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Old 02-23-2013, 07:21 PM   #3 (permalink)
Cobb
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Join Date: May 2012
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Long story short, no.

Enginer made a phev kit for various hybrid cars and suvs. In my honda insight I managed a top of 103 mpg, about a 4 hour run time, 5 hour recharge time. Epa is 43.

Even though I got a later more advance kit, it paid for itself with supreme mpg, but it too died due to quality control issues.

As for precharging your own hybrid battery, it helps if you are in a mpg contest, but on a daily bases it will help your pack fail faster. Batteries lives are measures in cycles from being recharged and discharged and to what extend.

The reason your battery is low when you come home is likely so the car can use the extra fuel burned for cold start up to recharge it the next morning. Your cars computer likely only uses 60% or so of the whole capacity of the pack, so it can be cycles thousands of times in daily use.

As an Insight owner and like many other insight owners it seems the least you use of the IMA system the better your mpg is.
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