Can the dealer set the car not to crawl forward?

[alohart]

After looking though all the 'pages' of adjustable things on my dealers computer when hooked up to my car, I would bet that the creep mode is also an adjustable feature.

I'm assuming that your dealer was using the MUT software that Mitsubishi uses to tune and diagnose their cars. There have been a couple of listing of adjustable features in this and this thread.

A forum member living in Switzerland, EVMOTO, has this MUT software on his laptop and could probably answer questions about what could be adjusted. He has also posted information about how to purchase this MUT software and the necessary hardware to connect a PC to the i-MiEV data port. Unfortunately, it's not cheap.

 

[Don]

I recall seeing his threads - That's where I learned that the turn signal sounds could be customized

I saw one of the complete OEM Mitsubishi 'laptops' on sale on eBay (in England I think) about 6 months ago. It was pretty cheap (a couple hundred) and it came with all sorts of cables and accessories. I *thought* about buying it, but I don't know enough about such things to know if I could have ever got it operating, or if it was the correct machine to do anything with my iMiEV

Don

 

[Vike]

(Toyota has run some moronic Prius commercials over the years that increased confusion on this).

I remember seeing a commercial a few years back where two people in a car are going down a street really slow, and every couple of seconds, would hit the brakes and say "recharge". Was that a Prius commercial I'm thinking of?

Good memory - that is EXACTLY the commercial I was referring to. :lol:

 

[acensor]

Wow, some fun stuff in here - but to stay on track, I see a couple points of confusion common among newer owners:

Wait, wait.. Is that "stock noise" you're talking about the standard synthentic sound it makes when cruizing under 22mph that you're talking about? If so, I'm probably going to go into my dealer and ask him to turn it off.

No, it wasn't, and no, you're not. Don was referring to the noise made by the turn signal indicator, not the AVAS, a federally mandated safety feature which you'd be well advised not to tamper with. On the rare occasions that you can even hear it while driving, if you find it irritating perhaps you can soothe your nerves by reminding yourself of the potentially nasty liabilities that could be faced by a driver who bumps into an unwary pedestrian while piloting an EV with an illegally disabled AVAS.

Not sure you'd gain anything at all by coasting downhill let alone anything of significance ... and on a long slope of anything other than the very slightest steepness you'd actually lose out as you would lose the regenerative power normally gained back when going downhill.
...when it's applied to EV driving is useless or even counterproductive?

Alex

Where to begin? In order:

....2. You can certainly move the selector to N while in motion, I've done it often, with the intended "free wheel" coasting effect.

3. What you would gain is range. There are several threads where this has been discussed at length, but the bottom line is that when seeking to maximize range, all things being equal, coasting is best, regen is bad, and friction braking is maximum evil. If what you want to do is slow down quickly, then by all means regen is the best way to do it. But if you're headed down a slight downgrade and don't have to deal with traffic (I have a small segment like this on my daily commute), then true free wheel coasting is NOT useless, and most definitely NOT counterproductive.,,,

....Folks miss a key point - regen ain't free (Toyota has run some moronic Prius commercials over the years that increased confusion on this). You always lose more in kinetic energy than you gain in charge. Now, when you're nearing the end of that downgrade and approaching an intersection or other stop, you absolutely should put the car in "gear" before applying brakes, or yes, you'll only be using friction brakes, which would be hugely wasteful. Ideally, you want to "coast" in gear toward the stop, preferably in 'E' (the coasting regen in 'D' is pretty modest and probably won't stop you soon enough), or perhaps 'B' if you've waited too late, since you know the tranny's deceleration is pure regen, and only use the brake pedal near the end for the full stop. .

BTW: Over at
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1550&p=9912#p9912
under the topic about towing
I have raised the question of "if per Mitsubishi it's not OK to passively rotate the MiEV's back wheels by towing it with wheels on the ground, how can it be safe/harmless
to passively rotate them by coasting down a long hill in neutral?
I ask this as a serious question, as it seem to me mechanically there's no difference between pulling a car downhill with gravity and pulling it on flat ground with a tow cable.
I ask that if you have a response to THAT you reply in THAT thread on towing.

You're quite right that you never recover all the kinetic energy with regenerative braking (I'm an ex-physics major should have noticed that) and that on a long slope you could indeed do better coasting down than trying to collect regenerative energy.
So I was wrong in implying that you COULDN'T gain range that way.
But when I said it COULD be counterproductive I stand with that, even if as a fine point:
If you're coasting down a long or long and steep hill and you pick up enough speed that you find you have to brake at the bottom (extreme case would be getting to a yield or stopsign) and get into friction braking you'll be pissing away as heat energy you could have collected if coming down the hill in E or B.


Alex