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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg Start ups continue to challenge car makers to embrace the benefits of PHEVs. (http://www.examiner.com/x-7226-Electric-Car-Examiner~y2009m8d19-Plug-in-hybrid-kits-coming-to-the-market)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Hymotion_PHEV.jpgNicolas Zart - EXAMINER (http://www.examiner.com) - August 19, 2009

The more we can avoid oil usage, the better! --Ed.

Enginer has an affordable solution for those eager to convert their hybrids, HEV into a plug-in hybrid, PHEV. If the price is right, it can make sense.

The gist is that more and more, kits designed to help you squeeze more mileage from your HEVs are being made available. Startups are filling the hybrid-to-plug-in-hybrid car segment market gap with ingenious PHEV conversion kits. While some will take a few years to recoup on the initial investment, others offer less performance at a more affordable price. Enginer, a joint ventured with Australian-Chinese owned manufacturers, developed a PHEV kit that should make your vehicle achieve 100 miles per gallons, MPG. Enginer, whom we met at the Plug In 2009 are converting hybrids by adding extra batteries to increase the vehicle's range.

Technically Speaking. The company has two battery packs to chose ranging from a 2 kWh one at $1995 and a 4 kWh for $2995. The kits can be installed by individuals but I HIGHLY recommend having a professional take care of it. Did I make the point clear? According to the website, the system can be installed by a professional in 2-4 hours.

Jack Chen, President of Automation Tech, is Enginer’s exclusive distributor and says he can boost the Prius’ fuel efficiency by 40-100% with his product. Enginer's system looks unobtrusive and does not alter the original car's controls. One point of... http://www.examiner.com/x-7226-Electric-Car-Examiner~y2009m8d19-Plug-in-hybrid-kits-coming-to-the-market

Holy Cow! A 2K PHEV kit. That is insane. Need to find some certified installers ;). Not fired up about clamping that high volt lead!

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They are going to have the kit for the Insight 1 soon and possibly the HCHI.

I didn't see whether or not the pricing was after the available tax credit. Nonetheless that is better than any turbo kit I've seen! Talk about improving efficiency :).

The price is before the tax credit.

So far I'm not impressed from what people are reporting. That could change when new data comes in.

I called the US distributor. Here's the breakdown:

The 2 KWh kit is available for:

Price $1995
Installation $500
Shipping $95
Fee to dispatch installer to your local $250
Group buy discount (100 units) $500 / per unit.


So... Installed in the buyer's zip = $2840. If you travel to the seller's zip (48084) you can get it for of $2495 by saving on dispatch and shipping costs.

For the 4 KWh pack, just add $999 to the pack price above. Shipping and installation is the same.

The price per KWh installed is pretty good ($874).

Ohh but if we weren't in a job crunching recession, I might put it on my Christmas list.

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So a group buy with one professional installation, notes taken which is then given to the 99other purchasers for self installation...sounds like a steal.

The Enginer PHEV 4 KW Kit is $3494 installed (if you travel to them). That's $874 per KWh with a 2 yr wrty.

The Hymotion PHEV 5 KW Kit is $10,395 installed. That's $2079 per KWh with a 3 yr wrty.

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They are going to have the kit for the Insight 1 soon and possibly the HCHI.

I'm not convinced that would do any good... unless they have a way to get the car to assist while staying in lean burn?

I'm not convinced that would do any good... unless they have a way to get the car to assist while staying in lean burn?

If you have a really high SOC will it start assisting to burn off the extra charge?

What this pack is doing is charging the stock battery so the Prius has a SOC of 70%-80%. When the SOC gets that high the Prius starts to use more of the battery to get its self down to its happy SOC of 60%.

Wow... CMPG has "slashdotted" Examiner.com ;-)

here's a google cache copy while the site is down.

http://google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.examiner.com/x-7226-Electric-Car-Examiner~y2009m8d19-Plug-in-hybrid-kits-coming-to-the-market

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From their FAQ at: http://www.enginer.us/faq/ in regards to the Insight.


14. How is this kit comparing to calcars' design?
This is an improved and simplified method upon calcars' in the way it is connected and releasing energy. The PHEV battery pack doesn't connect to stock pack directly. It uses customized isolated DC/DC converter to control the release of energy to the inverter and stock battery. It is charging and assisting stock battery during driving (only when engine ready on). It doesn't have impressive 100 MPG performance as calcars' in short range. But over 20 miles (2KW) and 40 miles (4KW), it is equivalent to calcars'. The controlled release of energy (constant output current ~10A and set max voltage range 320V for Prius-I, 240V for Prius-II) results in lower power requirements for all components and longer battery life. This design reduces cost dramatically. We also eliminate the needs for CAN View and other control circuit boards so that the same design can be easily ported to other hybrid vehicle like Ford Escape, Fusion or Honda Insight.It mentions that the simplified design allows it to work with other vehicles, not that it does per se.

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If you have a really high SOC will it start assisting to burn off the extra charge?

What this pack is doing is charging the stock battery so the Prius has a SOC of 70%-80%. When the SOC gets that high the Prius starts to use more of the battery to get its self down to its happy SOC of 60%.

Jay, I've seen a very limited version of this with my old pack but not with the replacement. The Honda hybrids don't manage SoC nearly as aggressively as Toyota and Ford offerings do -- you typically only get assist if you've already run the engine down to a less efficient state and still need more torque.

Cant you use MIMA to get more assist at highway speeds? If so MIMA and the extra battery pack should get you well above 100MPG pretty easy as long as you don't draw down the stock pack.

Holy Cow! A 2K PHEV kit. That is insane. Need to find some certified installers ;). Not fired up about clamping that high volt lead!

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Installation is fairly easy, it only involves 5 wires. The high volt leads cannot be accessed until you pull the service plug. Once you pull the plug, the high volts go away. The batteries are 48V max, which is safe. If you feel like driving to Raleigh, I will help you with the install, no charge.

Hi, Jay -- it is true that you'd be able to combine MIMA with a booster pack to do what you like manually. It won't be much use to most people though because they don't have that system.

Last I checked MIMA was a $1000.00 add on with very involved installation tasks requiring substantial disassembly of the vehicle. For users who already have the system hooking up the battery would probably be pretty straight forward.

I wonder if both the regen and assist gauges would light when using it??

Installation is fairly easy, it only involves 5 wires. The high volt leads cannot be accessed until you pull the service plug. Once you pull the plug, the high volts go away. The batteries are 48V max, which is safe. If you feel like driving to Raleigh, I will help you with the install, no charge.Dude! that's a deal! I've just vowed not to get this till we get some debt off the plate and change jobs. But I like to Lego-like mentality of this kit.

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But I like to Lego-like mentality of this kit.

You have nailed it! I have been saying that the approach of this solution is eloquent. Now I can use your Lego-like reference. People will understand that.

OK... so I've dug through PC and CMPG and come up with the software guy's question deck. Feel free to answer as many or few questions as you wish...
I looked at the manual and they install a little switch. What does it do? Looked like it was an EV switch, but the other docs imply that it somehow turns the curcuit for the AUX pack on or off. Does it do either of these, or both of these? Can you turn the AUX pack off or is it always feeding into the OEM pack?
I'm a bit concerned about the thermals on the OEM pack with the AUX pack installed. This summer I had my trunk tray full of miscellaneous junk. I noticed on a number of occasions my pack would go all thermal on me and kick on the little fan in the back seat. Easy to hear in a glide. So what I figured out was that the junk in my trunk tray was acting as a heat sink. Since my car in Texas in the sun will hit an internal temperature of 130+ on most days, anything other than air sitting over my spare will thermally transfer as heat down into the OEM pack. My solution was to remove my trunk tray and tray cover for a few days. Worked great. So now the thought of putting another heat sink back in that cavity fills me with a bit of concern, not so much for the AUX pack, but rather for the OEM pack. Having a steal box heated to 130F will surely be enough to through the OEM pack into it's thermal spiral. When it goes all thermal, there is very little EV and other goodness since that is only allowed when the OEM pack is "healthy". So A bit of concern from the Texans here I guess.
Next question is on regen. If the AUX pack holds the OEM pack at 80% SOC, what happens when I hit my 1 mile regen off the freeway. Will the OEM pack eventually hit MAX_SOC and start ditching regen? What does the OEM pack do when a regen is directed to an overcharged pack?
On to the DC/DC inverter. Does it regulate the bleed off of the AUX pack or is it simply always dumping 10A down towards the OEM pack? Will it stop if it senses the OEM pack is topped off, or will it overfill the glass?
On to balancing. I understand that the balancers are like bleed off pressure valves. If the SOC of one of the bundles of cells is too high it will just bleed that charge off. So... Why? Why do you need your cells to have like SOC? And what kind of efficiency hit does this constant 0.3 AMP bleed per balancer really mean to the efficiency. If my math is right, on a 4 KWh pack, your bleeding 1.2 AMP (.3*4) or 30Wh in balancing. OK so maybe 0.75% being spent in balancing is OK, but what if my math is wrong. Is it more?
Next question is on I/O. What type of control surface do you have on the Inverter and balancers (or other components). Can the software guy hook up a serial or USB cable to these components to get real time data. Does it already have software with APIs to roll your own AUX pack status monitor? How do you know what the SOC of your AUX pack is while your in the pilot's seat?
Another question about the Inverters/Balancers. From what I read on the spec of the 3.2V cell, the manufacturer recommends DoD (depth of discharge) of no greater than 66%. Is that configurable in the Inverter to cut off at a SOC of 33% or below? Can the same be done for the charger. Can you set it to stop drawing AC power from the wall once the pack hits 80% SoC?
Another SOC question. If I set the SoC and DoD to keep the SOC between 80% and 33% on the AUX pack, my math yields a operation range of 1.925 KWh using the 3.2V quote per cell. Using the 48V nominal figure and including the 30Wh balancing load that comes down to 1.774 KWh. Is that operation range too conservative, or is the Enginer documentation too aggressive?
Final question. Will this mess up my super clean OEM EV button install. I don't like thier silly little switch. I think Jay can do WAAAYYY better!
OK... last last question. Does anyone know of a city with a participially health PHEV conversion credit. I thought I heard Marc say that Austin was looking at a 7k credit, but surely that fell through. Any other known state, or city PHEV conversion credits, since 10% IRS credit is tantamount to 0%. I'm grateful I'm not broke, but being not broke, makes most IRS credits I apply for unattainable. State and municipal credits on the other hand have never been a problem.As a final thought, I don't share most of the concerns I've seen elsewhere (not here) about what the potential benefit will be. It's just like the question about the EV button. In the right hands on the right commute the EV button alone can boost MPG by 10-20%, and in the wrong hands it can REDUCE mpg by 5-10%. Same goes here. If you can tailor your drive to use the AUX pack correctly I think you can easily get a 70%-80% boost on MPG (not MPGe) given the correct commute, but in the wrong hands and wrong route the difference may indeed be negligible.

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Anyone considering the Enginer kit definitely must must must go
read the ENTIRETY of the long-running Priuschat thread (http://priuschat.com/forums/phev/62376-e.html) on the
subject, to see the litany of problems people are having getting
this thing going [not the least of which is Jack getting banned
from PC for a while because of some cultural preconceptions on
what sort of interaction with forum members is permissible.
.
To their credit, the group over there, whether they're shills or
not, is sticking it out and working through the problems and
Jack seems fairly responsive in trying to get everyone's systems
working correctly. But please, before anyone jumps at this
thing get the big picture on what's going on with it first.
You might want to wait a bit until things are a little better
debugged and reliable, unless you want to join the beta party.
.
As I mentioned before, it *is* nice that someone's figured out
how much current you can inject into the car such that it *knows*
about it, and not cause errors. This is way better than trying
to end-run around the battery management and then lie to the car
about what's going on.
.
_H*

OK... so I've dug through PC and CMPG and come up with the software guy's question deck. Feel free to answer as many or few questions as you wish...
I looked at the manual and they install a little switch. What does it do? Looked like it was an EV switch, but the other docs imply that it somehow turns the curcuit for the AUX pack on or off. Does it do either of these, or both of these? Can you turn the AUX pack off or is it always feeding into the OEM pack?
The switch turns the system on and off and doubles as the EV button. You can keep your existing EV switch. I will be keeping mine.


I'm a bit concerned about the thermals on the OEM pack with the AUX pack installed. This summer I had my trunk tray full of miscellaneous junk. I noticed on a number of occasions my pack would go all thermal on me and kick on the little fan in the back seat. Easy to hear in a glide. So what I figured out was that the junk in my trunk tray was acting as a heat sink. Since my car in Texas in the sun will hit an internal temperature of 130+ on most days, anything other than air sitting over my spare will thermally transfer as heat down into the OEM pack. My solution was to remove my trunk tray and tray cover for a few days. Worked great. So now the thought of putting another heat sink back in that cavity fills me with a bit of concern, not so much for the AUX pack, but rather for the OEM pack. Having a steal box heated to 130F will surely be enough to through the OEM pack into it's thermal spiral. When it goes all thermal, there is very little EV and other goodness since that is only allowed when the OEM pack is "healthy". So A bit of concern from the Texans here I guess.

After your pack gets up to 7 bars, I doubt that much energy will be moving in and out of your pack. The energy will go straight to MG2 except during regen (no energy from the converter) and at a standstill. Even if it is too hot to use EV, you still get the benefit of a high SOC that causes MG2 to send power to the wheels.



Next question is on regen. If the AUX pack holds the OEM pack at 80% SOC, what happens when I hit my 1 mile regen off the freeway. Will the OEM pack eventually hit MAX_SOC and start ditching regen? What does the OEM pack do when a regen is directed to an overcharged pack?

The target is around 70-75% SOC, not 80. Seven bars is what you should see. If the OEM pack does get up to 80%, then the normal thing happens, the ICE will start and fight with the MG to drain the excess energy.


On to the DC/DC inverter. Does it regulate the bleed off of the AUX pack or is it simply always dumping 10A down towards the OEM pack? Will it stop if it senses the OEM pack is topped off, or will it overfill the glass?
This is yet to be determined. I will let you know in the next week or so.


On to balancing. I understand that the balancers are like bleed off pressure valves. If the SOC of one of the bundles of cells is too high it will just bleed that charge off. So... Why? Why do you need your cells to have like SOC? And what kind of efficiency hit does this constant 0.3 AMP bleed per balancer really mean to the efficiency. If my math is right, on a 4 KWh pack, your bleeding 1.2 AMP (.3*4) or 30Wh in balancing. OK so maybe 0.75% being spent in balancing is OK, but what if my math is wrong. Is it more?

In a 16 cell string, the highest and lowest cell are your weakest links. The highest cell will raise the pack voltage and the charger will shut off before the other cells are fully charged. Likewise, the lowest cell will cause your balancer to alarm before the others are fully discharged. Ideally, you want all cells to be equal so that they all reach full charge or full discharge simultaneously. That way you get the full capacity of your kit. When I say full charge and discharge, I dont mean 100% and 0%, I mean whatever levels you choose as your target. To answer your efficiency question, Seven cells will be discharged to the level of the lowest (eighth) cell. That might take one minute, or it might take a day. It depends on how out of balance they are.


Next question is on I/O. What type of control surface do you have on the Inverter and balancers (or other components). Can the software guy hook up a serial or USB cable to these components to get real time data. Does it already have software with APIs to roll your own AUX pack status monitor? How do you know what the SOC of your AUX pack is while your in the pilot's seat?

There are two ports. The telephone jack port is wired to the switch. There is also an RJ45 port that is not used. Maybe there is some functionality but you will have to contact Jjack about that.


Another question about the Inverters/Balancers. From what I read on the spec of the 3.2V cell, the manufacturer recommends DoD (depth of discharge) of no greater than 66%. Is that configurable in the Inverter to cut off at a SOC of 33% or below? Can the same be done for the charger. Can you set it to stop drawing AC power from the wall once the pack hits 80% SoC?

The charger is supposedly a smart charger and from the reports I am reading, the charger only raises the voltage to about 3.4. The alarm goes off at 3.75 so there seems to be a safety margin built in. The low alarm goes off at 2.8V which appears to be a very low SOC, maybe 5%. My target will be about 3.0V/cell. The converter will shut off automatically by I believe that it uses the total pack voltage to make that decision. As far as I know, you cant set limits on SOC.


Another SOC question. If I set the SoC and DoD to keep the SOC between 80% and 33% on the AUX pack, my math yields a operation range of 1.925 KWh using the 3.2V quote per cell. Using the 48V nominal figure and including the 30Wh balancing load that comes down to 1.774 KWh. Is that operation range too conservative, or is the Enginer documentation too aggressive?

The 2kwh pack has 16*3.2V*40Ah= 2048Wh. That is where the 2kWh comes from. The balancers only load the system when the cells are out of balance. It shouldn't be a constant load. I doubt that it will add up to much. If you use 47% of your SOC, and assuming that the converter is 90% efficient, that leaves you with 0.866Wh to work with. I don't know where you saw the 66% recommmended DOD, but according to the data sheet, a 70%DOD will give a minimum of 3000 cycles, and 80% DoD will give you at least 2000 cycles. I will be at 80% DoD, which will give me 2-4 years. By then, LiFePO4 will be a dime a dozen.


Final question. Will this mess up my super clean OEM EV button install. I don't like thier silly little switch. I think Jay can do WAAAYYY better!
?

Yup, you can keep it.


OK... last last question. Does anyone know of a city with a participially health PHEV conversion credit. I thought I heard Marc say that Austin was looking at a 7k credit, but surely that fell through. Any other known state, or city PHEV conversion credits, since 10% IRS credit is tantamount to 0%. I'm grateful I'm not broke, but being not broke, makes most IRS credits I apply for unattainable. State and municipal credits on the other hand have never been a problem.


Can't help you there.


As a final thought, I don't share most of the concerns I've seen elsewhere (not here) about what the potential benefit will be. It's just like the question about the EV button. In the right hands on the right commute the EV button alone can boost MPG by 10-20%, and in the wrong hands it can REDUCE mpg by 5-10%. Same goes here. If you can tailor your drive to use the AUX pack correctly I think you can easily get a 70%-80% boost on MPG (not MPGe) given the correct commute, but in the wrong hands and wrong route the difference may indeed be negligible.

Agreed!

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Anyone considering the Enginer kit definitely must must must go
read the ENTIRETY of the long-running Priuschat thread (http://priuschat.com/forums/phev/62376-e.html) on the
subject, to see the litany of problems people are having getting
this thing going [not the least of which is Jack getting banned
from PC for a while because of some cultural preconceptions on
what sort of interaction with forum members is permissible.Done! At nearly 500 posts now it's a bit more than light reading. After reading the thread, I'll summarize a bit for the impatient.


Jack got banned for soliciting customers, the ban was lifted eventually.
Looks like at least a half dozen people with the kit are posting here or there.
There are now two battery types used, Thundersky for the 2KW kit and Motocell for the 4KW kit. This was an issue with the thundersky not fitting in the redesigned enclosure.
MPG is mixed with no real substantial data being reported. We definitely need some one who knows how to Hypermile using the kit.
From the installs I've read about there are a good number of failures. Keeping in mind that irate customers are more likely to post than happy ones may taint the figures, but I've only read about half of the installs being completely problem free. Most of the problems seem to be bad balancers. A close second is bad DC/DC inverters. I've only heard about one or two bad cells. Last I heard, Enginer.us has been in contact with the customers having issues and is working to send them (or have sent them) replacement parts.
You will need to be patient. It may take a long time to get the kit and once fully installed you probably need to go through mini-charge, and wait cycles for about a week before the cells will be balanced and ready to use.
Seems like the installs done at their site or as part of a convention hall install seem to be more problem free. They may pre-test these "live" installs so that you get a bit of quality control that may not be in the drop-shipped orders

As best I can guess, the way to use the kit would be to turn it on till your SOC is around 65-70%, then bleed off some charge and turn the kit back on. Basically the kit would be like a SOC Nitrous. Most people seem to just be leaving it on, and just letting the pack hang out at 70%+ SOC. Since I know fairly well what each regen will net me in SOC a bit of planning could probably give MUCH better performance with the kit. Basically a PHEV hypermiling strategy guide.

On a personal note, I just can't buy the kit. There are many many other things on the list first (like school books for my kids) that need to happen before I could drop 3.5K on anything. Once I finish my Job Hunt though, perhaps I could land in Oregon. They have a 25% tax credit on the kit that looks to be combinable with the 10% fed credit.

Personally, knowing what I do about the failures, I would probably still get the kit if I had the money (which I don't), but I would carve out at least two months before I expected to have a fully functioning system.

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Here's my best attempt at a connection diagram of the kit. Please let me know if there are any errors. I was unclear from the docs which connection should be tapped for the main (+) and main (-) lead into the charger and inverter/converter. By my math the main leads have 4 connections (charger, inverter, balancer, pack-interconnect). Can that get spread around since It sounds like that terminal would get kinda crowded. Also in the pics I'm seeing, it looks like people are leaving some terminals uncapped. Isn't that dangerous? Shouldn't every terminal (once tapped) be capped to prevent some random piece of junk making a connection?

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/500/Diagram.PNG

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