Insight EV mode achieved

[RobertSmalls]

Now that I've put my fuel injector kill relay on a toggle switch, installed MIMA for manual control of the electric motor, and have a strong battery in place, I've got EV mode.

It works! I can go places using zero gasoline.

It's not great. Range is predictably short, acceleration requires everyone on the road to be patient, and charging takes so long that I can pretty much only do it once a day.

I mostly used it for cruising today, due to traffic. It looks like I can cruise at 40mph for about two miles, going from a topped off battery pack to 3/20ths indicated SoC. My best guess is it'll take 0.6KWh (8hrs) to recharge.

I usually get mid 60's mpg on this 5.5mi route with 14 stops, and today I got 93.2mpg + 109Wh/mi, or 57.0mpge. I saved ~0.025gal of gas today. Do that 200 times a year, and I'll save five gallons at the expense of $14 of electricity.

I expect I can displace more gasoline consumption and use my charge much more efficiently by using it to accelerate instead of cruise. Time will tell. Still, I had fun today.

[Daox]

Very interesting. Do you have an estimate of wh/mile? I'm seeing ~300.

[brucey]

With the MIMA throttle joystick, the injector kill switch, and all the other hypermiling buttons you've got now, it might be easier to change your gear shifter to one of these:



Congrats though. So is the electric motor spinning the entire engine when you're doing that?

[RobertSmalls]

You're not kidding, Brucey. The MIMA joystick has two axes, two buttons, and you can "click" with the joystick. Then there's my momentary and four toggle switches.

The little electric motor is spinning the gas engine the entire time. I held the throttle plate wide open to help it out.

Despite heat being added by the IMA motor and engine friction, the coolant temperature was dropping pretty fast during the run, which must have hurt efficiency.

I'd have to be a lot more scientific before offering a Wh/mi estimate, but 300 is in the right ball park at least.

[Old Mechanic]

Try it with the throttle plate closed.

regards
Mech

[Angmaar]

Sweet! Now all you need is a larger battery pack.

[discovery]

Very intresting find. I thought that insight gen1 can't run pure on electricity. Ever since i'm reading forums and your name pops-up i know that something intersting will come out of it. Good job with this one R.S. Keep it up, thanks for all the advises.

[RobertSmalls]

I set my speedometer and fuel consumption display to metric to test a hypothesis. The mpg gauge pegs at 150mpg, but when I looked at the FCD in metric, it was sometimes 0L/100km, sometimes ~2L/100km, and at least as high as 4L/100km. I ran out of road before I could figure out exactly when it thinks I'm using fuel, but the gauge has been overreporting my fuel consumption, especially when my foot's on the throttle.

[RobertSmalls]

I tried out high speed electric-only operation, and the car tops out around 48-49mph. Power to overcome road load at 48mph is only around 4.3kW, and is about a third of the motor's 12kW rated power.

During DFCO, I lose very roughly 1mph/s at 40mph. I'm losing kinetic energy at a rate of ~7.2kW, including the 2.8kW road load at 40mph. So engine braking is about 4.4kW at 40mph, and 5.3kW at 48mph, assuming it's linear with engine speed.

I am spending over half my energy just overcoming engine braking when I use the Insight as an EV. Lopping off my engine would roughly double my electric range and acceleration.

Btw, there's no discernible difference between throttle open and closed when the fuel injectors are off.

[RobertSmalls]

I just drove 1.5mi home from a friend's house, without touching the throttle pedal, and without using a drop of fuel. Onboard display shows 84.6mpg for the trip. :? Even at RPMs that I expect would cause the ECU to attempt DFCO and report zero fuel consumption to the gauge, it was showing 50-110mpg.

Perhaps it's time for an mpguino?