Hi, 200k honda insight yr. 2000 !!help!!
 

I have been lurking on diy electric car, endless sphere, and Jacks EV tv, for about 6 months trying to decide what direction to take in ditching the Gas.
Posibilities.
1. recumbent e assist faired trike. But The longer I looked at the narrow bike lanes in our city, and big cars that would be next to me, the more nervous I became. ( i like the quest tamdem)

2. Convert a light weight existing car to a moderate speed city car 50 mile range with 40 mph cruise. I am wary however as peoples desire for power, and range along with high doner weight, seem often to have a huge affect on end cost of conversion.

Many of the diy garage projects have plus 20,000 price tags (not counting labor and with no warranty or access to o.e.m. engineering motors, batteries and knowlage base.

I want to go diy for the experience, learning and knowlage/satifaction to be gained, but also as i can't afford a $30,000 leaf

Well all this handwringing and careful weighing of capacity vs cost is for nothing now as my friend told me of a cherry red MT 2000 honda insight with 200k, at the local used car lot, offered for $2,700 with a bad battery and grinding sincro in 2nd gear. It was unreasoning love at first sight! damn!! $2,300. out the door, NOW WHAT
HELP. I had planned to gut it and make it a pure electric but after reading this site where one person said that would be like gutting a fine swiss watch and making it into a sundile... I don't know what to do?? could i make it a plug in hybrid? or am i better trying to revive the battery that only shows one bar? The car is amazing as it sits now and averages 52 miles per gallon!
Thoughts anyone?

I personally would leave the insight as gasoline only. Or repair the battery pack if you have the money. This way, you have a car that gets great mileage and you can go cross-country if you have to.

If you're still yearning for electric only, you could: Option 1: build an electric motorcycle. Fun and cheaper to do than a car. Option 2: you could get a $500 donor car and put $2000 worth of parts into it, and have a pretty good electric car.

You'll learn pretty quickly that your 70 mile range goal is a lofty one. But this depends on what kind of budget you have. RANGE=MONEY.

I would definitely go with a battery repair on the Insight, you will get crazy mileage with it.

Converting it to electric you are still going to want a working transmission.

I would rather see an insight with an automatic converted to electric, swapping in a manual transmission at the same time, because the automatic insights got pretty lousy mileage in comparison.

Your Red 2000 Insight
 

Hi, I have a 2000 red insight that I've had since 2005 and I love it. I recently bought a 2003 silver insight with a bad battery pack and I'm buying a Maxima pack from Bumblebee Batteries in Portland, OR. Cost is $2,099 plus shipping and sending Eli the battery guy your present core battery. This is what I recommend for you as well. You can drive it without the battery with a few simple modifications until your pack arrives, if you need wheels. The waiting list is about a month and you need to pony up a $100 deposit to get "in line". Good luck! Dan

What is the next step with my 2000 insight
 

I'm amazed that this community is so responsive to an intro post which isn't even in the tech section! thanks for caring!

Ok, so consensus is don't gut and redrive as pure electric so now replace or try and troubleshoot existing battery? Is a gridcharger the next step, if so why wasn't this capacity built into the cars?

How hard would it be to disemble and diagnose individual cells? Is this worth the trouble of should I replace with new

Is this a DIY kit option for bat replacement and the gridcharger option, or is it bumblebee bat. of portland, and $2,000.00 ... which is what I payed for the whole car! lol