DIY Solutions to Honda Hybrid Battery Problems (Insight, Civic, IMA)

[ncdave4life]

Valid points, but the price difference is substantial. Bumblebee wants $2095, I think plus 2x shipping to Oregon (2x because you have to ship your old battery to them). Yabo wants $1500 (on AliExpress) or $1214 (quoted to Martin "mauimart" in September), including shipping, and you get to keep your old sticks (which have some resale value).

I wonder what Yabo is doing about the PTC thermistor strips?

I also wonder how much they really matter. Do other HEVs have them in their batteries?

[MD2000]

Bumblebee has sold just the sticks as a DIY package for much less than the full rebuild. and the box of sticks is only 16" X 8X 7" and weighs ~ 50 lbs, and you keep your old cells.

[ncdave4life]

Wow, that's great!!

Do you know what the kit costs, and do you know what he does about the PTC strips?

[Eli81]

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would chime in here.

First, DO NOT buy cells from Yabo. I'm not just saying this because I'm biased towards my own company, I'm saying it as an Insight enthusiast. I would never recommend them when cells like the ones we sell are available.

They are assembling the rejected cells from my manufacturer into sticks. These rejected cells are normally sold for Industrial Lighting purposes, where the differing cell to cell internal resistance and other defects do not matter. The specifications they list are a lie and are the specifications for the qualified cells, NOT the failed ones.

These cells WILL have poor cycle life in the demanding HEV environment. Yabo is lucky the car is so self compensating. It's likely these rejected cells will last a couple of years, which will probably just get them by.

However, that's not what Bumblebee is about. We don't want to sell you a product that is just going to get you by for a couple of years. We want to sell you a truly outstanding product that is going to last many, many years while providing plenty of assist power. Otherwise, I would be selling the garbage 10,000mAh cells that Mike and I tested. Or I wold be selling the Yabo cells, for that matter.

[erm, can't link until I get 5 posts under my belt - search the 1st gen Insight forum for "Sucre" on Insightcentral.net to see our testing of the 10,000mAh cells]

This is why we go through and check every single cell, in every single pack that we sell. Failures happen, it's a fact of life. Our goal is to minimize those failures while also helping to deliver the best balanced and best performing IMA battery pack that you can buy.

Regarding shipping - Our shipping cost is $195, which does include the return shipment of your core battery; a pre-paid return label is included with the new battery.

DIY Kit - It's your job to transfer over the PTC strips from your old sticks. New heat shrink is included for this purpose.

I'd be happy to answer any and all other questions people may have, and I'll try and read through more than just the last few posts of this thread if I can find some time.

[ncdave4life]

Thank you, Eli, for this information.

So, if I understand correctly, the total cost for your regular Insight battery is $2095 + $195 s&h = $2290 + return of the old batteries, right?

What about the DIY kit? How much would I save by getting one of those? And do you have a rough guesstimate for the number of hours of work it takes an average customer to assemble it?

[microhybrid]

Hi Eli，
Could you provide the test result of YABO's battery？We could compete in this field，i know you are agent of our competitor，but please do business in a more gentle way. We don't want to stand out for such kind of issue，but I have found your bad word towards our high quality battery again and again just to mislead people，we admit that you know something about hybrid battery，but i do not think you are professional enough to talk battery at cell level. Our customers are more professional than you are，they talk battery by detailed testing data not by judgement. I'm waiting for your email.

[Eli81]

Originally Posted by microhybrid

Hi Eli，
Could you provide the test result of YABO's battery？We could compete in this field，i know you are agent of our competitor，but please do business in a more gentle way. We don't want to stand out for such kind of issue，but I have found your bad word towards our high quality battery again and again just to mislead people，we admit that you know something about hybrid battery，but i do not think you are professional enough to talk battery at cell level. Our customers are more professional than you are，they talk battery by detailed testing data not by judgement. I'm waiting for your email.

I am not trying to mislead anyone. That's not part of who I am as an individual or a business owner. It's in my nature to help and educate people, nothing more.

In fact, you are the one trying to mislead people by passing off rejected cells as "high quality batteries". Yes, they are high quality cells - but they were rejected for a reason.

There is a reason your sticks only give ~6200mAh when new. There is a reason they have higher and less consistent internal resistance. There is a reason they have lower cycle life.

Look, I'd be selling your product if I felt it was either better than the one I'm currently offering or if the difference in performance was worth your slightly lower prices. I don't, so I'm not.

Bumblebee isn't interested in selling a "Value" line of batteries, and it would be extremely shady of me to switch my product to a lower quality one under peoples noses. Again, that's not something I would do.

So I don't need to prove anything. The onus is on you to refute my claims.

Just so we're clear, I meant no offense by my other post(nor this one) and I do apologize if either was seen as harsh. I was just simply trying to inform people of the differences. I am all for doing business in a kind, gentle way. But at the same time, I won't tolerate misinformation. It's a two way street in that regard.

[ncdave4life]

Originally Posted by ncdave4life

So, if I understand correctly, the total cost for your regular Insight battery is $2095 + $195 s&h = $2290 + return of the old batteries, right?

What about the DIY kit? How much would I save by getting one of those? And do you have a rough guesstimate for the number of hours of work it takes an average customer to assemble it?

Eli, I find no reference to a DIY kit on your website. Can you please educate me about it?

Also, I wonder how you know that Yabo is using substandard/reject cells? Did someone (who?) tell you that? Did you buy & test some of their battery sticks? Or is it just a suspicion?

Dave

[Eli81]

Originally Posted by ncdave4life

Eli, I no reference to a DIY kit on your website. Can you please educate me about it?

Also, I wonder how you know that Yabo is using substandard/reject cells? Did someone (who?) tell you that? Did you buy & test some of their battery sticks? Or is it just a suspicion?

Dave

Yeah, it's not something we've been advertising - the lawyers shied us away from it. But we'll sell them on a case by case basis if you sign your life away.

Cost is $1800 which includes extra heat shrink so you may apply the PTC strips from your old sticks. No warranty is offered other than DOA as I cannot control what you do with the sticks once you receive them.

Most people have (understandably) opted for the complete pack with warranty.

As far as my sources, they shall remain anonymous but I have no reason to believe the information was false. I also have samples, yes. It's been many months since I tested them, but the results weren't favorable so on the shelf they went. This was before I learned the above information, so I haven't exactly seen the need to re-evaluate since then.

[microhybrid]

1. Our stick is 6500mAh when new, which is no less than your capacity.
2. Our IR is less than 8m omh, normally 7.5m omh, compared with original about 6.5m omh.
Both feature is no worse than yours, remember we are very close and familiar with your supplier, we know each other well. And please allow me to explain some of the concern that you have mentioned:
As hybrid level battery, capacity is not main concern when it reachs a figure, that is why some claimed 10000mAh capacity is even not a advantage, but a disadvantage, when you make the battery to a much higher capacity, the separator of the battery should be make really thin, the biggest problem of thin separator is the bad function in high rate current discharge, it may be destroyed when in some critical condition. So rate power is far more important than capacity, that is why Panasonic could only make around 6Ah cell as Honda hybrid battery rather than 10000mAh.
Rate power of the battery is very important for a hybrid car, which judges the ability of a car to run in tough conditions. One thing is even more important than rate power is the internal resistence, it is the biggest feature that determines the calender life of a car. Japanese battery manufacturers are doing really good by using full automatic high-tech machines to keep IR really low. As a Chinese supplier, our technique is mostly from Japan but we could not exceed them for many reasons. The lowest IR we could reach is around 6.9m omh, mostly around 7.2m omh to 7.6m omh. We have tested another supplier's battery from China, their IR is bigger than 24m omh, which is too far away from reasonable data.

It is really hard for me to explain techniquely for my bad English, if anyone has any doubt, I would be glad to answer any question if you don't mind to read my bad written English.