Honda CRZ and Insight to be discontinued in Europe

The Honda IMA was a great idea and it works really well. It's just a shame that it has been bolted onto rather inefficient petrol cars.

It worked well in the Insight G1, because it was bolted to a super efficient petrol engine, which in turn was bolted to a super lightweight body. It served a purpose - fuel efficiency.

What they really needed to do with it was to make the IMA system lighter and cheaper, do away with the 12v battery entirely, and bolt it to one of their diesel engines. If it was a 2k option that added 15mpg to a car that already does 70mpg, then that would turn heads.
 
The thing people don't seem to get about IMA is that the motor and battery are mainly there for performance rather than fuel saving. It's basically battery KERS for road cars. It's the relatively small engine, gearing, aerodynamics and low rolling resistance tyres that get the fuel saving. The low performing engines are made acceptable by IMA.

Without IMA the Insight would be dog-slow and the CRZ would be too slow to be of any real appeal (at least with the same engines).

Hypermilers get the best mpgs by actively avoiding motor assist because when over-used it comes back to bite you with forced regen (which reduces fuel economy). Regenarative braking and stop start do help but the impact isn't huge.
 
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Bug One said:
The Honda IMA was a great idea and it works really well. It's just a shame that it has been bolted onto rather inefficient petrol cars.

It worked well in the Insight G1, because it was bolted to a super efficient petrol engine, which in turn was bolted to a super lightweight body. It served a purpose - fuel efficiency.

What they really needed to do with it was to make the IMA system lighter and cheaper, do away with the 12v battery entirely, and bolt it to one of their diesel engines. If it was a 2k option that added 15mpg to a car that already does 70mpg, then that would turn heads.
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You'd never really get rid of the 12V, especially diesel as cold crank starting will be difficult. 1.2 diesel (cropped Earth Dreams) block though with IMA instead of that 4th cylinder would be nice as the motor added would still let you have a 6 speed.
 
They already did make IMA lighter and cheaper. The IMA battery in the original Insight and Civic Hybrid comprised 120 D Sized NiMH cells sourced from Panasonic. The G2 Insight, original CR-Z and Jazz Hybrid use 84 D Sized cells. The latest CR-Zs have transitioned to a lithium ion pack.

A new replacement of the original pack from Honda for a G1 Insight or Civic Hybrid, or an upgrade 3rd party with higher grade cells, cost around £2K fitted.

Practically all the latest generation hybrids are still under warranty (2009 and 2010 models were 8 years, 100k miles, later ones reduced to 5 year 80k miles). However I looked up the price of a brand new IMA battery out of interest. It's just over £1k so call it £1200 fitted.

A used IMA battery from a 1-2 year Insight car is about £400 from a scrappy.

Not sure how much a litium ion pack for the cr-z would be.
 
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Jonnycoupe said:
You'd never really get rid of the 12V, especially diesel as cold crank starting will be difficult. 1.2 diesel (cropped Earth Dreams) block though with IMA instead of that 4th cylinder would be nice as the motor added would still let you have a 6 speed.
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Cold cranking can be done much easier using the IMA and I'm sure you could make a glow plug that works on 120v. What else is there that couldn't run through the DC/DC converter?

I understand the additional starter motor and 12v battery in the G1, as it was an early proof of concept. 15 years later they should have the confidence and know how to do away with that additional bulk.

IMA could have been made cheaper by reducing the battery capacity.
 
I'm still struggling to get starter motors off 2018 products.... ;)

Battery chemistry hasn't changed that much in terms of where the batteries work best. The glow plugs you describe would be needed to warm the batteries to provide the torque demand to turn a Diesel engine, nothing to do with combustion chamber heating!

IMA is sized for power not energy, so basically the 10kW motor could be taken from 120 cells of 144V to 84 on the Insight2 with 100V on the basis the cells improved from 15C up to 20C (C is the discharge rate of the 6.5Ah cells). Hence the Civic hybrid with 15kW runs on a 168 HV bus.

Make it cheaper and you reduce it's power as cost means you would stick to NiMh.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
The glow plugs you describe would be needed to warm the batteries to provide the torque demand to turn a Diesel engine, nothing to do with combustion chamber heating!
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This seems odd. It was much easier starting the engine with IMA that it was with a 12v starter motor. Why would the batteries need heating?
 
In the 2 1/2 years I've owned the Insight, it has only ever started up with IMA, never once used the conventional starter.

I understand from the Insight forums that the conventional starter motor springs into life at around -15°C or lower.
 
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