Just posted my 2017 iMiEV Review to Youtube

[selmateacher]

I Just posted my 2017 iMiEV Review to Youtube. enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtJXPnZKh_0

 

[Don]

A good, well documented review giving both the positives and negatives of these wonderful little cars . . . . which means of course there's no future for you reviewing automobiles! :lol:

Don

 

[kerrye]

You said the 2017 was different than earlier US models. What differences were you thinking of? Your 2017 looks like my 2012. I'm pretty sure some models with the upgraded navigation, rear view camera and radio came with bluetooth connectivity. Some models also were delivered without the Chademo port, which his a really serious downside in my mind.

 

[wmcbrine]

You said the 2017 was different than earlier US models. What differences were you thinking of?

He refers to extended range (larger battery?) in the video -- and says it's one of only six (!) units with this capability. I hadn't heard of that previously.

 

[iwatson]

You state in your video that tires should be rotated as with any other vehicle. This is incorrect. The imiev has two different size tires on the car. 145/65 R15's on the front, and 175/60 R15's on the back and should NOT be rotated.

 

[JoeS]

selmateacher, thank you for your nice video which is a great introduction to our car.

You said the 2017 was different than earlier US models. What differences were you thinking of?

He refers to extended range (larger battery?) in the video -- and says it's one of only six (!) units with this capability. I hadn't heard of that previously.

This is the first I had heard of a "Long Range" i-MiEV, and I also would like some corroboration of that assertion as well as details of this battery pack. Note that there was no EPA rating change (after it was bureaucratically downgraded from 62 to 59 a few years ago). Although judicious hypermiling on the flat and warm San Juaquin Valley could readily produce RR=99 on a new 16kWh battery, a consistent RR of 99 without hypermiling is 'interesting' and maybe does indicate a change? Enquiring minds want to know, as I would have expected Mitsubishi to tout this ... although by 2017 they had given up on the i-MiEV for the US market.

0-60 in nine seconds also doesn't sound right, as our previous US versions have the (infuriating) acceleration ramp-up that gets us into the 14-second region. Looking at KiwiEV's videos shows that the European version did indeed accelerate a bit faster (12 seconds), but nowhere near 9 seconds. Get rid of that ramp-up and 150A current limit and I bet she'd do it in under 9 seconds as IIRC this same motor was used in some of Mitsu's performance vehicles.

 

[PV1]

Nice review, although you definitely should post some shots from CaniOn showing battery capacity and acceleration power. Never heard of an "upscale" i-MiEV for the US. It seems yours has:

1. Larger battery
2. More powerful motor
3. 5th Seat belt, for a very narrow middle, rear passenger.
4. Possibly upgraded heater? Granted, CA is quite a bit warmer than PA in the winter.

 

[selmateacher]

This car is great fun to drive. I drove the Japanese version and the one in Japan was indeed slower. About the CaniOn app: That app does not recognize this car's battery configuration. So I tried the OBDZero app, but still the readout is "N/A" for the battery pack. Other features work in the apps, but they cannot read the battery info. So the battery pack has a difference in total capacity. If it is still only 16KWh, that would make this battery pack and EV more efficient than any other EV, I have ever driven. But I highly doubt that. I believe an upgraded North American controller and battery pack are the cause for the faster 0-60 times and longer range. I waited a year to produce this review video, because this 2017 MiEV gave me a different result than Japanese and 2016 MiEV that I had driven in the past and I wanted to make sure that it was not a 'bad' reading of the range. After consistently finding the range to be near 100 miles, I decided to go ahead and publish my findings.

 

[JoeS]

Speculating, perhaps they changed nothing other than software:

1. For acceleration, simply did away with the artificial ramp-up and upped the 150A max current limit.
2. For range/battery capacity, maybe they reprogrammed to allow the battery a lower usable voltage limit (and perhaps reducing the invisible 'turtle' range)?

Or maybe they're using yet even further-improved batteries and didn't bother recertifying their EPA rating. Aren't these same cells used in their Highlander (edit: Outlander) PHEV? Edit: question was answered and the Outlander uses a smaller 40Ah cell.

I was gobsmacked that a 2017 USA version i-MiEV even exists, as the only other "2017" I know of (bradleydavidgood77) was built in 2016. Don't suppose you want to share the VIN?

Also, IIRC, CaniOn has troubles reading 2016 i-MiEVs.

Whatever... it sure sounds like you have a unique car and it's serving you well!

 

[kiev]

the miev specs on the mitsubishi web site show range of 160 km (100 miles) with 16kwh battery pack... Wow! The rest of the world has a more efficient version now.
https://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/en/showroom/i-miev/

 

[Phximiev]

The pdf specifications state that it's NEDC range.

But it would still seem to be more efficient. Makes one wonder if they improved the battery some?

 

[JoeS]

What year model does Mitsubishi say you have after you put in your complete VIN after the equal sign?

https://www.mitsubishicars.com/rs/file/monroney?vin=

 

[inuvik]

What year model does Mitsubishi say you have after you put in your complete VIN after the equal sign?

https://www.mitsubishicars.com/rs/file/monroney?vin=

Put the VIN after the equal sign no spaces. You don't need to put the year in, it's part of the VIN. I plugged my VIN from my Outlander Sport. Just replace that VIN with your own,

http://www.mitsubishicars.com/rs/file/monroney?vin=JA4AP3AU5KU002125

 

[JoeS]

Haven't heard from selmateacher again. I simply wanted to know what year Mitsubishi thinks the "2017" i-MiEV is.

 

[DBMandrake]

This is the first I had heard of a "Long Range" i-MiEV, and I also would like some corroboration of that assertion as well as details of this battery pack. Note that there was no EPA rating change (after it was bureaucratically downgraded from 62 to 59 a few years ago). Although judicious hypermiling on the flat and warm San Juaquin Valley could readily produce RR=99 on a new 16kWh battery, a consistent RR of 99 without hypermiling is 'interesting' and maybe does indicate a change? Enquiring minds want to know, as I would have expected Mitsubishi to tout this ... although by 2017 they had given up on the i-MiEV for the US market.

The only higher capacity i-Miev I've heard of is that right back in the beginning (pre 2009) they did a prototype 20kWh version along side the 16kWh version that saw some road testing, however they selected 16kWh presumably due to cost and weight reasons. However 20kWh would still only give 62 * (20/16) = 77.5 real world miles, nowhere near the claimed 100 miles, which would require around 26kWh...

Of course with city only driving and hyper-miling on a brand new 16kWh battery it was possible to get 75-80 miles since the 62 mile figure is a combined figure. So the mileage attainable can be stretched if you're willing to give a summer, city only range rather than a true combined figure with a mix of motorway driving.

0-60 in nine seconds also doesn't sound right, as our previous US versions have the (infuriating) acceleration ramp-up that gets us into the 14-second region. Looking at KiwiEV's videos shows that the European version did indeed accelerate a bit faster (12 seconds), but nowhere near 9 seconds. Get rid of that ramp-up and 150A current limit and I bet she'd do it in under 9 seconds as IIRC this same motor was used in some of Mitsu's performance vehicles.

I'm sorry to say but the European version still has the same painfully slow acceleration ramp up from 0-15 mph as the US version. At least mine certainly does! (2011 Peugeot Ion in the UK)

The official 0-60 acceleration figure for the European / Japanese version of the car is 15.9 seconds, however I have timed mine at 12.5 seconds. Have you timed yours or are you just going by the quoted figure ?

I think the official figures are very conservative and probably represent what you can get in very cold weather with a low SoC, where acceleration is noticeably reduced due to lower battery performance.

I have often thought about trying to get the EV-ECU "modded" to remove or reduce the initial acceleration ramp - not so much to try to hoon around but because the initial ramp is so slow that it's dangerous pulling out into a gap in a busy roundabout - you have to lead the throttle so much and if you misjudge it you end up with a car bearing down on you with no way to get moving quicker. Sometimes I'll start with my foot on the brake and partially on the throttle and then release the brake which cuts the initial lag by maybe half a second.

Also with 4 passengers in the car trying to start uphill it pulls away so slowly that you think it isn't going to move! :lol:

I reckon you could cut 2 seconds off both the 0-30 and 0-60mph times if you programmed out the throttle ramp. Unfortunately I don't know enough about reverse engineering car ECU's to do the modification myself and I doubt there are any professionals doing it as the car is so rare....

 

[DBMandrake]

Speculating, perhaps they changed nothing other than software:

1. For acceleration, simply did away with the artificial ramp-up and upped the 150A max current limit.

As I mentioned in my previous reply I think you could easily shave 2 seconds off the 0-30 and 0-60 times if the artificial torque ramp was removed or severely curtailed. I've certainly been temped to find someone to mod the EV-ECU, which will be the one that implements the acceleration ramp.

As for exceeding 150 amps - in theory you could increase the torque below 25mph (the peak torque/horsepower crossover point) by increasing the maximum current, the fuse is 280 amps after all, however you may run the risk of exceeding the mechanical torque that the puny driveshafts can cope with, or the current limit of the semiconductors in the drive inverter.

I would be hesitant to try this.

2. For range/battery capacity, maybe they reprogrammed to allow the battery a lower usable voltage limit (and perhaps reducing the invisible 'turtle' range)?

No chance. There is only about 10% of the usable battery capacity in turtle mode, which in no way accounts for an increase in range from 60 to 100 miles...

Also, the normal cutoff voltage is about 3.6 volts - when I did a discharge test of some 2nd hand replacement cells I found there was 40Ah available between 4.1 volts and 3.63 volts, and only a further 3Ah available between 3.63 volts and 3.0 volts, so less than 10%. You can't discharge the cells this low in the car though otherwise the under load voltage will go dangerously low and damage the cells.

This is why the turtle mode also kicks in if the instantaneous under load voltage of any cell goes below 3.0 volts.

 

[DBMandrake]

the miev specs on the mitsubishi web site show range of 160 km (100 miles) with 16kwh battery pack... Wow! The rest of the world has a more efficient version now.
https://www.mitsubishi-motors.com/en/showroom/i-miev/

Sadly, no.

The original NEDC range rating for the 2011 European i-Miev was already 93 miles. The figure in that brochure which says 160km (100 miles) is only a very slight improvement, which I believe is attributed to the improved Ragone performance of the LEV50N cells that were used after 2012. (In other words this slightly higher NEDC range applies to 2013 and later cars)

The NEDC drive cycle is hideously, comically over optimistic, and is no longer allowed to be used in advertising materials in Europe, and has been replaced by the WLTP a year or two ago. (which itself is still a lot more optimistic than the EPA rating) I suspect Mitsubishi gets away with still quoting the obsolete NEDC figure as the car has not changed for several years thus doesn't need to be re-homologated.

Nothing to see here, move along, unfortunately.

 

[dracekvo]

Problem is that Mitsubishi sleep.
BMW i3 60Ah->96Ah->120Ah. Mitsubishi 50Ah->50Ah, no progress here.

While imiev is good car, I dont need more. But in year 2019 is 100km range too bad. imiev with 200km range would be a pretty nice car.

 

[kiev]

...Never heard of an "upscale" i-MiEV for the US. It seems yours has:

1. Larger battery

3. 5th Seat belt, for a very narrow middle, rear passenger.

i hadn't noticed the 5th seat in the video, but while searching for clues about this magical battery i ran across several interesting nuggets.

Chris Jones posted pictures of an LEV50 cut open to show the current collectors and the 2 jelly rolls. He also put some 18650s in the empty case.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=92955

So i was wondering about an LEV75 cell with 3 jelly rolls, and found some discussion about an LEV75 cell on Pedro's pushEV website with a link to products at lithium-ep website.

But the site is dead-- LEAP was a joint venture of Bossch 50%, GS Yuasa 25%, Mitsubishi 25%, from 2013 to 2018 with the goal "to make lithium-ion batteries twice as efficient,” says Dr. Volkmar Denner, who, as chairman of the board of management of Robert Boscch GmbH, is responsible for research and development.

Using the Wayback Machine i found the dead website and grabbed some pictures, but sadly no technical information was found.

Searching Yuasa's website i did find a patent application by LEAP for a better chemistry to provide high currents with less sag. Patent Application 20170133716.

Also pushev had this to say about the LEV75 cells, and it was here that i noticed the reference to 5 seats:

"For i-MiEV: 88 x 3,7 V x 75 Ah = 24,42 kWh – 160 km to 240 km in NEDC

The real range should be around 150 km, this puts the little EV at the same territory of most modern electric cars.

In 2016/2017 Mitsubishi will introduce a 5 seats electric car, but I hope they maintain the little i-MiEV, because if priced right and with the 50 % range increase it could be a great choice for a commuter car."

So after a few hours of research on this, i'm gonna guess that Mits got some of these hot cells from Yuasa that resulted from the LEAP joint venture research, and put them in some 5-seat cars such as the 6 sold here in the US, one of which Prof Berry, who teaches at the Selma campus of Kings Canyon, is the lucky owner.

 

[DBMandrake]

Another missed opportunity by Mitsubishi... :roll:

Fit LEV75 cells for a true range of close to 100 miles, add a heatpump to reduce the range loss of winter, (plenty of empty space under the bonnet for that) add preheating and a few amenities like a clock and outside temperature reading, slightly more comfy seats and better interior finish and you would have a great little car that would be competitive today positioned below the Leaf in the market, and/or in "developing" countries where cheap cheerful motoring is the order of the day.

But nope! It seems they just gave up.