Cruise Control

Mitsubishi i-MiEV Forum

Help Support Mitsubishi i-MiEV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MrEd

New member
Joined
May 3, 2012
Messages
1
I will be driving my car mostly on lightly traveled roads with 45MPH speed limits. I use Cruise Control ALL the time to prevent leg cramps.
 
this part is for suggestions to Mishibishi correct?

I suggest that you have a CRUISE control in ALL EV's. It simply make s no sense without one especially fi you are doing ANY type of highway driving and most people in this world have to go on a thruway at some point or another. Sure one can get away with not driving on a major highway but inevitably you will have to go on one. Even when cruising the urban roads it would be nice to have CC on your EV.

I cannot believe that a CC cannot be done on an EV.
 
An EV can have cruise control, just the I doesn't. For example, the Volt has cruise, and I believe the LEAF does, as well. Also, some people have modified their RAV4-EV's to have cruise control.

Hopefully, it becomes an option soon.
 
I'm ambivalent about it. To me, with current EV technology the way it is, the EV is a city car and you generally don't use cruise control in the city. Even in the suburbs for grocery shopping and the like, cruise control is not practical. The Miev is not a long distance, highway cruising car.

Now what I would really like to see is a driver's door armrest that is comfortable.
 
cruise on a electric car is and would be really simple all you need to do is tell the drive to go in speed mode and hold that speed. Mitsu also does not put cruise on the EVO 8-9
 
Q.Can you confirm if this vehicle will have cruise control?
A.Yes, cruise control is standard on the Focus Electric.

Ok so the following EV have CC:

FORD FOCUS
NISSON LEAF
CHEVY VOLT
RAV4 ?

So should the MIEV or at least offer it as an OPTION for Gods sake. To jJpod I have to say this. A EV is BOTH a city and an Highway vehicle. You have to appeal to BOTH markets to sell as many EV's as possible as I see it. YOU may not need CC but I sure need it. I live on a dirt county road and 1.5 miles off a road that has a 65 MPH speed limit and I use that road often to get form point tA to point B. And I sure would like to use CC when I am driving 60 MPH in the "slow lane (right lane FYI) . I am 100% sure that many many people if they do not live IN TEH CITY and live on the outskirts or rural communities they sure could use CC> And besides CC I believe would make better use of the juice.

The only downside I see is perhaps you may not get more regenerative breaking out of your vehicle using CC. But what you may lose there you may gain in stopping and starting or trying to keep your speed constant. Maybe at the end of the day it would be a "wash".

Now the question I have is can one ADD a CC to ANY type of vehicle? IF so does anyone have any idea what an aftermarket CC install would cost? I cannot imagine that they would be cost "prohibitive. Anyone?
 
mievsolar, need to lighten up a wee bit. Some of us believe that a Cruise Control is a superfluous cost-adding feature quite unnecessary on a short-range vehicle like the iMiEV, especially since regeneration is integral to optimizing our EV driving experience. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it were offered as an option in the future. Don't forget, Mitsubishi worked hard just to get this car to market early, and a lot of refinements will come with time…

FWIW, maintaining a constant speed is not necessarily the most efficient way of driving the car when shooting for maximum range - separate discussion.

If I may suggest, you might contact some aftermarket Cruise Control manufacturers to see if anyone is interested in pursuing this with you.
 
Yes, I was about to add that CC can actually decrease your mileage as it keeps your speed up to the set limit even when going uphill. It is more efficient to let your speed slow while driving into a hill and then when you crest to get back up to desired speed, and maybe even go over a bit on the downside.

It is likely that for MM to get the 112mpge EPA rating, and to earn the distinction as the most efficient car, they left it out. They probably had to make some choices...A/C or CC, you decide.
 
mievsolar said:
Now the question I have is can one ADD a CC to ANY type of vehicle?
One can add an aftermarket CC to almost any vehicle with a mechanical accelerator. The CC just attaches to the mechanical linkage to control it like one's foot would control the accelerator pedal.

But for vehicles with electronic accelerators, there is no mechanical linkage to which to attach a traditional CC, so a CC would need to interface with the existing electronic accelerator system to control the accelerator signal that is normally controlled by the accelerator pedal.

Making the commitment to design a CC for a relatively low sales volume vehicle that can't be driven at constant highway speeds long enough for most owners to want a CC enough to buy one would seem to me to be very low on a potential CC manufacturer's priority list.
 
CC saves on energy. Period. Driving ones EV is all about how far one can go and CC should not be something not taken lightly and should come standard with all EV 's that are driven at FREEWAY speeds i.e over 60 MPH.

I have mentioned that LEAF, And many others have it already, so I do not think it is that hard to do at all. They have figured it out already and I am sure other car companies can too.

I sure would like to have one since I do a lot of 60-65 MPH driving because I cannot avoid it where I live. But hey if you do not want it fine. They should at least make it available as an option when you order an MIEV!
 
mievsolar said:
CC saves on energy. Period. Driving ones EV is all about how far one can go . . . .
That would be hypermiling your EV and anyone who is familiar with the concept would tell you that if you really want to go as far as you possibly can, you would NOT want a cruise control engaged as it's going to cost you range, plain and simple. As fjpod correctly points out, giving up a little speed going uphill and then getting it back going downhill is the correct way to get the best range - Use of a cruise control would cost you
.
I LOVE cruise control and have it in all my other cars and use it everyday - That said, I'm not disappointed that my i doesn't have it . . . . if it was a $250 option and I had the choice, I would probably pass - I really enjoy seeing how far I can make this car go, so I likely would seldom if ever use it

Don
 
I am talking about CC on relatively FLAT roads and not one hilly roads where you would want to drive differently.

I believe that CC does save over accelerating and decelerating in any type of vehicle. Why do almost every car come with CC now as standard equipment? To increase MPG in iCE cars and I wonder what Nisson and others believe about CC on their EV's?

Point me to some studies that show CC does NOT save on milage on EV's in most cases.
 
I do not believe that cruise control is "superfluous". It was one of two things I missed in my research on the car before I ordered it. I would not have ordered the car had I known that it did not have cruise control. There are two reasons for this.

I drive 10.8 miles one way to work. Three miles of the trip is on a road that is set up as a speed trap - every 1/2 mile it changes from 35 to 45 then back again. I always set cc on that road at 35 to avoid getting a speeding ticket. Now I'm have to pay very close attention and it is a winding hilly street so easy to forget to brake going down a hill where it switches to 35.

Also, I have neuropathy in my right foot - using cc when I can avoids my foot going numb.

All of this said - I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my i-Miev. The only three things I miss are cruise control, a spare tire, and an arm rest for my right arm. This is my second day of driving it and all I can say is - the I-MiEV rocks!
 
It'll be interesting to see if anyone ever makes an aftermarket one for these cars - I kinda doubt it, at least not for quite awhile

Aftermarket CC's in standard ICE cars are vacuum operated devices which mechanically pull on the bellcrank of the throttlebody with a cable to adjust the engine speed. On an EV, it would be a totally electronic device I would think, nothing mechanical about it, interconnected to the cars ECU for speed and throttle position which is not a mechanical device on these cars

I think we're going to have to wait awhile . . . . :(

Don
 
Don said:
It'll be interesting to see if anyone ever makes an aftermarket one for these cars - I kinda doubt it, at least not for quite awhile

Aftermarket CC's in standard ICE cars are vacuum operated devices which mechanically pull on the bellcrank of the throttlebody with a cable to adjust the engine speed. On an EV, it would be a totally electronic device I would think, nothing mechanical about it, interconnected to the cars ECU for speed and throttle position which is not a mechanical device on these cars

I think we're going to have to wait awhile . . . . :(

Don


This is the same reason it would have trivial for mitsubishi to have built CC into the car. The ECU electronically controls the speed of the car already. They'd have just needed to a switch telling the ECU to ignore the gas pedal and hold the current speed.
 
mievsolar said:
Point me to some studies that show CC does NOT save on milage on EV's in most cases.
This is from an article on 16 ways to save energy in EV and Hybrid vehicles
" 16. Do not use the cruise control!
It will try to maintain 70 mph, even uphill. On overpasses, I let my speed bleed off slightly on the way up, and regain it on the way down, while keeping the instant mpg needle in the sweet spot. Savings potential: 5% - 10%
"

For us, whatever we can do to keep the needle as far down in the green as possible is the way to get the greatest range - Cruise control doesn't take this basic concept into account at all. I'm not surprised to learn that this saves a minimum of 5% and perhaps as much as ten

Don
 
Don said:
mievsolar said:
Point me to some studies that show CC does NOT save on milage on EV's in most cases.
This is from an article on 16 ways to save energy in EV and Hybrid vehicles
" 16. Do not use the cruise control!
It will try to maintain 70 mph, even uphill. On overpasses, I let my speed bleed off slightly on the way up, and regain it on the way down, while keeping the instant mpg needle in the sweet spot. Savings potential: 5% - 10%
"

For us, whatever we can do to keep the needle as far down in the green as possible is the way to get the greatest range - Cruise control doesn't take this basic concept into account at all. I'm not surprised to learn that this saves a minimum of 5% and perhaps as much as ten

Don


This behavior is also potentially reckless if your in traffic. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/motorists-risking-their-lives/2008/08/23/1219262622708.html Just the URL I got form wiki about hypermiling safety.
 
Back
Top