How many miles should first bar last on low mile battery?

[Jiminy]

Kurt,

I probably charge to 100% once a month and it's mostly by accident that I had the car plugged in and forgot. The cells all go to 4.1v so I think I'm doin' all right for now. I've been using "the middle" of my bicycle's lipos for a while and it seems an OK strategy to keep them around a while. Only time will tell, right?

Jim

 

[offgridQLD]

Yes just keep a check on them now and then with canion. Better to catch it early than to let it get out of wack so much that they need to drop the pack again. If your start seeing more than say 15- 20mv between cells (at any SOC) then my view is its time to let them fully charge and have some time balancing.

Based on other local imiev owners results with healthy pack after more than 50,000km and a lot of that charges to 100%. Fully charging isn't the big issue it's letting the car sit fully charged for a long time when its fully charged that is. Particularly if its hot weather.

Kurt

 

[Phximiev]

Mitsubishi's idea of a battery warranty is replacing the pack when/if it gets a bad cell or two - Anything else is 'normal wear and tear' - They warn you upfront that a loss of 15 to 20% of capacity is 'normal'

Unless your pack is determined to have bad cells (and the usual first indication of that is it refuses to recharge to 16 bars) I'll be surprised if they offer you a replacement battery

I'm guessing the fact that they no longer opt to do battery checks at the one and two year service points is . . . . they already know as much as they need to know about the technology of this battery and they don't want to alarm owners that their battery is indeed deteriorating as it's pretty much guaranteed to do, hence we get no printed 'condition reports' to track the capacity loss which might get some folks demanding new batteries

But . . . . your dealer experience with your NOS (new, old stock) iMiEV will surely be of interest to us all, as many of us are now driving the same thing - A car which sat somewhere for a year or so with no one knowledgeable around to take care of the battery packs

Don

This chart does not appear to be current or accurate for our 'Mievs: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1107864_electric-car-battery-warranties-compared

 

[Don]

What part isn't accurate?? Our warranty doesn't cover capacity loss of any amount - Only outright failures. "Others (Fiat, Ford, Mitsubishi, Tesla) specially exclude capacity from their warranty, which then largely covers only outright failure of the battery, not loss of capacity and hence reduced vehicle range.

Don

 

[Phximiev]

There is a specific warranty despite the implication that there is none. A better wording would have qualified the statement. Furthermore, despite the statement, if an iMiev owner's battery dropped to 40% or less within the warranty period, I believe the owner would have a warranty claim based upon the language in the owner's manual regarding typical degradation.

 

[PV1]

Losing 40% capacity after only a couple of years is stretching the "normal wear and tear" clause, especially if the car doesn't show temperature being the cause of that loss. Not all cell failures cause a drop in voltage and affect SoC accordingly. If a cell loses capacity faster than the rest, but still slow enough for the balancers to keep up with it, then a cell may have a full charge voltage while only holding 1/2 to 2/3 of the energy of the rest of the cells. Its voltage drops much faster than the rest, which would affect the cars range.

An abnormality like this would show up in tests, and could be considered a pack failure and qualify for warranty replacement. But, if all cells are uniform, then it could be considered wear due to use.

Likely, the verbiage of the warranty is to keep people from demanding a new pack under warranty 7.5 years down the road because the pack can only provide 70% of its original range.

 

[JoeS]

I'm totally unconcerned about battery degradation, but do treat my batteries very very well. Mitsubishi has been, to date, outstanding in honoring battery claims for cell failures, The next few years will be interesting to see if the heretofore-excellent battery performance will continue. Pity the manufacturer's plight if people do things now known to be destructive to packs, such as fully fully charging and then leaving the car sit in a hot sun.

 

[Phximiev]

Hot, of course, is relative. Depending upon what you mean by "hot", that could mean over half the year here in Phoenix. If one charges every night in Phoenix during the summer and the temperature never goes below 100 degrees even at night, well, the 50N and Mitsubishi better be ready for it. We don't seem to be having a problem tho, but that's what the warranty is for!

:mrgreen:

 

[Don]

When we bought our first car new in May of 2012 I was naturally concerned with how the battery would hold up. A warranty of 8 years or 100,000 miles was pretty reassuring, but then as a part of the purchase process the dealer had us sign a 'disclaimer' published by Mitsu which explained that the warranty did NOT cover any loss of capacity. I don't recall the language exactly, but I remember that signing it did give me pause . . . . was this intended to exempt them from the most likely cause of the battery no longer being serviceable? Was my 6 or 8 year old car likely to only have a range of 15 or 20 miles. Again, if I recall correctly, they DID mention that over the 100,000 miles a typical loss of 10 to 20% would be considered 'normal' . . . . but there were no guarantees that I would get a replacement if it turned out that we experienced a 40% or 50% loss - The paper we signed sure made it sound like that wouldn't necessarily be considered a 'defect' so far as the warranty was concerned

We would have not bought the car but for the fact that we had driven a 1994 Mitsu for more than 100K with zero problems - I had a very strong opinion that Mitsu built quality cars

Like Joe, I began reading everything I could find on the care and feeding of lithium cells. Like all of us, I've had several in various devices (laptop computers, power tools, shavers etc) but I've NEVER had any of them last for 8 years of use without serious loss of capacity, usually to the point of them becoming useless for their intended purpose - I sure didn't want that happening to my $30K 'investment'

From what little I've come to know, excessive temperature and sitting at 100% SOC (like my laptop battery is 99% of the time) are the two most likely causes of premature failure, so I've done everything I can to prevent the batteries in my cars from experiencing either of those for any appreciable amount of time. I charge my cel phone battery to 100% every single night, but then I buy a new battery for it every couple years too. I've also had to buy replacement batteries for laptops a time or two - I didn't even want to THINK about what replacing the car battery would cost me if the warranty didn't cover

I do agree that it's looking like the Mitsu battery is apparently holding up much better than what we're seeing with some other EV's and that gives us all confidence I think. I'm so glad I didn't buy a Leaf! Mitsu is treating all reported failures much better than the Nissan folks are

Don

 

[Phximiev]

Hot, of course, is relative. Depending upon what you mean by "hot", that could mean over half the year here in Phoenix. If one charges every night in Phoenix during the summer and the temperature never goes below 100 degrees even at night, well, the 50N and Mitsubishi better be ready for it. We don't seem to be having a problem tho, but that's what the warranty is for!

:mrgreen:

LEV75? 25 more Ah?

http://lithium-ep.com/#products

 

[Don]

If the pictures give any idea of the relative size, the 75 AH is both taller and thicker than the 50 - I wouldn't hold much hope of ever seeing a pack of those squeezed into a 2012 iMiEV

Don