Mountain Driving

[Zipy]

OK, first time in the mountains with the '03 CVT Insight. Actually quite amazing! I backed out taking it once before because of predicted snowy mountain roads. Now sorry I did. We drove from K.C. to Keystone to ski, encountering some snow in Kansas and in the mountains. It actually did better than several non-hybrid cars I have owned. The only fly in the ointment that occurred was that after depleting the battery down to about 5 bars (never had been lower than 3-4 bars from the top!) I think it must have gone into forced charging which I also have never experienced. (We live in a fairly flat region). We started down a fairly gradual grade and even though the car maintained about a steady 3-4 bar charge rate it felt like we were going UP-hill. If I let up on the throttle any, we would slow down quickly as though going up a grade. And still didn't build up a charge very quickly at this point. This started to worry me some until we hit the BIG downhill into Dillon valley. The bars came up rapidly then and had full charge again pulling into Dillon. Oh, yeah, I used the sport setting on the CVT climbing and some descending as advised. All in all very pleased with the Insight's ability in the mountains. Does my experience sound like I encountered "forced charge"?

[b1shmu63]

Yup, sounds like a recallibration. These are more likely when the battery has been getting a workout. At other times the computer just assumes it knows what the charge is based on measured current flow with respect to time. Glad to hear your experience hillclimbing and driving in snow was a positive one.

[joecvt]

I think it was just a forced charge from using the so much of the battery in the mountains and not a recalibration because it didn't immediately drop down to one bar (it went down to five bars because of heavy usage - compared to light usage of assist for Zipy's typical driving). Plus, late 02 and all 03 models and upward of the CVT (and perhaps MT models) have different circuitry onboard to determine SOC so recals aren't normally performed.

JoeCVT - Just your average CVT onwer

[Fred]

When charging kick's in, in "The Silver Bullet" I guess like everyone else, I can feel it "lugging" along, even when going down hill. I've learned to, just slightly take my foot, pull my foot a bit backward - and it's not by very much either - perhaps as little as a quarter of an inch or so and that stops the charging. If I don't, the charging and the feeling of it "lugging" just goes on.

Never had my battery depleted to that level you spoke of. Now that I think of it, never had the battery indicator dip below about seventy five or eighty percent.

Glad to hear you made it ok.

Fred / Proud Owner of "The SilverBullet"

[joecvt]

Fred,

The forced charging behaves differently below the percentage of usage that you typically see. Once the SOC gets down to like 50% or less, forced charging will occur even while going uphill under normal acceleration. It will stop the forced charge and use whatever assist there may be if you stomp on the gas pedal, but after you let up, you are back to a force charge until the gauge gets to nearly full...The charge indicator will go out at that point but many times, a background charge is still in effect. During this time, Fred's suggestions may help to temporarily stop the background charge but it will continue to try to make the gauge rise the top eventually.

JoeCVT - Just your average CVT owner