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I just got MIMA installed - many thanks to highwater and Mike.

Practly everyone overuses the Assist/Charge in the beginning (the largest toggle)

Reminds me of a story about the software developer of Spectrum Holobyte's F16 Falcon flight simulator. This classic game has been out for years and the programmers when to great pains to make it realistic....they even flew in a real F16 to compare the feel with their simulator.

This is natural, but the joystick play in the game had too much play - joystick movements in the real figher are slight. It was not too long before the F16 pilot had to take control from a developer when he grossly overturned the F16. :eek: Of course the software was rewritten to reflect the economy of joystick motion.


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Definitely a novice at MIMA but what little I already know:

For every second using the Assist, it takes two seconds to recover to the same SoC.
You can do heavy regenerative braking at lower speeds, but you can feel the braking and if you are careless, lug the engine.
Have to be careful at low speeds with Assist and Charging - you can bolt and lug just like learning to drive a manual shifter the 1st time.
I have not covered the back yet, but I hear the loud clunk of relays and fans supporting the hybrid battery and have a new respect for that hardware (IMA).

I probably don't use MIMA the way Mike envisioned it being used, but one of the wonderful things about his design is that it can be used many different ways.

Here is what I do:
(1) I almost never add in assist. Plus I try to avoid the factory assist whenever I can but accept that level when I must. I run it with neither the MIMA mode nor the PIMA mode on, so that the factory mode gives me background charging all the time and I don't have to remember to set that.
(2) When coming to a necessary stop I use the joystick to add in regen. From higher speeds, I put it in 4th gear to avoid engine braking (Mike suggested this), often downshifting to third or second as I lose speed. [edit: as I understand it, when your foot is off the gas you are in DFCO so the car is using no gas while you are doing this regen - sort of the equivalent of regen-ing while doing a FAS] I don't believe this activates brake lights so be careful if you have someone on your tail.
(3) On a downhill that isn't steep enough to glide down, I either:
(a) Break it down into a series of P&G's (NICE-ON) - this doesn't work so well for me
(b) Drive down it in 5th on VERY light throttle, hopefully at 100-150mpg
(c) If the battery needs regen, drive down it in 5th, adding regen to keep the mpg at 100 and the speed wherever I want it to be (usually 50mph) - I did this this morning. This sacrifices some mpg for battery charge.
(4) Use the FAS option a LOT, mainly on steeper downhills. The only problem with this is that I spend so much time coasting ICE-OFF that I suspect that the electric steering runs the battery down (Mike warned me about this).

Others probably use MIMA differently but on my particular commute this is where I've gotten so far, and it's consistently yielding 96-101mpg daily. Only thing I'm not happy about is that the battery stays in the midrange and I'd prefer to have it end up nearer the top when I get home. Still learning!

HTH, John