Re: grid charging - I'm a noob about all this. But Mr Smalls says: "Leave it charging your battery (with the battery fan running) for 36 hours or so, and it will top off ALL your cells, restoring state of charge balance." I've also read that you need to wait until pack voltage
peaks, then
declines before considering it fully balanced.
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How managable was the car driving without the battery for an extended period?
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Re: non-hybrid performance - I could happily drive the car without the hybrid functions forever.
Keep in mind my starting point, though.
The non-hybrid performance of the Insight is better than the Firefly I'm used to driving. ~67 hp vs. ~50, similar vehicle weight, though taller gearing in the Insight. Maybe they're about the same.
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I have heard that it will not charge the 12 volt battery effectively at idle and you can kill the battery if you're not carefull.
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If the 12v battery is not being charged by the DC-DC converter, the 12v/battery dashboard idiot light will be on, just like a "regular" car.
I have noticed that often there's a delay after starting the car before the DC-DC converter kicks in (anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or so). And once or twice it has stayed off long enough after a start/restart that I began to wonder if it was going to come back. It always has.
The DC-DC will also not function above a certain engine RPM (~3k+). I'm rarely up there, though, so that's not a concern to me. But if you rev it up once in a while to pass or otherwise accelerate quickly, the dashboard idiot light will come on.
My car's 12v battery was already weak when I got the car though - resting voltage after a few days is in the low 12.x V range. Could just be due to normal aging, or because the car was parked for 5-6 months after the previous owners traded it in. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been flat-lined a few times before I got it.