another battery failure

[melloyello]

i think my battery is failing. i lost a bar a day this week and i'm down to 12bars max now. Told the dealer about it and they're already familiar with this type of failure. They said they've replaced them before and they actually have another imiev in the shop right now with the same problem. I'm dropping it off tomorrow for them to look at it next week...

 

[kiev]

if you get a chance can you ask them what they are going to do with your old pack--i assume you'll be getting a new pack. i would be interested to buy one of the failed packs for research purposes...

 

[Phximiev]

How many miles are on your pack?

 

[melloyello]

about 33k miles on my imiev. was working perfectly before this week.

 

[PV1]

I guess we're seeing the manufacturing defects surface. During the Dreamliner investigation and after a few Outlander PHEVs smoked, they found a screening process was contaminating cells. Wondering if the failures so far are a result of that. From the CaniOn shots of failed packs so far, it's one cell out of 88 that is the culprit.

If my theory is correct, there should be none or very few of the 2014-2016 models affected by pack failures. The same should go for all replacement packs.

 

[me68]

Hello!

Do you have the possiblity to check your battery with caniOn? Maybe another i-MiEV/caniOn user near to you can help you?

Martin

 

[tigger19687]

Can you up date the 1st post to say what year and when the manufacture date of your 'i' is?
I think this would help try to figure out if the ones that are failing are from a certain manufacture date or group.

 

[melloyello]

Finally got my i-miev back today with a new battery installed. Build date was feb 2012 for my car. Old battery goes back to Mitsubishi so I don't think I could get you one of the cells..

 

[Malm]

I would like to know how many 2011 i-MiEVs had a battery failure. Many of them are from 2012, I suppose.

 

[Don]

I would like to know how many 2011 i-MiEVs had a battery failure. Many of them are from 2012, I suppose.

I guess the 2011's would all be Japanese or Euro models - None were sold in North America

Don

 

[tigger19687]

Darn, Mine is a Feb 2012 too

I wonder if it has anything to do with heat/Humidity in GA ?

Mine has been in New England it's whole life. Crossing my fingers that it has a better chance

 

[JoeS]

Melloyello, thank you for the update, and happy that Mitsubishi took good care of you under warranty with a new pack.

I wonder if it has anything to do with heat/Humidity in GA ?

I'm wondering if we, as users, can have a noticeable influence on the stresses seen by the battery pack? For example, how often had this car been fully charged and then left fully charged unused in a high ambient temperature? Melloyello, what had been your usual charging regimen? Ever get down to turtle?

 

[Don]

Darn, Mine is a Feb 2012 too

I wonder if it has anything to do with heat/Humidity in GA ?

Mine has been in New England it's whole life. Crossing my fingers that it has a better chance

I'm of the opposite opinion - I have two 2012's and I would like nothing better than to have both of them experience battery failures at the 5, 6, 7 or 8 year point, giving me a brand new battery pack (probably a better one than the car came with) to live with for the next 8 or 10 years - That's pretty much the 'ideal scenario' for me to deal with when/if the time comes . . . . and I really *hope* it does!

Don

 

[Kuuuurija]

I'm of the opposite opinion - I have two 2012's and I would like nothing better than to have both of them experience battery failures at the 5, 6, 7 or 8 year point, giving me a brand new battery pack (probably a better one than the car came with) to live with for the next 8 or 10 years - That's pretty much the 'ideal scenario' for me to deal with when/if the time comes . . . . and I really *hope* it does!

Don

So you pretty much say, that the more the electric vehicles have impact to the environment, the better?

 

[Malm]

Melloyello, thank you for the update, and happy that Mitsubishi took good care of you under warranty with a new pack.

I wonder if it has anything to do with heat/Humidity in GA ?

I'm wondering if we, as users, can have a noticeable influence on the stresses seen by the battery pack? For example, how often had this car been fully charged and then left fully charged unused in a high ambient temperature? Melloyello, what had been your usual charging regimen? Ever get down to turtle?

No sign of a problem in mine, just the loss of capacity due to age. I had gone many times to turtle, and even to 0,0% SoC or even 2,75 V one cell. Usually charge to 100%, but usually don´t stay for more then 4 or 5 hours fully charged.

 

[Don]

I'm of the opposite opinion - I have two 2012's and I would like nothing better than to have both of them experience battery failures at the 5, 6, 7 or 8 year point, giving me a brand new battery pack (probably a better one than the car came with) to live with for the next 8 or 10 years - That's pretty much the 'ideal scenario' for me to deal with when/if the time comes . . . . and I really *hope* it does!

Don

So you pretty much say, that the more the electric vehicles have impact to the environment, the better?

Actually, I didn't say anything of the kind. First, any vehicle will eventually need replacement parts or it will have to be scrapped. Building/buying a new car to replace an old one which just needs a few parts to keep it running for another 10 years has got to be harder on the environment than replacing parts on the old one . . . . doesn't it? Second, if the old battery pack is recycled so that it is used for some other purpose, then it's not really harming the environment either, is it? I really doubt that battery packs which are removed from EV's at some point in their lifespan are going to wind up in landfills - Amateur EV builders would love to get their hands on them I know for a fact, so if my old battery pack goes on to power some other car for another 50,000 miles, that's a good thing, IMO

Don

 

[Phximiev]

As I said before:

I believe, based upon their announcements, that they re-cycyle the batteries into stored power sites. I can image that if one cell goes bad, they replace that cell and then use the entire pack in a storage solution. That would make economic sense if they can re-sell the packs also.

This is based upon Mitsubishi's published announcements and my belief as to their policy, which favors 100% recycling.

 

[Carsten]

Don,
I'm with you here. I have a 2012 MiEV, bought 7/2013, with 36,500mi on it. I will not need the 8 years to reach 100,000mi but hope, that at some point before the battery will need an overhaul/replacement. I also hope, that the Mitsubishi V2G/V2H-charger will be available by then and that I could buy/keep the old battery. I would like to use it all to integrate it into my PV-system by then.
If the battery failure occurs after the 100,000mi, I will replace the failed cells at 250$/pc material cost.

 

[PV1]

Bear is also a February 2012 car and had cell #10 fail.

While it's possible that nothing we did caused these failures because there were bad handling and screening processes discovered at the battery manufacturer during the Dreamliner investigation, I put together a Google spreadsheet where we can enter details regarding the failures of those involved, just to see if a trend develops. Even though nearly everybody's personal account is listed here somewhere on the forum, I think it would be best to have everything in one place. Feel free to add columns if needed.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1INejOsxJ77ti_ZYgOd_oS2M7cQLnD1DuUFSPkACwD6A/edit?usp=sharing

 

[melloyello]

I'm wondering if we, as users, can have a noticeable influence on the stresses seen by the battery pack? For example, how often had this car been fully charged and then left fully charged unused in a high ambient temperature? Melloyello, what had been your usual charging regimen? Ever get down to turtle?

I bought my car in april 2013, so it sat in a dealer lot somewhere for a year. My local dealer shipped it in for me, so I'm not sure where it was. Since then we've used it for daily commutes, sometimes 10mi per day, somtimes 40mi, sometimes 60mi with or without a mid-day recharge. I think it sat a couple weeks at half charge one time but other than that it's been driven almost daily. I've driven down to turtle a couple times but never driven more than like 100ft in that state. My car doesn't have the quickcharge port so I've only used level1 and level2 charging.