New Owner in Northern VA

[twiin640]

I've been researching these cars for some time now and decided to buy one this past weekend. 2012, all stock, silver and 25,140 miles. Paid $6000. Drives perfect, no flaws. Listed as an ES and has the aluminum wheels. The dealer lost the factory provided charging cord so my first ev adventure was to find someplace to charge it up before going home. I needed to drive 48 miles but had a RR of 36.
I looked on my "plugshare" app and found Shirley Slack Mitsubishi which was nearby. They were very friendly and allowed me to charge there at their level 2 charger. Made it home with no bones.

I would love to have the Chademo option but from what I'm finding if it wasn't installed at the factory then I'm most likely out of luck. Anyhoo, I've added it to my ev stable. I also have a Brammo Empulse R
and a 1981 Jet Electrica (Mercury Lynx). :mrgreen:

 

[JoeS]

twiin640, welcome to the forum!

Congratulations - sounds as though you perhaps purchased an SE - do you have daylight running lights? You can check your car by entering your VIN into this Mitsubishi site:

http://www.mitsubishicars.com/rs/file/monroney?vin= (put in your full VIN after the equals sign)

With your past EV experience, you already have the right mindset. Enjoy your i-MiEV, which will quickly become your PRIMARY car.

 

[PV1]

Welcome, and congrats.

If you have the brown and black interior, aluminum wheels, and DRL/fog lights, you have the higher SE trim.

If you look on the floor between the driver's seat and the door, there may be a black release handle. If your car has it, you have the quick charge port. That's probably the easiest way to tell. Quick Charge is a standalone package on the ES, and it is part of the Premium Package on the SE. Unfortunately, you're out of luck if your car doesn't have it (unless you're skilled enough to transplant the entire electrical system from a QC-enabled car :lol: ).

 

[twiin640]

Great site, yes it is an SE. Thankfully now I know. Doesn't have an upgraded stereo or Chademo but I love it anyway. I do have the brown/black interior and drl's.

I'm never sure when I buy a used EV as to how the range is going to play out on a longer trip. Will it discharge faster than normal? slower than normal? On paper my i would make it to my house with no problem but I didn't know until I drove it. The regen in "B" mode is awesome. I'm a hypermiler already so I was able to get some miles back on the RR gauge a couple times during the trip. The RR was on 16 when I got home so the EPA stated mileage was dead on. After I charged it all night I checked and the RR was on 70. Very cool.

 

[PV1]

Not bad for the first trip. My first drive home (granted it was 20 F outside with some highway driving, at night) used all but one bar for 46 miles, but the last 8 miles had the heat on full blast. I can now do that trip on 12 bars instead of 15 :mrgreen: .

Be sure to browse around. Lots of good info on here.

 

[JoeS]

...I'm never sure when I buy a used EV as to how the range is going to play out on a longer trip....

Unlike the Leaf's GOM (Guess-O-Meter), the i-MiEV RR (Range Remaining) computation is very predictable and can be relied on knowing its constraints. Basically, it is a 15-mile moving average reflecting your driving in a given terrain and wind. You will see a big RR hit when you climb and, conversely, you can see both RR and your 'fuel' gauge go up when going down hills.

When you turn on the heater or a/c you will notice an immediate RR display drop of about 20%, but in the background the calculation takes that into consideration and does not factor that consumption into its calculations. What I'm trying to say is that even though you ran the heater on your last drive, the RR display will ignore the heater's consumption as part of its energy consumed calculation - but if you turn on the heater the RR will drop.

With winter now coming, be careful as the heater takes a huge hit on the i-MiEV's range. Conversely, the heated seat consumes a negligible amount of power and many of us use that continuously throughout the winter.

 

[wmcbrine]

Conversely, the heated seat consumes a negligible amount of power and many of us use that continuously throughout the winter.

I found the seat heater sufficient for warming myself, but I had to switch to the main heater once my windows fogged up.

 

[Don]

Great site, yes it is an SE. Thankfully now I know. Doesn't have an upgraded stereo or Chademo but I love it anyway.

Actually it does have an upgraded stereo from the basic unit that came in the ES. You have speakers in the rear doors and a more powerful head unit - You just don't have the hard drive unit that the Premium cars with Nav have

Don

 

[twiin640]

I'm very happy with it. Even with 25,000 plus miles it's in excellent condition and drives like new. The dealer had it on their lot for 5 months before I bought it so I took it down to 2 bars today as per suggestions and the owners manual. Had 5 miles left on the RR meter. Has been charging for 4 hours and is almost 100%. I also wanted to see how long it would take to charge from that low of a charge.

 

[twiin640]

Some thoughts after having the i for a week and driving approx. 500 miles. All in all I really like the i but I did stop using the RR meter. I'll cover that in a minute.

I own 3 ev's at present and two of them have a range "guess o meter". My 3rd ev is lead battery based so no RR. Only a volt meter and amp meter.
I "cut my teeth" on lead based cars which simply means range was determined using a different
method. Odometer and a battery charge meter was it. My charge meter showed 0 to 100% of battery charge. I would start my trip
with a zero'd odo and when the volt o meter said 50% I looked down at the odo and whatever it said was 50% of my range. Of course
I made a couple trips beforehand to gain confidence in the batt pack. It's not better that a "guess o meter" it's just what I had back
then.

Ok, now to why I don't use the RR anymore. After a week, I found that I was constantly looking at this little gauge just watching the
numbers slowly tick down. Sometimes faster sometimes slower. It drew me in like a heckler at the state fair. I'm by no means a
range anxiety person. If I run out of charge it's no different than running out of gas. I did notice watching the counting down did make
me uneasy, don't know why, it just did. So today I went out to run some errands and used the odo and state of charge meter next to the gear selection indicator.
I have to say it was like old times and I had a much better drive. To use an analogy, the RR meter to me is like telling someone they have 2 months to live and then
making them carry a calendar around. :shock: If you use the RR and like it good on you. It's neither good or bad in my book, I just don't use it
anymore.

 

[mdbuilder]

LOL, I know what you mean.

Unless your trip is > 30 miles that method works fine. I say > 30 because your speed and climate usage vary the range enormously. If you are in Northern Va. just keep in mind that you could drag the miles available below 40 if you hopped on a highway with medium traffic and ran the heat on a winter day.

 

[PV1]

I use it as a way to gauge how efficiently I'm driving more than how far I can go. I leave it on the dash almost all the time. If temperature is a concern, then RR is shown through CaniOn on my Android head unit and I change the dash to ambient temperature. Other times I'll use one of the trip odometers on the dash and use CaniOn's RR display to compare range with distance traveled. I know normal driving nets 8 bars with 40 miles RR and highway driving nets 8 bars with 30-35 miles.

I now have enough experience with the car that I know how much charge a certain trip will take. I remember thinking that driving the highway to Cranberry Township would be tough but doable, but I now drive 6-7 miles past there without hardly looking at the gauges and stopping at the quick charger. I just limit my speed to 60 MPH, traffic allowing.

The charge gauge hides about 13% of the battery, so there's still another bars worth of travel after the gauge hits "empty" (turtle light comes on at 10.5%). The car shuts down if any cell hits 2.75 volts, the pack reaches 0% SoC, or (I believe) if the pack hits 275 volts (I've never pushed my car that far. 8% was the lowest I've been).

We all develop our own habits. The good news is that with fairly consistent driving, the RR value can be trusted if you need it.

 

[Don]

I too always leave the gauge set on RR - There's no other selection that gives me any useful information - My wife *lives by* the RR gauge :lol: It doesn't cause either of us any 'worry' and I like PV1 I also use it to check how efficiently I'm driving. I don't look at it all that often, but when I'm nearing 8 bars left on the fuel gauge, I always check the RR to see if it's reading something close to 40 and it almost always is - If it's not, then I try to recall what I did that caused the difference - Sometimes if Carolyn's been driving the car, it's more than 40 . . . . darned if I know how she does that!! Overall, I guess the RR is one of my favorite things about this car . . . . well, that and the 'B' mode on the gear selector as that how we both drive 100% of the time - I love seeing the RR going UP when going downhill or coasting to a stop

Don