First long #journey . 907km in 3 days (436+43+428)
Selling the car must be considered!
The most problematic and upsetting things about doing a long journey in this car is the driver seat, does NOT offer sufficient lumbar support. I had to do kineto-therapy against back pains after this journey, it was that bad. My old car, a RENAULT DUSTER 2017 had better chairs for longer journeys than this and those seats were rubbish and considered to be the worst in the industry, made especially for the cheapest SUV in the world. Now, you can imagine how bad the Mitsubishi chair is on a long road. Short trips are OK, but in NO circumstance you should do more then 2-3h in the driver seat.
Second most irritating issue on long journeys are the parking sensors, that are activated by other cars blind spot monitoring systems. During normal driving 90km/h if someone overtakes you, and if that car has BSW your front parking sensor may start beeping letting you know that you are close to the “invisible” car in front.
I had to disable them, so I can concentrate on driving the car. Mitsubishi some logic on your front sensors is needed, if the car is traveling with more than 35km/h disable beeps.
Third, a normal cabin aircraft bag 60 cm x 45 cm x 25 cm does not fit in the trunk under the soft cover (the 45cm side upright). Maximum height of the trunk space under the soft retractable cover is 43cm. 43cm near the back seat, not near the tail gate where is 47cm. The trunk has a slope, this is what tricked me when I bought the car, all black on black I did not see the small slope and I did not think to measure it near the bench. So only very small height items can stay covered in the trunk.
Day 1: 436km in 10 hours (9AM-7PM) temperature 19-22 degrees Celsius
I started the journey with a full charge and with more than 14l of fuel in the tank. First part of the trip was 110km on highway. I started using ECO mode with EV only at a speed of 90km/h with NO AC to maximize the EV range in the battery. After 40km the battery was empty and gas engine started. For the rest of the 70km I drove with 120km/h, AC ON, Cruise control ON, ECO mode ON and short burst of Sport mode, so I will be able to overtake other cars. Sport mode was NEEDED because the car is very slowly; much slower even in Sport mode then my 2.0 liters gas Duster. If the car was a little bit slower in EV Eco mode it would have traveled back in time, not moved with time in the same direction. In EV ECO mode I think I paddle faster on my bike then the car accelerates. During the period the engine was ON the car put some energy into the battery, I noticed that at around 5km on ICE it would charge the battery with 8km of EV range. Remember this information, is important. Running on ICE it produced close to 5kW of energy. From the 70km, 43km where made with ICE and 27 on EV. Many more short start and stops of the engine.
I arrived at the first stop (a charging station) with fuel tank almost empty and the History information showing an average fuel consumption of 18l / 100km and energy consummation of 18,2 kWh / 100km. I NEVER had an engine so bad that would use 18l / 100km; my 2.0 liter GAS Duster would use 8l / 100km at 120km/h. At 18l / 100km the car real range using a full gas tank (45l) and no additional charging from charge station at 120km /h is only 250km MAX, last 30km from the 250 ones, with “Refuel” warning ON all the time. “Good” think taking into account the very bad driving seat.
I was clearly not on the right path, it was clear that a different driving technique was needed, so I start looking for the QUICK Charging station, it was out of service! One of 2 in the town, the other one was not yet in service! I decided to fuel ASAP. I put into the tank 30l of fuel. I reset everything and started the next leg of the journey that was 70km. All the driving done from now on was done at a speed of 90km/h max, NO AC, ECO Mode ON all the time, NO Normal and definitely NO SPORT, minimal overtake (1-2 cars for the next 800km). This leg of the journey was done mostly using gas. At 90km/h the ICE produced around 2.5kW of energy. I used the charge button to force the car store as much energy as possible in the battery. From the 70km first 47km where made with ICE and CHARGE button ON and the last 24 on EV.
In the next town I used the Quick charge station. This first quick charge put into the battery around 23km of real world range in 15-20 minutes, because the battery is at 33% capacity when is TOTALLY empty and the system only charges to 80% capacity (70% SOC). In reality you will never reach the quick charge station with 30% battery capacity, more likely with 40-45% because you will probably have a couple of EV miles left because of the ICE kicking in all the time. This means that in real world driving scenario you will add a maximum of 15-16 km of real world driving. Adding to this calculation the fact that you will probably have to make a denture, couple of km 3-4 one way and 3-4 km the other way to reach the Quick charge stations that are only located in the city and not on highway stops you will end up with 7-8km after a 30 minutes wait. This 7-8 km you will use it, in less the 5 minutes.
Quick charge uses less then half of the battery!
In conclusion you & I will be able to charge with a maximum 5.2 - 6,7kW of energy the battery at a speed of maximum 12 - 16kWh (although the station is able to charge at 50kWh) because of the small battery, adding a maximum of 23km (for a new battery) that counts only for 7-8km on the initial planned road in as much as 30-40 minutes.
L2 charging takes forever!
Third Quick charge pit stop (the only one in town) was used by another EV although I made the reservation on PlugShare app. Using the 240V 22KW 3 phase normal charging is NO option for the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV because the on board charger is only 3,3kW which means it will take more than 3.5 hours and close to 4 hours to charge the car (when the battery is close to full the charge rate will slow significantly… cell balancing and so on…). On this leg of the journey 165km the ICE consumed 10.5l /100km (105 km on gas only). I noticed that if you continuously use the charge button, the charge rate of the battery will decrease, first charge was 50km ICE for 21km EV, second charge for 45km only 11km EV, last 8 km managed by the car. Charge button is not so good for the life of the battery is like multiple quick charges.
Last 2 pit stops had wording Quick charging stations. This part of the trip was around 90km long and although I stayed up to 40 minutes to charge at the last location because of the charge speed decreasing #Rapidgate because of too much quick charging the car, I was able to average 4.1l / 100km with EV km taken into account for this 90km. This part of the trip was via multiple villages with 50km speed restrictions that I respected. ICE consumption was 9.5l / 100 km. This is the lowest I could get it ever, and still falls way short of 2l / 100km NEDC (57EV range) = 4,6l / 100km ICE.
Total journey time was 10 hours for 436km!
Day 2: 43km local driving
Day 3: 428km in 10 hours (10AM-8PM)
On the way back I left with a full battery charge and I Quick charged the car 5 times at all quick charging stations and used the charge button as I noticed that is more efficient this way. Be aware multiple quick charging destroys your battery ability to hold a charge. I did not start the monitoring app on the way back as it was too much of a hassle because of so many stops. I did not keep track of fuel economy, but I needed to add additional fuel in the tank (12.5l). I reached the destination with around 6l of fuel in the tank. 5.8l/100km (ICE 11.2l /100km).
Conclusion of the journey: more than 10km EV range lost and 0,3 Ah battery capacity in a 907km trip.
In a future road trips, I will try another tactic; I will not abuse the battery so much to be as green as possible. I will switch from current way of using the battery 25%-100% that degrades the battery the most to a 45%-75% that is the second best scenario for the battery after 65%-75% usage. This should increase the battery life with around 50%. More details on Li-Ion battery life here. This switch will mean that I will have to start charging the battery when it still has some range left (10-11km) – 45% battery capacity - 25% SOC or 4 bars on the GOM battery display, until it reaches 28-32km – 75% battery capacity - 65% SOC or 12 bars on the GOM battery display unit.
In Mitsubishi language:
30% battery capacity is 0% SOC
45% battery capacity is 20% SOC
50% battery capacity is 30% SOC
55% battery capacity is 35% SOC
60% battery capacity is 45% SOC
65% battery capacity is 50% SOC
70% battery capacity is 55% SOC
75% battery capacity is 65% SOC
80% battery capacity is 70% SOC
85% battery capacity is 79% SOC
90% battery capacity is 87% SOC
95% battery capacity is 93% SOC
This is around 18km of EV range for a car that was designed primarily to be an EV (the ICE will not drive the wheals until over 130km/h)
Trips cost...
Total price: 250 lei (52.6 Euro) in gas added during trip + 46 lei (9.7 Euro) (difference in gas in the tank between start and finish) + 35 lei (7.4 Euro) (L2 charging) + 96 lei (20.2 Euro) (L3/Quick charging). Total 427 lei (90 Euro). On this journey I had free vouchers for the quick charging so the total played was 331 lei (70 Euro) for 907km.
36.5 lei (7.7 Euro) / 100km => 36.5 bani (7.7 cents) / km – 10 hours, NO AC & max speed: 90km/h
If I had played for L3 charges the cost would have been: 47.1 bani (9.9 cents) / km – 10 hours, NO AC & max speed: 90km/h
My old 2.0 l gas Duster had a cost of 46 bani (9.7 cents) / km – 5 hours, AC ON & max speed: 120km/h
NOT much of a saving or even more costly for twice as long, no AC and 1/3 slower speeds.
If you will use the car only for long journeys and you have to pay for the cost of quick charging you will NEVER recuperate the money for the cost of the battery version Outlander. If you will use the car in the city than you are better with a bus, both have the same dimensions.
Assuming that electricity from quick charging will always be free and will come from nowhere and no one will pay for it than at current prices you will break even for your PHEV Outlander battery in 773,694.7 km. In my case over 96 years of driving it (I travel maximum of 8000km / year). Or 1,999,103.2 km in case you want to break even for the whole car, or 249 years 10 months 19 days 15 hours 25 minutes and 20 seconds (at 8000km / year). How many km do you travel in a year?
Q: It will take you less than a century of driving to break even for the car?
R: Only if you drive more than 20000 km / year for 100 years! Good luck!
My current model Outlander PHEV is 39,972 Euro, same model ICE only Outlander is 24,502 Euro. Difference in price is 15,470 Euro or 73501 lei. Economy over my old gas only car is 2 Euro (9.5 lei) / 100km.
These values may be different if your old gas only car uses more gas per 100km, but the electricity is not free so you will NEVER pay for the Outlander price difference.
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