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Despite all Wayne's careful driving not using the pack, at 100300miles the IMA pack died last week. Thank goodness Honda came to bat with the extended warantee:Banane57:
Dublin Honda did a great job and fixed me up in a couple days.
So far its now staying real close to full, if its not just doing its recal, I might have never experienced what a good pack is like.. time will tell.

It got a little flaky only in about two weeks before it died (was on charge for a few miles with the battery at about 50% and it didn't go any higher when the IMA and CEL came on and the hybrid functions all went away for good) doing funny things like self discharging in a a few days sitting in the driveway, not getting full on my downhill morning regeneration but jumping to full in all of a sudden in another few miles on the flat, etc.

Gary
Dublin, CA

Gary, what does your typical pack usage look like? Do you dip into the pack regularly? If so, how much?

Hi Gary:

___I am sorry to hear about this. I have a feeling that the previous owner (in between us) who took the lmpg down from 92.8 to 70 over 20 + K miles could not have done that without beating the hell out of it in the MA area :ccry:

___With the new HW, hopefully she will offer far more than another 100K miles with your careful and non-assist driving care.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Thanks Wayne.
Well, I know its pretty hard to stay off the assist here in N. CA. I suppose I have done my damage too, she has to sit out in the driveway and out when at work.. it gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter.. and I suspect the new computers but it is really hard to keep it from boosting most everywhere around here (hills and traffic). I am sure that if I hadn't put in the Calpod clutch switch IMA disable the first week I had it, it would have gone even sooner. LMPG is now 70.0, mine is 69.1 so I am still doing damage!! But my trendline is up I think... I am still trying every trip.

RLC, I live in pretty hilly country here. My house is up a 500ft hill over two miles so every trip leaves the battery at the low point. My normal commute is only 6.6mi down the hill and then up the hill at night so that takes its toll too. I have put 7-8K on it in a year and three months. All my tanks are posted, been doing pretty well I think.. except this last tank is going to be bad with the cool weather and the dying pack. I got pretty good at going up and over the hills to the bay and getting back keeping it in the low 80s MPG all summer. I FAS alot (ignition switch.. which is also dying I think) and try to just use the assist for short busts when needed (flippin the Calpod switch a million times each trip). My best run was about 87MPG for 200+miles down CA to Cambria with my wife and luggage aboard. I am an old sports car guy, so is my buddy.. he asked me awhile back "what will she really do?" I told him I have no idea, I don't think I have ever taken her over 3K. From the first drive I realized this was an MPG machine not a sports car and I just CAN'T push my foot down ;)
I will admit that it feels really good to drive my Corvette once in a while and that's after I do at least alot of hypermile techniques there too.
Gary

Gary, thanks for the description! Are you finding that you just can't get up some hills without assist?

I looked up that clutch pedal mod (it wasn't easy to find that thread on the net!!) and it looks like something I should try to get installed in my car...

Whatever you do, don't give up on pushing numbers!

"Calpod Clutch Switch disable" Where can I locate some information on this mod?

Despite all Wayne's careful driving not using the pack, at 100300miles the IMA pack died last week.

Hi Gary:

As a new EV owner, I am VERY interested in how long battery packs last in the HEVs and EVs. Your pack, if I read your post correctly, lasted over 100,000 miles. That sounds pretty good to me - and the fact that it performed well almost up to the last day says good things too. :)

Were you expecting more mileage than that? How long did it take for you to run up 100,000 miles? What type of batteries are in the pack?

Thanks.

Jimmy

"Calpod Clutch Switch disable" Where can I locate some information on this mod?

Atlaw4u, Calpod is a user over at the other site concerned with Insights (I believe I saw a thread started by you over there?) and the thread you want to look for is: "How to disable Assist/Regen"

In short, it is an added switch which bypasses the clutch pedal switch. It seems to work on cars up through 2005 to disable both charge and assist functions of the IMA system by making the computer think that the clutch pedal has been depressed. The extra switch just closes the normally open circuit usually completed by pressing the clutch pedal.

This looks like a low cost way to achieve exactly what I want -- no assist so that I can both accelerate a bit faster and use P&G in the city. :)

Elsewhere on this (CleanMPG) site you can find schematics for a FAS switch done by Randall which keeps the DC-DC circuit alive while making the FAS behave just as Autostop does -- complete with automatic starting when putting the car into gear, pressing the gas pedal, or depleting the braking vacuum below a threshold. That one is a bit more involved but may also find its way into my car eventually. ;)

Conjecture -- would the clutch bypass switch work on Laurie's car??

My car is Wayne's old car.. Yes, since he used the assist so sparingly, we thought the pack would last much longer. But too, the car had two other owners that apparantely weren't hypermilers. I am not sure, but around 100K is kind of what I see others getting. The 2000 Insights started their life using the battery much more (overcharging and letting it deplete to very low levels). Honda found out this will kill the pack quicker so they recalled them and changed the battery and motor computers to use a less agressive calibration (like Toyota used in all the Priui IIRC). It was sure nice of Honda to extend the warantee to 150K. They didn't tell me what the final bill would have been but the pack itself (rebuilt according to what I read) was $4K. If I would have had to pay for it myself, I probably wouldn't have, just ripped it out and went 3cylinder gas mode only. After Wayne told me to limit the use of assist the first week I had it, I have really tried to do that. The Calpod mod is really easy, like you point out, its just a manual switch to do the same as pushing the clutch down all the time (I forget if it is series or parallel connected, the posts a year ago really didn't say and I know I did wrong the first time.. duh). If the link works, here is the picture of mine from the gallery:

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/2273/si/InsightGary

This is mima ULTRA-light but its all I think you need... except for FAS would be nice.
I was trying to force a FAS by driving the VSS signal to the ECM but I never got it finished. Someday I will get back to that... I have long hills to climb and if I didn't have the switch I couldn't get up them without a continuous assist that would kill the battery before I got to the top. And then I couldn't FAS down the backside.

The new pack seems to be alot better. Having bought the car at 93K I never experienced a new pack. YES, I need some assist to get up the hill to my house or else I would have to go down to 1st gear or buzz it too high in second. I turn the Calpod switch off at the bottom of the hill and just pulse it in the two really steep sections. I used to end up with less than 1/2 charge on the dash meter but with the new battery, It is over 3/4 :Banane48:
In fact, I don't think I have dropped it below 3/4 no matter what I do which I think is going to help my mileage (YES, I am still trying every drive!).

Gary

Jimmy,

Congrats on the new EV. My buddy and I almost went EV back in the 1993 time frame. I don't suppose the situation has changed any since, you're probably using lead-acid right?
Hybrids were designed to have the batteries last the life of the car, 100k for the Insight is about the old normal expection for car life.. except Hondas and most modern cars last ALOT longer...
The pack in the Insight is made of 120 D cell NiMh Panasonic ultra heavy duty cells all series connected to give 144V (nom). Apparently, the problem is only that a very few cells go bad, but since they are used and charged in series that ruins the whole thing. I have read that Honda is rebuilding the packs but the new cells they put in have to matched to the rest, that's why we can't really rebuild them ourselves.. And remember, 120 flashlight batteries won't power the whole car for very long, you can't borrow the technology for your EV!

Gary

Yes, I'm afraid so. My pack is lead-acid. At least it's AGM, so I don't have to be concerned about battery maintenance. Hopefully the lithiums (such as the lithium iron phosphate) will eventually become available (and affordable), or perhaps the highly touted capacitance batteries from Eestor - if they ever succeed in completing its development.

Sorry to hear about the Pack, I also have a D-cell NiMH pack but in the original Prius NHW10 ( 50k miles) so it will be interesting to see how it compares.
In the NHW10, it almost never applies assist going up steep grades(5-10%) speed limits are low 25-35mph, but the instantaneous mpg is only 25mpg to 20mpg.

Giving the better power/weight ratio for the Insight I expect the instantaneous mpg is better but does anyone know what the Insight gets for instantaneous mpg on a 5% or 10%grades at 25mph or 35mph with and without assist?

Insight Envy
Thanks
Andrew

Gee, I refrain from buying current hybrids because I don't like the battery packs! 120 D cells sucks! I want Lithium in a plug in hybrid.

Don't knock the D-cells. The Tesla has triple A's.

Don't knock the D-cells. The Tesla has triple A's.

Really? I thought they used laptop batteries?

That's cool! :eek:

re: 'D' cells

The FEH/MMH batteries are 'D' cells, too... 250 of them. 'D' cells have pretty amazing capacity. I've seen some advertised with 10Ah capacity. I think my MMH has 5.5Ah cells. The 'AA' ones are in the 2.5-3Ah range for better NiMH cells that you can buy almost anywhere. Not sure what the the state of the art is for Li-Ion.

cheers,
Bill

Gee, I refrain from buying current hybrids because I don't like the battery packs! 120 D cells sucks! I want Lithium in a plug in hybrid.


Toyota only used D-cells in the Japan only 97-99 Prius NHW10( and in the RAV4 EV). They used Panasonic EV (PEV) plastic cased prismatic type for the NHW11 (Prius 2000-2003) and metal cased for the NHW20 (present Prius)(higher power density). HCHI used PEV D-cells and as far as I know are still using them in the HCH2.

I have heard of very few pack failures in gen2 or gen1 Prius...but I agree with you give me a Plug in hybrid (I would settle for the NiMH though if it has longer EV range)..

link to battery types
http://www.peve.jp/e/shouhin.html

Good Luck
Andrew

Bob Wilson on Green Hybrid has done some work on refurbishing the Prius NHW11 batteries, so I think it may be possible to recover state of charge in so called dead batteries.

http://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/f10/old-prius-battery-experiences-16747/#post163598

Good Luck
Andrew

I wonder if it is possible to refresh these batteries like we do with 12v car batteries? We will see......