europe generally has cheaper electricity.

Soft pedaling drivers could just drive the PHEV without pressing any buttons. I know of a driver locally that drives a plug in hybrid like a petrol car and only recharges the battery every other month. Not a Mitsubishi, and still gets 50-60mpg city driving.

 

[jaapv]

Yes, but driving the car in parallel mode at medium speeds and demanding full power will activate serial mode anyway.

 

[anko]

If I know I am going to need say 15 miles of non-motorway at the end of my journey, I will hit save when I have about 15 miles left, then turn save off as I leave the motorway. It still goes through the same save/use cycle as if the battery was empty, however holds the battery level at roughly where you pressed save give or take a mile.

15 miles would require about or even more than half a (usable) battery charge. When SOC is more than 50% (usable, thus 8 bars in the gauge), the charge current is reduced resulting in less load on the engine and with that less fuel efficiency. Therefor, I think it would be more efficient to allow the battery to drain and drive around as long as possible with a depleted battery and then hit charge well before you leave the motorway to top back up the battery.
When the 15 miles have some stretches of >40 mph driving, I would even try to leave the motorway with less than 15 miles range and use those stretches to build up charge for the other stretches.

 

[anko]

... - and the car is more responsive if you don't allow the battery to run completely flat. ...

I have driven that car for over a year now and for well over 35000 Km and I cannot say that I ever noticed any lack of responsiveness with the battery “ flat” - which is logical as it is not flat at all - it has nearly 10% working charge left... To me this is an Internet myth.

For most cases, I would agree. But we all know it is possible to exhaust the battery to a point where it WILL become less responsive, the so called Turtle mode. For example by continuously depending on the responsiveness of the car or by trying to pull a caravan uphill. Somehow, it seems that either Maby's driving style or his driving environment makes him reach that point faster than others. And he tries to prevent that from happening by guarding his SOC. Or ... he confuses the sound of the revving engine with a "no can do" sign.

 

[gwatpe]

Yes, but driving the car in parallel mode at medium speeds and demanding full power will activate serial mode anyway.

I have regularly driven my PHEV up a 4.5km long, 16% grade towing a fully loaded trailer while on the cruise control at 100kph speed limit and passed a slower vehicle by accelerating past without dropping into series hybrid. With a depleted battery, the PHEV will not maintain speed in series hybrid mode due to lack of battery.

Maintains 14L/100km at 100kph with about 40-50kW of electric help up the hill.

 

[anko]

The PHEV is not pleasant to drive in the higher power demand situations in series hybrid mode. Better to have the PHEV operating in Parallel hybrid mode and get the power assistance from the electrics as needed.

I guess you mean "in stead of allowing it to run in pure EV mode and deplete the battery"?

If only the PHEV could remember to hold a particular set mode when powered ON. The driver could then just turn it OFF to use up some battery when the additional power benefit was not needed before a recharge opportunity.

So either you forget to engage Save mode in time (and end up with a deleted battery earlier than planned for) or you forget to disengage Save mode in time (and end up at your next charge point with a fully charged battery). No button will ever be smart enough to prevent both scenarios.

Edit: While I was writing the above, your post about pulling a boat trailer uphill came by. Perhaps we want a button that detects a trailer. That could be nice. :idea:

I would expect that operating the PHEV more often in parallel hybrid mode by use of the save button could result in increased absolute petrol economy.

I think so to. But again, rather than driving around with an SOC of 50% or more, I would opt for driving around with a depleted battery and top it back up towards the end of my trip (using Charge mode), thereby reducing the average SOC.

Imagine you drove a normal car and had a way of topping up your fuel tank continuously while driving. Would you then keep it topped up completely all the time (and carry around lots of unused fuel / weight) or would you aim for having just had enough fuel to keep going? And maybe have a little bit of reserve for when you need to pull your both uphill and fuel is burned faster than it can be added? And now imagine, you would not be able to top it up during the last so many miles. You would need some extra reserve fuel for that last bit of the trip. Would you want to carry around the necessary reserve all the time? Or would you only add the necessary reserve towards the end of your trip? I think it would be best to add the necessary reserve towards the end of the trip, thereby reducing the average weight of your fuel supply over the total length of the trip.

Although completely rather different laws of physics apply, IMHO both exces weight and exces SOC reduce the overall efficiency of the car. For exces weight it is obvious. For exces SOC, it would (like I've mentioned earlier) be related to the fact that the Charge current is reduced when SOC is higher.

 

[anko]

I have regularly driven my PHEV up a 4.5km long, 16% grade towing a fully loaded trailer while on the cruise control at 100kph speed limit and passed a slower vehicle by accelerating past without dropping into series hybrid. With a depleted battery, the PHEV will not maintain speed in series hybrid mode due to lack of battery.

I guess you have seen the Turtle by then?

Maintains 14L/100km at 100kph with about 40-50kW of electric help up the hill.

Silly Q, but how do you know about the 40-50kW?

 

[maby]

...
For example by continuously depending on the responsiveness of the car or by trying to pull a caravan uphill. Somehow, it seems that either Maby's driving style or his driving environment makes him reach that point faster than others. And he tries to prevent that from happening by guarding his SOC. Or ... he confuses the sound of the revving engine with a "no can do" sign.

I drive it as a normal car which includes accelerating off the lights reasonably hard and not creeping up hills. I certainly dislike the high revving engine that goes with doing either of these on a depleted battery and with the current control algorithms in the car, the SOC will drift down over a period of several days without charging. I'm certainly not advocating making Save sticky by default - just suggesting, like gwatpe, that a sticky 50% (for the sake of argument) mode as an option would be beneficial.

I'm puzzled as to why anyone would disagree with it - when I set out from our house this afternoon for the Easter weekend, I will have sufficient charge on board to run EV for about 20 miles out of perhaps 250 miles. I will not be able to plug up again till I get home on Monday evening. Hence, 230 of those miles will inevitably be done on petrol - where is the harm in making it easy to save the charge till I'm getting close to home, thus ensuring that I will have plenty of power in reserve for acceleration and hill climbing?

This forum tends to be dominated by strongly pro-EV owners who use the car almost exclusively for short journeys and are only interested in squeezing the last (virtual) mile per gallon out of it. There's nothing wrong with that, but if it cannot appeal to a wider owner base, it will drop out of production - there are not enough "hypermilers" out there to keep the production line running. It is possible to achieve the effect that I (and, I believe, gwatpe) are looking for by monitoring the instruments and playing with the buttons, but that really should not be necessary. With the warm weather approaching, an increasing number of PHEV owners are going to be setting off on holiday, possibly driving a thousand miles across Europe and not being able to charge for several weeks - driving up steep hills and towing heavy loads. A mode designed for that pattern of use would be a real benefit and will remove a lot of complaints that will be brewing up.

 

[anko]

Hang on, my response was to your statement that the car was less responsive with a depleted battery. When you want to save SOC to prevent the high revving, that's fine with me.

But I would still think that even with a depleted battery (30%), the engine will not rev any more than it will do with a somewhat charged battery. Only when you keep hammering it and manage to drive SOC way below the normal low water mark, this will occur. There is a good reason why Mitsu suggest running Charge mode for a while, when prolonged heavy duty work is anticipated. My assumption is that for most users / use it will not be an issue however.