Hi from new owner of an old car

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MattT

Member
Joined
May 9, 2017
Messages
9
Location
Canberra, Australia
Hi

I picked up a 2010 i-MiEV about a month ago. I recently moved offices - my old one was about 5.5km from home, while the new one is about 16km away. Not a huge difference in distance but it meant switching from my wife going five minutes out of her way to drop me off when doing the school run to an hour bus trip each way including a fifteen minute walk - not great in a rainy Canberra winter. We've been a one car family forever and I wasn't looking forward to shopping for and then funding / maintaining another petrol tank with seats, only one of which would actually get used most days.

Fortunately a new colleague had just upgraded to a Tesla S70 and was keen to offload his old daily drive. He was the second owner, having purchased it from a dealer in the Hunter Valley in 2014. At that stage it had done about 20,000 km, and he got a pretty good price (for Australia, anyway) of $16,400. By the time I bought it the odometer was up to about 53,000km, and I got it for $14k. Probably more than I wanted to spend, and slightly above the top end of dealer prices, but I knew the seller and was willing to pay extra if it meant not spending my weekends wandering car yards (not that there are any i-Mievs for sale here anyway). It also had new tyres, a full service history, all the recall work done, an extra key fob, an extra 15A Mennekes charge cable, and a 15A to 10A converter so I can charge it in my garage.

I've ordered a cheap ODB-II connector for use with EvBatMon, and it should be here in a couple of weeks. From the paperwork the cells were last checked by the dealer on 1 August 2016. At that time the cells were all reporting 4.010 volts, except five which reported 4.005 volts. Capacity was 35.8 amp hours. These voltage numbers were down on a February 2015 test showing the cells at 4.055v and 'actual capacity' at 86%, which I guess would've been about 38.7 Ah. EvBatMon should tell me more.

I'm not too worried about battery capacity, though. Almost all of the driving is between home and work which is a round trip of about 32km, most of it highway driving at 80km/h or 100km/h. The car does this comfortably in this colder weather and even hauling my substantial frame (I reckon I'm easily two or possibly three Japanese passengers). The predicted range when I turn it on in the morning after charging over 240V at 10A overnight is about 90km; I think I'm getting 80km in practice. This is more than enough for a round trip to work and some afternoon / weekend running around to the shops. The longest trip I've done so far was about 66km, most of it on the highway at 80-100km/h, with another passenger, about 10km of that up hill, and I still had 16 km to spare. The former owner says the range goes up in summer (current temps range from -2oC / 28oF to 18oC / 64oF).

I just leave it in B mode - I enjoy the one foot golf cart style driving. It's a very zippy car, has plenty of internal space (my wife and two kids fit in comfortably for neighbourhood errands), and the stereo is pretty good (it's the Eclipse with the tilting screen, sat nav, USB / Bluetooth / MMC / DVD etc). Handling is improved by being generous with the type pressure and having slightly different sized front and back tyres. I plugged in a device to measure energy used during charging and worked out a round trip to the office sets me back about 89c in electricity, which compares very favourably to $3.30 worth of petrol in our current car (it gets about 8L/100km). We have a 100% green energy offset too so it's all CO2 free. (Doesn't stop my supposedly green local government charging me the same registration as somebody driving a diesel truck, though :roll: )

I wouldn't mind getting a cheap manual timer to keep charge levels between 30 and 80 per cent to get the most out of the battery. I suspect the former owner always charged it to 100 per cent overnight, and I've been doing the same from about 50% at the end of the day, though it spends Fri / Sat / Sun on a single charge. Shouldn't be too hard to guesstimate an 'hours per bar' set up that sees me driving out with 12-14 bars in the morning and getting home with four to six. I haven't had to use public chargers yet, but if I do I'm lucky enough to have a CHAdeMO 15 minute rapid charger about 5km from home, another at the airport and a third in the city, plus a growing network of regular chargers (these latter chargers are often parked in by ICE vehicles, though the one a few hundred metres from the office is usually free). There's more info about Canberra's EV charging network here.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi. I'm sure I'll be in touch if evBatMon says anything out of the ordinary.

Cheers
Matt
 
Matt, welcome to the forum! We do have a number of Aussie members, including the developer of EVBatMon.

With time, I'm sure you'll develop a feel for your usable range… what we say around here is that your range is whatever you need it to be - simply adjust your driving accordingly. Speed is by far the biggest range killer.

A number of us have manual timers for charging the car - at 240vac, the rule of thumb is three bars/hour.

Some of us rarely fully charge the car, keeping it (as you suggested) between 20% and 80% SoC.

EVBatMon will probably not work with an inexpensive (e.g., ELM327) OBDII adapter, but it shouldn't hurt to try. Might need to get the fairly pricey OBDLink LX or MX. CaniOn is the other Android app that is also very popular with many of us.

Cell voltages within 5mv of each other is normal. What tells the full story is cell voltages after fully fully charging - then they should all be identical.

As you probably know, there is also an Australian i-MiEV forum:
http://forums.aeva.asn.au/forums/mitsubishi_forum49.html

In any case, I hope you do enjoy your new car - as much as all of us do ours!
 
The OBD2 connector finally arrived. EVBatMon is a bit glitchy but it was enough for me to get the battery details. Comparison with the historical data above:

February 2015 - cells 4.055v, actual capacity 86% (41Ah?)
August 2016 - cells 4.010v (five cells at 4.005v), 35.8Ah (74.5%)
June 2017 - cells 3.92v - 3.88v, 34.6Ah, 72.08%

Not great :|
 
MattT said:
The OBD2 connector finally arrived. EVBatMon is a bit glitchy but it was enough for me to get the battery details. Comparison with the historical data above:

February 2015 - cells 4.055v, actual capacity 86% (41Ah?)
August 2016 - cells 4.010v (five cells at 4.005v), 35.8Ah (74.5%)
June 2017 - cells 3.92v - 3.88v, 34.6Ah, 72.08%

Not great :|

File a warranty claim with your dealer (certified iMiev dealer) based on page 1-5 of the owner's manual. Provide the dealer with copies of the EVBatMon reports, which you can save as png files, and request a residual battery capacity check. Also, request from the dealer the type of battery cell installed in the vehicle, either LEV50 (not heat tolerant) or LEV50N (heat tolerant). These should be your first steps. If you need a copy of the specifications for each battery cell type, please PM me. Or perhaps we can have a moderator post a PDF link so all can download when needed?

If the cell type installed is an LEV50, then it should be replaced under warranty as they were discontinued in 2011 or 2012 or thereabouts.
 
@Phximiev - as the car's third owner I'm pretty sure my warranty rights are zero. I don't have a contract with Mitsubishi, and I think I've seen other comments on the site that Mitsubishi avoided making the same sorts of claims about battery life in Australia that it made in other jurisdictions. If I'd bought it new I'd be pretty annoyed.

@JoeS - after an overnight charge EVBatMon reported max cell voltage of 4.08v and min of 4.06.

Anybody know how I can get the cell by cell graph to display in EVBatMon? Somebody at the Australian forum suggests a couple of weak cells might be behind my CHAdeMO issue - the battery management software saying 'sorry, if I let you take 50kW something's going to blow'. I can't find it in the list of gauges / PIDs.
 
MattT said:
@Phximiev - as the car's third owner I'm pretty sure my warranty rights are zero. I don't have a contract with Mitsubishi, and I think I've seen other comments on the site that Mitsubishi avoided making the same sorts of claims about battery life in Australia that it made in other jurisdictions. If I'd bought it new I'd be pretty annoyed.

@JoeS - after an overnight charge EVBatMon reported max cell voltage of 4.08v and min of 4.06.

Anybody know how I can get the cell by cell graph to display in EVBatMon? Somebody at the Australian forum suggests a couple of weak cells might be behind my CHAdeMO issue - the battery management software saying 'sorry, if I let you take 50kW something's going to blow'. I can't find it in the list of gauges / PIDs.

Here the warranty rights are transferable, don't know about Australia. But you are right that normal degradation is not covered, but abnormal is/should be. Hence, the importance of EVBatmon.

The basic argument is that if the battery fails to live up to its published specifications by some degree, then you have abnormal degradation. Also, the LEV50 battery is supposed to be discontinued. What battery cell type do you have?

If you need the specifications for each battery, please PM me or perhaps we can have a moderator post the PDFs?
 
JoeS said:
MattT said:
...June 2017 - cells 3.92v - 3.88v, 34.6Ah, 72.08%
Interesting that the voltage level does not go up to 4.050v/cell (Edit: I should have said 4.10vpc) when fully charged, irrespective of a cell's capacity.
MattT said:
…@JoeS - after an overnight charge EVBatMon reported max cell voltage of 4.08v and min of 4.06…
If your ambient Fall temperatures are now dropping, I'd be inclined to perform a few extended slow balancing full charges to see if the cell voltages come up a wee bit. Be sure not to let the car sit fully charged and take it for a drive soon after doing this. Sorry, can't help you with using EVBatMon, as I've primarily used it for capacity readings and 12v monitoring.

Note that I edited my previous post, as I should have written 4.100 volts/cell (full pack ~=360vdc)
 
EDIT: AAAAAAND I'm an idiot. I'm pretty sure I ran this morning's test in emulation mode. I thought those figures looked familiar! :?

EDIT EDIT: Yep, emulation mode. Checked my stats again and they haven't changed one bit.

--------

We're well into winter temps now, with sub-zero readings overnight and an early snow season starting a couple of hours' drive away.

I ran the car to below 2 bars (1 bar flashing, 7km range), then charged it at 10A / 240V overnight. This morning EVBatMon was showing 75.62% battery condition, 36.3 Ah capacity, cell volt range 4.02v - 4.01v, 353.3 total battery volts. So not a huge difference, but better than the August 2016 results, and I'll happily take the extra 3.54% / 1.7 Ah! Thanks for the tip. Does this sort of 'deep charging' give continuous improvements - ie, should I try it again?

I'll try to get to a CHAdeMO charger this week to see if it's working now.

@Phximiev - I'm almost certain I have the old / original LEV50 cells - it's a 2010 model, the first shipped to Australia.
 
Phximiev said:
The basic argument is that if the battery fails to live up to its published specifications by some degree, then you have abnormal degradation.
For warranty purposes, what 'degree' would be considered 'abnormal'? Hard to press for any replacement unless there's a definitive 'line' and you have proof that your claim has crossed that line

I guess not everyone got the indoctrination we got when we bought our first car new in May of 2012. They (a dealers representative trained in this aspect of car delivery) sat us down and explained that the car is battery powered and that the battery will degrade as it ages, by an expected (but not guaranteed) 20% or so over 5 years and that the degradation *was not covered by warranty* and then they had us sign a form saying we had been properly briefed on the battery warranty - Battery degradation of any amount was not covered by the warranty - Only 'defects' were covered. No mention of 'abnormal degradation' at all . . . . in fact, the opposite claim was made - Degradation is normal

I just don't see where anyone, anywhere would have an enforceable claim that their battery is 'failing to live up to specifications by some degree' if it still charges to 16 bars and will move the car down the road 20 miles or more - We may not like it, but we weren't promised anything more

On the other hand, iMiEV's are not Nissan Leafs - Our batteries, by and large, have not had the problems Leaf owners experienced and the batteries have performed better than we were led to expect

Don
 
I read somewhere that the accepted requirements were 70% of capacity at 8 years, but Mitsu later changed it to 10 in the US. Not sure if this applies in Oz though, as Mitsu withdrew it pretty soon after launching it, and I'm not even sure it was technically a launch or just a "trial".
 
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