2013 i-MiEV in Adelaide, South Australia.

jalovick · Dec 24, 2023

Back in 2021, I purchased my 2013 i-MiEV from the original owner who had owned it since new. In Australia, there were only around 250 i-MiEV's brought into the country from around 2011, initially as lease vehicles to councils and local government, and then on sale to the public until the last stock was put on sale, ending in 2013. The owner I purchased it from originally paid just over half what they were originally on sale for.

I managed to get it at a good price, as It had a failing cell, which thankfully lasted long enough for the 10 or so Km drive home after purchasing it.

As I am a tech nerd, and have been playing with electronics and electrical gear since I was a kid, I did some research on the i-MiEV's pack and decided to tackle the cell replacement myself. After checking which cell had the issue using canIon and HobDrive, finding the failing cell had dropped down to 0.3V, compared to the other cells at around 3.8V, I contacted the conversion shop who does the i-MiEV and Minicab MiEV battery upgrades here in Australia, OZ-DIY Electric Vehicles in Brisbane, Queensland, who provided me with a used replacement from an i-MiEV they'd upgraded. After investing in some HV tools, multimeter, and PPE, over a few weekends, I dropped the battery pack, opened it up and found the failed cell, balanced the new cell with the others in the module, and put it all back together. After running it through a few complete charge and discharge cycles, it settled down to having around 85-90 Km of range, but after a year of driving, closer to 80-85 Km on average. I mostly charge from a 10A outlet overnight to 100%, but run it down to about 70% if I'm storing it for a while when travelling.

I was never really a fan of the stock wheels, so I did some more research into tyre sizes, rim widths, offsets, and centre bores, and decided on replacing the stock rims with some modified Toyota Prius C/Yaris alloys (full details here - https://aeva.asn.au/articles/adventures-in-customising-a-mitsubishi-imiev-wheels/).

Despite only being 10 years old and being garaged most of its life, there are a few things to tend to. There are some rust spots developing on the roof, and I have a few other little upgrades that I'd like to do, such as LED day time running lights, and adding a light under the dash that illuminates the gear selector. I'm also doing some research on replacing the on-board charger with a higher capacity one. I'm currently looking into the reverse engineering the CAN messages of an 11 kW 3 phase (16A/phase) Audi e-tron on-board charger, to see if I can interface it with the i-MiEV using a CAN bridge to translate the messages. I'd also need to add a replacement DC-DC converter, as the e-tron one doesn't have one, but a Tesla Model S one should fit. The Open Inverter forum (openinverter.org) has made some progress on controlling both. I've documented what I've discovered of the various VAG chargers on their Wiki as well. I've been told that there is a CCS modem built into the charger, but no one has had any luck using it yet, but CCS would be a great addition.

As a first EV, I'd recommend grabbing one if it suits your needs. It may not have a huge range, but it's a neat little car that is fairly easy to work on. If you do choose to go a similar route to me and open up the pack, make sure you educate yourself on working with HV, get the correct tools and PPE, and be smart and careful. There are plenty of training videos and courses on working with HV available online.

Service manuals for the i-MiEV are available online here - http://mmc-manuals.ru/Mitsubishi_i-MiEV:_Service_Manuals

Jamie

JoeS · Dec 25, 2023

Jamie, thank you for your informative rundown and links. Looking with interest for future OBC alternatives and handling CANbus.

stoatwblr · Jan 2, 2024

That yellow cell is builging - which means it's been overdischarged and has significant levels of hydrogen inside it

It's a major fire hazard (risk of self-combustion, not just leaking hydrogen). Get rid of it as quickly as you can, preferably to a qualified battery recycler

If you're inside the pack, use a flashlight to check gaps between cells and check ANY which seem to be swollen - they will be the next to go

As a point of note, swollen or leaking LEV50 cells have a _very_ distinct odour if stored in a shed or other enclosed space (it's best described as "sweet" and "chemically" and to my mind was like ether), so treat this as a "canary" if you notice it and go hunting for the bulging cell that's causing it

I've had 3 cells which were removed from my Ion do this on the shelf, despite being charged to "storage voltage" (never ever store LiIon cells in a discharged state - they WILL eventually gas out (bulge) and catch fire. If stored partially charged they will retain that charge/capacity for years on end. people have reported pulling cells off the shelf after 10 years and still having 80% capacity remaining)

I've recently been playing with AQI meters and have been wondering if a VOC sensor in the pack exhaust might be a useful safety addon, but at the moment have no faulty cells to test this on

jalovick · Feb 15, 2024

stoatwblr said:
That yellow cell is builging - which means it's been overdischarged and has significant levels of hydrogen inside it

It's a major fire hazard (risk of self-combustion, not just leaking hydrogen). Get rid of it as quickly as you can, preferably to a qualified battery recycler

If you're inside the pack, use a flashlight to check gaps between cells and check ANY which seem to be swollen - they will be the next to go

As a point of note, swollen or leaking LEV50 cells have a _very_ distinct odour if stored in a shed or other enclosed space (it's best described as "sweet" and "chemically" and to my mind was like ether), so treat this as a "canary" if you notice it and go hunting for the bulging cell that's causing it

I've had 3 cells which were removed from my Ion do this on the shelf, despite being charged to "storage voltage" (never ever store LiIon cells in a discharged state - they WILL eventually gas out (bulge) and catch fire. If stored partially charged they will retain that charge/capacity for years on end. people have reported pulling cells off the shelf after 10 years and still having 80% capacity remaining)

I've recently been playing with AQI meters and have been wondering if a VOC sensor in the pack exhaust might be a useful safety addon, but at the moment have no faulty cells to test this on

Hi,

It has been recycled. I did check the other cells, am familiar with the issue. It's always good to share more knowledge, thanks.

Jamie

The Waiheke Don · Mar 14, 2024

jalovick said:
Back in 2021, I purchased my 2013 i-MiEV from the original owner who had owned it since new. In Australia, there were only around 250 i-MiEV's brought into the country from around 2011, initially as lease vehicles to councils and local government, and then on sale to the public until the last stock was put on sale, ending in 2013. The owner I purchased it from originally paid just over half what they were originally on sale for.

View attachment 130

I managed to get it at a good price, as It had a failing cell, which thankfully lasted long enough for the 10 or so Km drive home after purchasing it.

As I am a tech nerd, and have been playing with electronics and electrical gear since I was a kid, I did some research on the i-MiEV's pack and decided to tackle the cell replacement myself. After checking which cell had the issue using canIon and HobDrive, finding the failing cell had dropped down to 0.3V, compared to the other cells at around 3.8V, I contacted the conversion shop who does the i-MiEV and Minicab MiEV battery upgrades here in Australia, OZ-DIY Electric Vehicles in Brisbane, Queensland, who provided me with a used replacement from an i-MiEV they'd upgraded. After investing in some HV tools, multimeter, and PPE, over a few weekends, I dropped the battery pack, opened it up and found the failed cell, balanced the new cell with the others in the module, and put it all back together. After running it through a few complete charge and discharge cycles, it settled down to having around 85-90 Km of range, but after a year of driving, closer to 80-85 Km on average. I mostly charge from a 10A outlet overnight to 100%, but run it down to about 70% if I'm storing it for a while when travelling.

View attachment 131 View attachment 132

View attachment 133 View attachment 135

I was never really a fan of the stock wheels, so I did some more research into tyre sizes, rim widths, offsets, and centre bores, and decided on replacing the stock rims with some modified Toyota Prius C/Yaris alloys (full details here - https://aeva.asn.au/articles/adventures-in-customising-a-mitsubishi-imiev-wheels/).

View attachment 137

Despite only being 10 years old and being garaged most of its life, there are a few things to tend to. There are some rust spots developing on the roof, and I have a few other little upgrades that I'd like to do, such as LED day time running lights, and adding a light under the dash that illuminates the gear selector. I'm also doing some research on replacing the on-board charger with a higher capacity one. I'm currently looking into the reverse engineering the CAN messages of an 11 kW 3 phase (16A/phase) Audi e-tron on-board charger, to see if I can interface it with the i-MiEV using a CAN bridge to translate the messages. I'd also need to add a replacement DC-DC converter, as the e-tron one doesn't have one, but a Tesla Model S one should fit. The Open Inverter forum (openinverter.org) has made some progress on controlling both. I've documented what I've discovered of the various VAG chargers on their Wiki as well. I've been told that there is a CCS modem built into the charger, but no one has had any luck using it yet, but CCS would be a great addition.

As a first EV, I'd recommend grabbing one if it suits your needs. It may not have a huge range, but it's a neat little car that is fairly easy to work on. If you do choose to go a similar route to me and open up the pack, make sure you educate yourself on working with HV, get the correct tools and PPE, and be smart and careful. There are plenty of training videos and courses on working with HV available online.

Service manuals for the i-MiEV are available online here - http://mmc-manuals.ru/Mitsubishi_i-MiEV:_Service_Manuals

Jamie

That's amazing.. you are an inspiration! I saw some on line advice that said you needed to keep the car in ā pool of water up to the floor for a number of hours just in case there was a fire (I guess). Well done!

jalovick · Mar 19, 2024

The Waiheke Don said:
That's amazing.. you are an inspiration! I saw some on line advice that said you needed to keep the car in ā pool of water up to the floor for a number of hours just in case there was a fire (I guess). Well done!

Hi,

You may of seen information from the original dismantling guide, used if the vehicle is to be scrapped. There are other methods to discharge batteries these days.

Jamie