2nd Gen Prius PHEV Conversion (Enginer plug-in lithium ion battery kit)

[Cobb]

Are you driving your prius while this is being serviced? The Insight is a completely different beat to drive when my Enginer kit poops out and Id rather park it and drive my Suzuki or a rental car as its soo unpredictable in its acceleration and IMA behavior.

With the kit I am at 90-100% charge and the car is always assist happy. Without it it will regen vs assist when I pull away from a light, go up a grade, etc. Owning this hybrid Ive seen the car do a lot of things against what you are told hybrids do. Ive see it assist going down hill and regen going up.

The plug in kit eliminates all that foolishness.

[Daox]

Yeah, the Prius is my daily driver.

The plugin kit doesn't effect driving style a TON. It does give more assist with the kit on. The main change is that I can go into EV mode under 35 mph.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by Cobb

The Insight is [...] soo unpredictable in its acceleration and IMA behavior. [I]t will regen vs assist when I pull away from a light, go up a grade, etc. Owning this hybrid Ive seen the car do a lot of things against what you are told hybrids do. Ive see it assist going down hill and regen going up.

Is this normal for a 2nd gen Insight?

My 1st gen with worn out pack will force charge (eg. charge on acceleration or moderate load like going up a grade), but only if it thinks the pack has gotten too discharged, or if it's trying to recalibrate SOC. I wouldn't think a new car would do this.

[Cobb]

Ive read others have the same experience and or problem. The pack is only 84 cells, so the idea is the car is thinking, if you are going todrive wastefully, Ill recharge the pack withthe extra fuel you are burning.

From what I can see from my Enginer data logger, the car does a negative recal when the pack is 95 volts. It stays above that with the plug in kit running.

Another plus to the prius next to using electric only for 0-12 mph is the fact the car will revert to ev mode under light load. The Insight will only go to ev mode if you go into fuel cut off first, then apply light throttle pressure. As the load increases and the pack charge decreases it will pop back to useing gas again.