Thanks for watching! Part 2 will be up later this week!

@AMPProf

Күн бұрын

100% there is a regenerative power sytem that uses Capacitors.. I.e it's Pure capacitance Gel

I love that you are so squished under the car your accent changes 😂

Hey Ben . . . Through the i-MiEV-owning grapevine, I've determined that you bought your used one within weeks of me getting mine back in late 2015. And we've got the same first name, which makes it all an even more cosmic coincidence. I started viewing your channel back when you had (or maybe you still have?) that Hurricane Sandy flood damaged one you took apart. So glad you're still keeping your meever fleet running! Mine is doing great. I let the local dealer do the real work for me and was I able to get them to install a factory warranty replacement for the old fading pack in 2020. Nothing else of consequence has really gone wrong with this car. I also baby the new battery . . . 20-80% charging regimes and doing it exclusively at home via 120V, while remembering not to plug in when we get into out brutal summer months here in Arizona. Also, no real rust to worry about down here, so it's easy to keep the car looking nice. Barring unforeseen events, I anticipate I'll still be driving mine 5 years from now. The little 16kWh battery has never been a deficit for my city driving chores, especially with the even lighter amount of driving I'm doing now in my retirement years. When you get time (or maybe already know about it,) check out the KZread channel by the Finnish mechanic, Dala. He's done some interesting i-MiEV repairs that's he's documented, as well as exploring new CCS-to-CHAdeMO adapters coming out of China recently. Be safe spinning those wrenches and we'll check out Part 2 of your battery swap when you post it.

@BenjaminNelsonX

3 ай бұрын

Hi Ben, thanks for watching! I'm pretty jealous of you getting the warranty battery pack! Since the iMiEV was really bleeding edge here in the States (it came out before the Leaf!) my concern was that there was no track record for the batteries. The Warranty really was part of why I bought the iMiEV instead of something else. Can't say I wasn't disappointed when I DIDN'T get a battery under warranty. If I had, this would become my daughter's first car! (You see her in a few of my videos, including the go-kart videos.) As it is, I don't know for sure how much longer I'll be driving this car. I DO have to say that for was it is, it's a GREAT car! It's more comfortable than our 2023 Chevy Bolt EV, has a better view of the road than our 2012 Volt (which no longer has heat!) it tows surprisingly well with the 2" hitch and everyone loves the cow paint job!

@benjaminnead8557

3 ай бұрын

@@BenjaminNelsonX I was able to borrow an i-MiEV here in Tucson for about a week back in late 2013 (a loan from a fellow member of the local EV club, who let me have it while he was out of town on vacation.) I knew then that I'd want one to replace the rather dilapidated 1995 Saturn I was still driving. Similarly, I also had week-long loans of the Leaf and Volt at around that same time. Both those cars were common in Tucson early on, as this was an official test market for the Leaf. Volts were available from the local dealerships as soon as they were introduced to the public in around late 2010. The i-MiEV was the one that could fit my daughter's hard shell cello case in the back while the three of us were seated. I couldn't even do that in the larger Leaf, with it's weirdly-designed rear luggage hold. The Volt was hilariously bad in that regard and I knew I didn't want to do the PHEV thing anyway. Both the Leaf and the Volt also had too many dashboard gadgets for my taste. The spartan Interior of the i-MiEV reminds me of the intelligently simple design and ergonomics of the 2007 Honda FIT my wife bought in 2012 . . . another car we still have today. Anything else in the way of a California EV compliance car of that period gave me no guarantee that a local dealer in deepest, darkest Arizona would be able to do warranty service on it. Here in Tucson, the local Mitsubishi dealer didn't have an authorized EV tech at the time and, if I needed anything done, I would have had to get the car to Phoenix, 100 miles away (still much better than a 400 mile journey to Los Angeles.) I did make a round trip journey to Phoenix in 2016 to get a Takata airbag recall done. I also bought the official factory service manual CD-ROM early on, just in case I would need to access a local independent mechanic if I didn't want to - or couldn't - travel. But the local dealership finally got a factory trained EV tech in 2018, when they started selling Outlander PHEVs. That fellow is still there and was the one who swapped my battery in 2020. I will say that the local dealership, Quebedeaux, was very helpful in making sure Mitsubishi gave me a new battery. Nice folks and I'm glad they're here when I need them. And, although I don't find myself hanging out there regularly, having the My i-MiEV Forum as an online resource has proven to be very valuable in getting to know these cars better. It takes a village. I would say that the i-MiEV is the Rodney Dangerfield of EVs: no respect. Which is really a pity. Mitsubishi did little to defend themselves to unwarranted bad i-MiEV reviews in the fossil-fueled automotive press early on and one felt they gave up the ghost in trying to market the car effectively in North America almost as soon as it got here. Consider yourself fortunate that you've got one of those tow bars. I'm on the hunt for one of those, but will probably have to get a custom made one eventually. The cow paint scheme is classic, by the way.

@waynne2425

3 ай бұрын

iMiev.. slightly funny looking, great car. Best thing about it is you get in and drive it. It's drives so well and "normal" you don't even think about it being electric or not. It just works.

@BenjaminNelsonX

3 ай бұрын

Yes, exactly! It's "just a car" but in the best way possible. One time, my father borrowed the car when I wasn't around. He simply got in and drove. Nothing weird about it. No special directions needed. Just turn the key and go.

@BenjaminNelsonX

3 ай бұрын

I love hearing your story. For anyone interested in the cow spot paint job, there's a reason for it. Short story is that it was an available FACTORY GRAPHICS PACKAGE in Japan. The longer story can be found here: 300mpg.org/2018/06/06/the-cow-car-rides-again/

1:44 Ouch! That delta-voltage looks pretty bad. Those LEV50 cells are generally lousy and these here at least 10 pcs. are toast. You may consider keeping the good ones for changing possible future sigle bad cells in the "new" pack from the salvage iMiev. 🤔

The replacement battery pack from a salvage vehicle will enable a quick swap. In Europe, very few triplets were sold after 2012, so the battery cells are are getting very old. Sadly, the original cell supplier has not developed replacement cells with a higher energy density. There is one CATL cell that is almost the same size, just a fraction larger. Those modern CATL cells will increase battery pack capacity to about 30kWh. Do you plan to open up your old battery pack and replace some or all of the cells? 🤔

@Stefan_Dahn

3 ай бұрын

What is the type of the CATL cells and where to buy? 🤔

The steel underneath the car has survived surprisingly well. The cost savings of an EV mount up as the years go by, so it will be worthwhile applying rust protection whilst you have access. ☮️

@bobdionne4625

3 ай бұрын

Agreed! Great video btw! As you know. I got a Leaf with the intention of swapping the battery in a year or two. This level of detail and tool usage is very informative.

Wow -- Your Video is just excellent, as it shows ALL steps necessary. I want to add, that the Android device to connect to the OBD MX has to be relatively old. Thanks for showing us how to get the Battery out - mine is a Citroën C-Zero with 80 cells.

Oil the underside of your vehicles to prevent rust. I put clean wheel bearing grease on brake and fuel lines

Thanks Ben....very informative

Great video. Trying to find a video on if it's possible to sleep inside a miev😅. Can you put down the front passenger seat and fit a small mattress?

Looking forward to it. The more I look at them, the more I’d rather do a conversion vs rebuilding a pack. Factory built EVs are pretty much stuck with the chemistry they come with and usually cell form factor. I want something I can swap out for lifepo4 or maybe newer chemistries in the future.

Kudos to you Ben!

It is clear - even from the early stage of 01:51 - that the issue is not the whole pack but that just Cell 64 is significantly lower in voltage than the others. This is what is causing your turtle and simply replacing that one cell would stop turtle. Of course, you would still be left with an overall aged pack but short of trying the replacement of the one cell and testing the pack (either using a diagnostic procedure or range test) you have no way of knowing if the 'new' pack is going to be any better than the old with 64 replaced!

Nice! Great work!

So do those terminals become safe when you pull the disconnect under the driver's seat? Or is there some other trick to not getting zapped by the high voltage?

The third triplet was badged as a Citroen C Zero 2:36 ☮️

@BenjaminNelsonX

3 ай бұрын

Yeah, I feel silly for not being able to remember it while I was doing the video!

@Mladjasmilic

3 ай бұрын

Renault it Zoe or Twizzy. Or from the same era, Fluence EV.

love to see ur videos

Great video Ben. Since I don’t own a i-MiEV, it would be good to here about the Current mileage on the Odometer Original range Current range I remember our two cars meeting at the MREA energy fair almost 5 years ago. I drive about 100 miles a day on my 2018 Model 3 and just this weekend, I used the same OBDII reader “OBDLink MX+” and the “ScanMyTesla” app to check the stats on the battery last weekend. 4,416 cells 21mm x 70mm 46 “Bricks” 0.002 V differential new 0.004 V differential today 151,321 miles 909 charge cycles 68.0 kW-hr pack 77.8 kW-hr new 12.6% battery degradation 277 mile range current 310 mile range new 10.6% range loss The reason the range loss is less than the battery loss, is because Tesla did some over the air updates that increased the efficiency and power the first couple of years. I did a range test last year at 120K just out of warranty. A non-stop from Upper Michigan to Chicago and a little more until I hit 0% while driving normally like everyone else at or above the speed limit of mostly 70 mph. The Tesla did 340 miles and still had the reserve of 3kW-hr which would have been another 15 miles. Since the car has such a long range I have only gone to 0% maybe 3 times. Also I have only charged to 100% a dozen times out of the 909 charges for various reasons. I normally charge to 80% to 90%, because that is all I need and that is what experts and Tesla recommend for better battery life.

usually in so rusty places (due to snow or by the sea I suppose) the degradation could be also due to rust inside the battery busbars because the battery is air cooled and not waterproof case.

I don't know why I didn't think about it before, but I want to build an EV go cart / mobility scooter. I should definitely be picking your brain for advice! See, my not asking is proof of my faulty thinking!

Hi thanks for this video. What is the year of production of the donor car? Is it the same year 2012

@BenjaminNelsonX

15 күн бұрын

Yes, they are both 2012 model year cars.

@2:40 It would have been helpful to see the battery after balance charging and then show what the cells are doing under acceleration (identifying high IR cells) and also the cell voltages as the SOC decreases (finding low capacity cells). I assume this doesn’t have full scale active balancing so it means it probably only balances at 100% when the charger is left plugged in. Your app probably doesn’t show the balancing but only the effect. Cell 65 definitely seems weak but cant gauge it without starting from balanced pack at 100%. Hopefully we get to see the balance charge of the new battery and a IR and capacity test.

man i hope you use a wire brush on that frame and some paint ( maybe some krown oil spay while your at it )

Hi sir . Ive got an 2015 mod witch got a fault code saying BMU fault , ive been told that to reach bmu module I need to remove car drive battery , do you know if that is right . Turtle symbol when driving .

Can you replace the battery with a gas generator?

Nice work! I think your Bolt is actually 65 kWhs, I could be wrong.

@BenjaminNelsonX

3 ай бұрын

Doh! I misspoke! Yes, Chevy calls it a 65kWh pack. My point was simply the drastic changes in battery pack size since the Mitsubishi iMiEV came out, but thanks for the correction!

0.055 v just doesn't seem that critical on the surface of it. Some of these cells must have a very high internal resistance.

@BenjaminNelsonX

3 ай бұрын

Yeah, that doesn't seem huge, but I think the big thing to remember is that lithium cells have a very FLAT discharge. The voltage stays relatively steady as the battery discharges, and then there's a large voltage drop as the pack gets to empty. Even a small difference in voltage can represent a pretty good size difference in CAPACITY. And since the battery is only as good as the worse cell in the series, that means the entire pack gets dragged down.

Cool beans 😊. Woohoo.

✌

For anyone curious why this car has cow spots, check out: 300mpg.org/2018/06/06/the-cow-car-rides-again/

I'm surprised the original battery lasted 12 years.

@skyfreakwi

3 ай бұрын

Psshht... 12 years...? I guess that is a long time. But if ever i figured there was someone that could/would get 12+ years out of a 2012 battery it would be you. Your EV skills are seriously legit! Always thought so, good luck, God bless!

@jongoode3296

3 ай бұрын

I'm on the 11th year of my LEAF battery. I did have a similar issue of the turtle mode popping up on a full charge this winter, but it was only when it -20F outside during a polar vortex. Hasn't happened again at warmer temps, so hopefully I've still got a couple more years on this pack. I was surprised that Ben's battery was bad at just 80k miles, but I suppose mileage wise, that'd be almost 1300 cycles on that battery.