Turtle riding (How far has the turtle brought you ?)

[danpatgal]

I've gone 7 miles on the turtle (and some of that uphill). That was not fun. I think others have driven until they've run out totally ... is there any other warning light? A slowing to no more than 30 mph or something else?

As others have said, having charging stations of any sort available in more places would make the i a breeze to use A LOT more. We took our i camping this past weekend. It was 28 miles one-way, but I didn't know how many hills or little trips we'd need while at the campsite, and it was hot (using AC would be nice). Well, it turned out to be quite hilly and we had to make a few trips down to a lake and hiking trail heads. I decided we needed to find charging overnight, or else we'd be stuck waiting at some even less convenient place on our way back and/or turtling for a few miles again.

There were outlets at the campsite bathrooms, but inside. I didn't bring an extra cord, so I had to get pretty close to the building (without blocking the door). I just backed the i right near the door, slipped the charger through a screen window (seemed almost designed for passing something through), and let it charge. I hadn't asked to do that and perhaps could have been cited (or asked not to do it by a ranger if they noticed) since it wasn't a parking spot nor probably a legitimate use of that electric service, but I started pretty late (10pm) and ended early (5am). But it was enough to give us 62 miles of range and we made it home with the AC blasting and 5 or 6 bars remaining.

(Incidentally, we could have paid a bit more to have an electric service camping site, but I'm cheap, those campsites are not generally set up for tents, and then I feel like I'm camping in RV city.)

 

[jaraczs]

There were outlets at the campsite bathrooms, but inside. I didn't bring an extra cord, so I had to get pretty close to the building (without blocking the door). I just backed the i right near the door, slipped the charger through a screen window (seemed almost designed for passing something through), and let it charge. I hadn't asked ...

I cannot resist to add my experience although this is off topic. Even though charging at night is generally cheaper, more environmental and does not stress the grid it is not necessarily safe. Charging at 120V in a park cost me nerves, time and money. I also had to park in an unusual way to reach the outlet. And because you need lots of time to charge at 120V, chances are that the police is checking their area and they will notice the incorrect parking, not the cord. In my case, they thought the vehicle was stolen and then abandoned there. Before I figured that, it was too late. They searched the motor vehicle records for owner's contact information and called me. If I told them that my vehicle was stolen, they would perhaps happily "return" the vehicle to me. But when they called me at 12:30 AM, I was not that creative. Anyway, one ticket for incorrect parking, one for theft of inmovable property. In both cases, appearance at the court was required. I have lost my respect for our police officers. With no prior experience at court ever in my life, I have lost both cases. Nobody cares that the building had no utility meter, that the "stolen" electricity is worth $0.40 if it was actually measured. I don't want to offend anyone in this forum but I think that police officers are typical ICE lovers.
So, the lesson is - do not charge at 120V in a park without permisson. And if you have to, get extension cord so that you can park normally. If you do not have it and get busted, remember that they have no intention to be understanding and you have to tell them that your vehicle was stolen. OK, I guess if you tell them the vehicle was not moving and plugging it was the only way to get it out, they should buy it, too.

 

[RobertC]

I cannot resist to add my experience although this is off topic. Even though charging at night is generally cheaper, more environmental and does not stress the grid it is not necessarily safe. Charging at 120V in a park cost me nerves, time and money. I also had to park in an unusual way to reach the outlet. And because you need lots of time to charge at 120V, chances are that the police is checking their area and they will notice the incorrect parking, not the cord. In my case, they thought the vehicle was stolen and then abandoned there. Before I figured that, it was too late. They searched the motor vehicle records for owner's contact information and called me. If I told them that my vehicle was stolen, they would perhaps happily "return" the vehicle to me. But when they called me at 12:30 AM, I was not that creative. Anyway, one ticket for incorrect parking, one for theft of inmovable property. In both cases, appearance at the court was required. I have lost my respect for our police officers. With no prior experience at court ever in my life, I have lost both cases. Nobody cares that the building had no utility meter, that the "stolen" electricity is worth $0.40 if it was actually measured. I don't want to offend anyone in this forum but I think that police officers are typical ICE lovers.
So, the lesson is - do not charge at 120V in a park without permisson. And if you have to, get extension cord so that you can park normally. If you do not have it and get busted, remember that they have no intention to be understanding and you have to tell them that your vehicle was stolen. OK, I guess if you tell them the vehicle was not moving and plugging it was the only way to get it out, they should buy it, too.

A cautionary tale indeed. The police could have easily given you a warning. The court could have easily dismissed the tickets. Government bureaucracy at it's worst.

 

[iMiEVNZ7]

Perhaps asking a community lawyer for advice of having the charges retrospectively dropped would be an idea, as the theft one would be a pain if applying for passport or a visa in some countries.

The Parking one is ok to agree to, but the theft of an immovable object is not, every one knows electricity moves, so that isn't the correct charge and so can be proberbly thrown out, but you could also apply for diversion and pay for the power, apologise and not do it again. that should remove the charge from the records maybe.

But in all cases, mitigating reasons can be accepted, so long as they are genuine, I wouldn't expect a ticket for parking over a driveway, if I was stopping a burgular from leaving or stopping to assist during an accident. Have had friends do that and no ticket.

To get around the out of power thing, we plan on doing like we do for the petrol cars we own, we keep a small petrol can in the car boot. The electric imiev we plan to have two to four 12 volt lithium ion batteries running a small 2 kw inverter and a modified 230 volt 7 amp esev so the power draw is only 1, 610 watts, and that should give us between two to four bars of recharge to get home.


If we are only 10 kms from home, then we need only 2 bars, or less so about an 75 minute recharge. Plug in and go get a bite to eat and good to go, assuming a bit of a walk to the macdonalds , grin.

I read in a few reviews that people when stuck, had asked the service station if they could plug into the outside outlet that ran the coke or pepsi vending machine and were told yes no problem.

 

[Don]

The Parking one is ok to agree to, but the theft of an immovable object is not, every one knows electricity moves, so that isn't the correct charge and so can be proberbly thrown out . . . . .

No, that's a correct charge. In legal-speak, theft of an immovable object is stealing something you can't carry off and take away from the premises . . . . like power from an outlet

Don

 

[iMiEVNZ7]

but he was removing the power to another location, hence it being movable, grin. But I understand if that is what it is called, that is what it is called, but sounds not as sensible as it should be.

There should be a better way to write the rule so it makes more sense .

We don't have the same law here so I hadn't herd of it before.

I guess it would be the same as someone turning on a light in a room without permission, use of electricity, without permission, would then be theft of an immovable item. :idea: :roll:

I think if someone did it here say at a parking building, they might at most get told off, but not fined, unless it was done a lot. I think it might be a product of having more people around in an area, I find the more people in a city, the more rules and conversly, the more country type areas have few rules and generally a more friendly bunch of people.

In Harry Potter I grinned when the grumpy lady came into the place as a temporary Headmistress and each day put up a new rule until the wall was covered.....The place had been run for hundreds of years with one simple rule, do good to others.

But I can see the point of not letting people pinch power for free, just the nomenclature sounded strange. I am not sure it is sensible to send someone to court for a 40 cent item, it would be like sending an employee to court for having two biscuits at a staff tea when only one was generally allowed or taking a pen home from work.

The principle being applied rather than good sense.

But I digress, back to imievs and running out of power. Best to simply ask for a use of a powerpoint or a tow. From a friend or friendly store. The poster might like to get the Plugshare app.

 

[jray3]

Okay, time for me to enter the confessional. In the final leg of a 109 mile journey yesterday, during most of which the i was fully loaded with coworkers on the highway (we trickle-charged during a 4 hr mtg and did one DCQC to 82% on the way home), I saw the turtle after repeated displays of exhuberant acceleration prior to dropping off my buddies.

The car made it home 5.6 miles (9 km) over rolling terrain at approx 45 mph with absolutely zero drama.

Fully recharged to 16 bars with 71 est. RR rather than the summertime typical 81 RR, hopefully due to most of the last 15 miles being suboptimized by the driver (though the last 5.6 were feather-footed).

 

[prodigious1one]

Hi,

I drove in turtle mode for the first time tonight.

I was so scared of the car stopping in the middle of the road. But I knew that there was a level 2 station nearby at a Walgreens store. I made it there and luckily even with --- on the range reader! I charged my I-MiEV using a SemaConnect charging station. They let you charge with a credit card/debit card without membership. I like that.

I was only four miles from home and so I let the car charge for about 25 minutes and then the car had ~7 to ~8 miles of range. I headed home and ended with 4 miles.

On turtle mode the car did go about a mile and didn't stall. I thought at 1 mile remaining of range that the car made a slight sound. It may have been the brake because I was in slow traffic and barely used the accelerator. I mostly used the break and let the car go on its own momentum. This worked out because the car didn't shut down.

The next time I'll plan this long distance trip better. I drove about 50 miles to a shopping outlet. I used more range than expected probably due to acceleration on the highway or stop and go traffic.

I learned a great lesson. I did use a free NRG EVGO charging station at the outlet, but I needed more than the minimal 50 miles of range in order to get home.

--- Aaron

 

[tigger19687]

Ohh I have not gotten there yet and hope not to.

" free NRG EVGO charging station"
WHAT IS THAT ? lol We don't have free ones anywhere around here.

 

[JoeS]

prodigious1one, glad you made it ok. On lengthy drives, especially, I find that having an inexpensive GPS or smartphone/tablet set to maps which gives the distance to your destination to be a great tool, as you can bounce the DTG (Distance To Go) against the i-MiEV's RR (Range Remaining) and know very early-on if you're in trouble. You can then adjust your driving to ensure arrival with no problem. I try to keep a cushion of RR>DTG of at least ten miles if possible (it's a 600' climb to my house at the end of every trip).

A brief discussion and picture here:
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=22700#p22700

In over 50,000 miles of driving i-MiEVs, I'm happy to still be able to say that I've never seen turtle.

 

[Zelenec]

I do it quite often. I noticed I can rely on the SOC Canion reading. The car stops at 0-2% SOC and every % equals at least 1 km of easy driving. It happened a few times I came to a planed charging station with less than 5% SOC w/o any range anxiety.

 

[Gyver]

In Hungary a car magazine has tried a low speed, public roads range test. In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqSLNX3WlHY you can clearly see the turtle showing up at 201.9 km and the battery drying out completely at 219.3 or 17.4 km at 30 km/h. They managed to drive 220 km (137 mi) on a public road at 40 km/h (25 mi/h).

______________
2012 white C-Zero
2008 Fiat Multipla "Natural-Power" (Compressed Natural Gas)

Driving CNG since 1-18-2000.
Driving electric since 12-22-2015.

 

[ICEM4N]

Hi.... Made 6km and still 5% soc... So, easy 12km on turtle.
And with normal speed, probably at 40km/h about 15km.

But pay attention, the battery degradation diminish the turtle percentage for a certain period.... Same car can make 10km, then can make 6km and after 20.000km again about 9km when the car recalculate battery status and degradation

 

[nikalex]

I've seen the turtle 3 times at least.
I estimate at least 10 to 12 kms range left as well. I say estimate because I haven't run out or gotten stranded (yet).
Yesterday it was a little cold out, below 0°C, and I had about 8kms to go to get home.

I went to zero bars out of the 16 with 5 kms RR.
At about 2 kms RR the turtle appeared.
At this time my heater turned off but the fan kept blowing.
Headlights were on.
And I travelled 8 kms at about 50 to 60 km/hr speed.
Not sure how much was left in the 'tank' after though.
Cheers, Roman

 

[genec]

If you ever have to maximize your mileage, go about 25 mph. It seems counterintuitive because you are spending more time on the road but in reality you will get the most miles out of the Miev. This could really save you if you get into a turtle situation.

 

[bobakka]

Do not trust the turtle!

When the car was new I once in a while run down to the turtle. One claimed that you could drive 12 km with the turtle as he had done. I had a maximum of 3 km.

Last fall I saw the turtle with still 2 bars left, but this time it was serious. The car run for only 50 m and was then absolutely dead! I think the "guessometer" had been tricked by the 12V being drained during a vacation periode.

 

[JoeS]

bobakka, I think we've pretty-well concluded that Mitsubishi's approach to battery capacity depletion has been simply to reduce the 'range' of turtle. Your supposition that having the 12v battery go down on your car may well have affected the RR calculation, hopefully temporarily.

Our RR, unlike the Leaf's GOM, is very predictable based on how the car was driven over the last 15 miles (24km), and I have yet to have it fail me. Perhaps Mitsubishi had further refined their internal parameters by the time they released the i-MiEV to the North American market?

I think it is out-of-the-ordinary to have turtle kick in while still showing two bars, and then have the car stop almost immediately.

 

[tigger19687]

Joe I was thinking that same thing.
I have gone down to 1 blinking bar and no turtle ever

 

[bobakka]

Before the 12V was emptied, I always trusted the bars and had no problem to run down to 1 or 0 bars or maybe even turtle. I never run out of power.

But then I had the situation described above with 2 bars and car stopped. I think it was something similar that Malm has described earlier in another post. I use Canion and I also measure with a kWh-meter how much power the car needs. It is no doubt that the calculation of SoC was wrong - showing much more than it actually was.

I was then at a battery-service in December where they claimed that the battery capacity was 39 Ah before the service and 45 Ah after the service. So appearently the SoC calculations are not stable.

I even saw the turtle now in January with 5 bars left, running 90 km/h and -20 Celsius. I turned off all heat, slowed down and managed to drive the 10 km to my work.

I do not know what is going on with my car now..

 

[Malm]

One day your car will recalibrate its capacity. You will have to wait. Then, each bar will value less energy.

Yes, I described that behavior earlier. With Canion you will be able to follow the cells voltage. It is safer at the moment then relaying on the reported SoC.

Be patient and one day it will fix itself. At least mine did it.