IMA Battery charge level

[jstraw621]

I was wondering what other's IMA battery charge level readings are when you bought your 2010 Insight new.
Ours is staying around level 4 pretty much all the time since we bought it. Sometimes it gets level 5. I've only seen it went up to level 6 once briefly.
I saw someone posted Insight EV driving on Youtube. His was staying at level 6 all the time.

We bought our Insight about 3 weeks ago. The car already had 200 miles on it when we bought it. Because the dealer didn't have the color we liked, we had to wait for 3-4 days. The dealer had to get the car from another dealer in Seattle and someone had to drive it to the dealer in OR. That's the story I heard from the sales person. I was wondering whoever drove the car was driving aggressively and used or drained the battery. Is it possible?

[Purplegate]

Not really. The battery is quite small. during 200 miles, it might have pumped a couple of cycles anyway.

Go for an highway drive and go easy on assist, use coasting and gentle breaking when you get back on the ramp, it should be enough to move your level close to the top if you really want to see it. But anyway, you will use battery power, and charge it back very often in a drive, so it will go up and down all the time.

[adric22]

Originally Posted by jstraw621

I was wondering what other's IMA battery charge level readings are when you bought your 2010 Insight new.
Ours is staying around level 4 pretty much all the time since we bought it. Sometimes it gets level 5. I've only seen it went up to level 6 once briefly.
I saw someone posted Insight EV driving on Youtube.

There's been much discussion on this topic. I've stated my opinion before, and I'll state it again. The battery level meter or state-of-charge meter is pretty much useless. I have never seen any correlation between the charge level and the behavior of the IMA system. I've seen it act like the battery is dead, even though the guage says it is full, and I've seen it act like it is full even when the guage says it is empty.

So to make a long story short, don't fret too much over what the indicator says on the battery, it will just drive you crazy.

[jraynor196]

Originally Posted by jstraw621

I was wondering what other's IMA battery charge level readings are when you bought your 2010 Insight new.
Ours is staying around level 4 pretty much all the time since we bought it. Sometimes it gets level 5. I've only seen it went up to level 6 once briefly.
I saw someone posted Insight EV driving on Youtube. His was staying at level 6 all the time.

We bought our Insight about 3 weeks ago. The car already had 200 miles on it when we bought it. Because the dealer didn't have the color we liked, we had to wait for 3-4 days. The dealer had to get the car from another dealer in Seattle and someone had to drive it to the dealer in OR. That's the story I heard from the sales person. I was wondering whoever drove the car was driving aggressively and used or drained the battery. Is it possible?

I only drained the battery once and that was because I got stuck and traffic for 3 hours and after a lot of auto-stops, finally there was no more reserve. If the battery was exhausted, it should go into a forced recharge as soon as it can. This is what happened to me, after I cleared the accident, for a little bit, there was no assisting and only charging and I was not using any acceleration (cruising at 55). This went on for about 1 to 2 minutes and after that I could assist again.

Also, the battery never really is "drained", it goes down to a percentage of chrage left and then recharges. By doing this it prolongs the life of the battery.

[Cobb]

Yeah the battery meter is like a toy, the idiot shift lights on cars in the 80s.

I think new it doesnt let you use the battery that much. Then after 4 or 5 thousand miles it starts to cycle the battery. I notice when it has a full charge from coasting it will use a lot of assist, then slack off as the charge lowers.

Although it does seem to however around 60 percent, I have seen it empty as well as fully charged.

Ive notice even at idle it seems to charge the battery, but at a slower rate. If I have some fancy driving to do, I will try to do a force rechargein park at 3 grand to build up some power. Another way is to accelerate, then ride the brakes and repeat.

In addition the system measures the temperature of the battery. If its been heavily used and heated, it will cut out or limit for regen and or boost.

[Ehetleos]

Originally Posted by adric22

There's been much discussion on this topic. I've stated my opinion before, and I'll state it again. The battery level meter or state-of-charge meter is pretty much useless. I have never seen any correlation between the charge level and the behavior of the IMA system. I've seen it act like the battery is dead, even though the guage says it is full, and I've seen it act like it is full even when the guage says it is empty.

So to make a long story short, don't fret too much over what the indicator says on the battery, it will just drive you crazy.

+1 from me

[jstraw621]

Thank you for your reply everyone. All the feedbacks were pretty helpful.

I don't have to worry about it anymore.

[Cobb]

The screen is good for seeing if you are on gas, electric or coasting... Amazing how they can keep the rpms the same when coasting or electric.