New to the iMiev with a 2012 model

Hello from France!
I've recently bought a 2012 I-Miev (92 000 km) for some local trips but it looks like the remaining capacity is a bit less than the seller told me. I'd like your opinion to know if I can still expect some life out of it or if I should push hard to try to return it.

The remaining capacity on Hobdrive is 25,9Ah:


The cells look pretty balanced:


On our trip back from the seller (112 Kms / 70 miles) we had a stretch of 40km (25 miles) on the highway between 2 Chademo charges where ended up in turtle mode 2km shy of the charger, with more than 30% remaining.
The car didn't run much for a year before we picked it up.

We are planning to use it for school runs on country roads (13km return) and local shopping (35km return) with L2 charges in between so we not really afraid by the range, however we hope to be able to use the car for that purpose for a few years.

Would you think that car can still achieve that?

Thanks!!

jducro said:

Hello from France!
I've recently bought a 2012 I-Miev (92 000 km) for some local trips but it looks like the remaining capacity is a bit less than the seller told me. I'd like your opinion to know if I can still expect some life out of it or if I should push hard to try to return it.

The remaining capacity on Hobdrive is 25,9Ah:
View attachment 597

The cells look pretty balanced:
View attachment 598

On our trip back from the seller (112 Kms / 70 miles) we had a stretch of 40km (25 miles) on the highway between 2 Chademo charges where ended up in turtle mode 2km shy of the charger, with more than 30% remaining.
The car didn't run much for a year before we picked it up.

We are planning to use it for school runs on country roads (13km return) and local shopping (35km return) with L2 charges in between so we not really afraid by the range, however we hope to be able to use the car for that purpose for a few years.

Would you think that car can still achieve that?

Thanks!!

Click to expand...

Hello and welcome to the forum

It may well be possible that the 25.9Ah capacity can be improved by running a battery calibration in HobDrive given the car wasn’t used regularly the past year.

It looks like you a have at least one weak cell in your battery if you experience the tortoise and power loss @30% charge.

The current remaining range should be fine for your daily usage presently but expect a significant drop in winter.

Unfortunately it’s difficult to predict how fast battery degradation will accelerate from now on plus the battery isn’t the only worry given the age of the car, the OBC (on board charger) is also know to fail frequently and spare parts aren’t easy to come by.

Personally I’d go for a Zoe or similar if you’re looking for something that will do ye for the next few years…

On the other hand an IMiev is incredible fun to drive, even in snow (apparently) and if you want to take a chance haggle down the price another bit…
Mickey

Welcome.
i agree with Mickey that there is likely a weak cell that drops under high load and triggers the turtle.

i have a car like that in which i can make turtle appear by stomping on the pedal WOT.

Do the calibration charge using a slow charging rate, L1 or L2. May have to do it a couple of times to see some improvement.

It can be a handy car for short trips and might work for your needs.

Thanks guys, your feedback is really welcomed.
I just tried getting the battery to a lower state to let it calibrate with a 6A charge.

As you suspected it looks like cell #28 is my culprit with a couple of cells not far behind it:





I hope getting it back into use will help.

That's a bad picture, not likely to improve much as the voltage difference is large.

May want to return it if the seller misrepresented the car; but they may have been ignorant of the actual cell condition.

Charge it up and give it a try to see if you can make your expected trips. Stay easy on the throttle to see if turtle can be kept from appearing. Use your canion to watch the cell chart as you stomp on it to see the cells collapse.

Hi !
I also own a Peugeot Ion in France (Voiron, Isère).

Your capacity is ok given the age. And will improve by using it (as Mickey and Kiev says).
Mine is from 2011 with 32Ah capacity remaining.

From my point of view, changing 3 dead cells is doable (depending of your skills).
If you're not too far away, I can help you, and maybe help you find some replacement cells (I look forward to recover a set of 8).

Foid luck!


Your car is having 3 bad cells.

Hi !

I also own a Peugeot Ion in France (Voiron, Isère).

Your capacity is ok given the age. And will improve by using it (as Mickey and Kiev says).
Mine is from 2011 with 32Ah capacity remaining.

From my point of view, changing 3 dead cells is doable (depending of your skills).
If you're not too far away, I can help you, and maybe help you find some replacement cells (I look forward to recover a set of 8).

Good luck

Hi VoironIon,
We only have the car since Saturday, so we are still getting to know each other, and we have a 2023 Marvel R on hand for any longer trip (or a side of the road charging with V2L).

I'm pretty handy so I'm not too afraid of swapping a few cells.

I'm located in Gers so a bit far, but I'm definitely welcoming the help especially on getting the hand on some cells. I was considering contacting Revolte to see if they could provide some.

If you want to change cells, I suggest you pay attention. You won't be replacing 3 cells (experience), I removed the battery pack 3x because I naively thought I would have enough to replace 3 cells, I replaced 6 more. Total 9 cells.
I see 5 cells to replace in the first round.

I only see 4 of them (20, 24, 28 & 76), after that quite a few cells are a bit below the rest but that would at least be an extra 6 cells.

For now we manage to handle our trips we half of the current capacity so I guess we don’t have to rush to replace those cells.

I will try check with a low SOC once a month to see how things are evolving.

jducro said:

I only see 4 of them (20, 24, 28 & 76), after that quite a few cells are a bit below the rest but that would at least be an extra 6 cells.

For now we manage to handle our trips we half of the current capacity so I guess we don’t have to rush to replace those cells.

I will try check with a low SOC once a month to see how things are evolving.

Click to expand...

Not to discourage you but most owners who started changing individual cells realised soon that this was only a quick fix as due to severe degradation more and more cells keep going bad..

It is unfortunate that in most EVs the entire pack’s performance is determined by the worst cell..

jducro mentioned "Marvel R".
That's a new MG model with a 70kWh battery.
Not yet available in the UK due to RHD requirement

MickeyS70 said:

Not to discourage you but most owners who started changing individual cells realised soon that this was only a quick fix as due to severe degradation more and more cells keep going bad..

It is unfortunate that in most EVs the entire pack’s performance is determined by the worst cell..

Click to expand...

The latest CZeros only have 80 cells. What would happen if just removed the bad cells and replaced them a thick cable. Could the CMUs be removed too? I know this doesn't help jducro decide whether to keep his iMiev but...

CZeroOwner said:

The latest CZeros only have 80 cells. What would happen if just removed the bad cells and replaced them a thick cable. Could the CMUs be removed too? I know this doesn't help jducro decide whether to keep his iMiev but...

Click to expand...

No the BMS expects to see the correct number of cell voltages reported by the CMUs (the circuit boards on the battery modules). If you got the BMS from an 80 cell car you could theoretically reduce your pack to 80 cells and the car would start however the 80 cell cars had LEV50N cells and if you havec LEV50 it will likely charge/discharge to the voltages of the lev50N cell which is not correct for your cells..

I've fixed one recently by replacing the bad cell with a second hand one and all working well now.

Cheers

CZeroOwner said:

The latest CZeros only have 80 cells. What would happen if just removed the bad cells and replaced them a thick cable. Could the CMUs be removed too? I know this doesn't help jducro decide whether to keep his iMiev but...

Click to expand...

As @Gary12345 correctly pointed out a 88 cell car requires all data to work correctly and a LEV50N BMU could absolutely drive LEV50 cells into the danger zone.

However it’s possible to create ‘phantom’ cells or whole CMU data via CAN ‘spoofing’ so at least in theory your idea could actually work…

Gary12345 said:

If you got the BMS from an 80 cell car and if you have LEV50 it will likely charge/discharge to the voltages of the lev50N cell which is not correct for your cells..

Click to expand...

Hi Gary Thanks for the feedback. How do the voltages for the LEV50N differ from the voltages for the LEV50?

MickeyS70 said:

However it’s possible to create ‘phantom’ cells or whole CMU data via CAN ‘spoofing’ so at least in theory your idea could actually work…

Click to expand...

Could you connect the CMU of the missing cell to a nearby cell?

CZeroOwner said:

Could you connect the CMU of the missing cell to a nearby cell?

Click to expand...

Don’t think so, e.g. a 4 cell CMU’s LTC chip expects to see around 16VDC, you cannot ‘simulate’ that with just 3 cells