Insight vs. Volt

[DPRoberts]

Winding Road magazine just did a profile on the Chevy Volt, which you can read here. They compared the Volt to the Prius, the Nissan Leaf, and others, but not the Insight. I thought I'd put my two cents in here, based on my observations.

While I do agree that electric cars are the future, and I'm all in favor of reducing our gasoline consumption, I have to disagree with most of the posters there who think they're saving money by buying a Volt instead of other high-mileage cars - like the Insight.

The main reason is the cost of electricity. Only one poster in that forum mentioned his actual cost of electricity - he spent $18.52 for his first 1000 miles. I just passed 1000 miles on my Insight, and have spent about $84 on gas - and I'm not even trying to get good mileage. Over, say, 100,000 miles, he's going to spend $6600 less on gas than I will. However, that Volt costs $33,000, AFTER the tax rebate for electric cars. So, having spent $18,000 on my base Insight, I'm still $8400 ahead. In other words, spending $15,000 to save $6600 isn't exactly saving money. And when those government tax breaks end, you'll save even less.

Now, of course a lot of people prefer the Volt over the Insight, and it may have more features, etc. But if you just want a high-mileage car, I don't think the Volt beats the Insight.

[vmirjamali]

Now if were to mod your insight and add 8kw of batteries to it, you'd be at a smaller price point then the volt and still saving money on gas

[MN Driver]

I'll answer your question in the way that I will be handling the same thing.

I'll be converting my 1st Gen Insight to electric. I'll have a car that is more efficient than the Leaf, Ford Focus electric, Wheego, Mitsubishi i/iMiEV, etc. The cDa(effective aerodynamic drag area) will be better than any of other vehicles and the weight will be less than pretty much any other pure electric even though my battery pack will be heavier but the car will have a higher performance 0-60 than most OEM electrics and the range won't be 70 or so miles like the Leaf as I'm aiming for around 100 miles or better. Will it cost me alot, sure, will I pay more for the donor car and everything that needs to go into it than a new electric car? No, I won't. That's how I can justify doing it.

An electric car from a major manufacturer is extremely expensive because they are factoring in the reduced maintainence costs into their purchase price and trying their absolute best to convince the public that they aren't getting the batteries for far less than consumer prices are but it seems every publishing body seems to guess its going to cost well over the price of what is available to us yet they are buying in high volume. Basically they are massively overpriced right now because they know the early adopters will pay more.

By the way, the Volt is a BAD example of the costs of an electric car, its a 2 ton vehicle, incredibly heavy because its a hybrid that has a tank full of gas, a heavy engine, all of the electronics needed for that engine and then it has a 16kwh battery pack, electric motor, and an exotic transmission to marry it all together. It is not that efficient and the aerodynamics is not the best even though they tout it as if it were the almighty grail. The Leaf has aerodynamic issues too, there are aerodynamic changes that they could have made that would have improved its appearance, its a bit sad to me that they didn't act on those.

Personally I think that Ford Focus electric is the best one coming out soon but I'm going after the most efficient option that there is and I'll have to do it myself because Honda decided to use the Fit body for an EV instead of making something like the 1st Gen Insight or a new design thats better.

Most people on here think that 175wh/mile would be easy to get, if I did a worst case scenario of 200wh/mile for my 1st Gen Insight conversion, it would be 200kwh for 1000 miles and my electric rates are 10 cents in the summer and a little cheaper over winter but for summer prices it would be $20 or $240 a year for 12000 miles(I drive more than this though). To compare, if gas prices pervailed at $4/gallon, and they may be higher soon enough. When I'm getting 70MPG tanks in the summer that is $685.71 per year. So I'd save at least $445.71 but I'd very very likely get much better than 200wh/mile and I drive more than 12k miles so the savings should be better than that.

So the question is, will it pay off in the end, most likely, electric motors and their controllers last a long time, there are people who pulled forklift motors with manufacturer dates of the 60's and operate them in their cars today, I'll be using better components than this but they last a long time and need very little maintenance and are very easy to troubleshoot. I imagine that if I ever go from my original conversion to the next I'll take almost all of the same components and put them in the next car so I see the purchase price of this stuff to be not as big of a deal.

I may have answered a question different than what you were asking but that's my take on it from someone who is in the camp of buying 10 year old cars and owns a 1st gen Insight.

[Cobb]

I got an enginer phev kit and its saving me 4 gallons of gas a week. It will pay for it self in 2.5 years as is.

[circa1986]

I hope you succeed in your conversion! The only thing I'd be worried about is whether or not any of the safety equipment onboard the vehicle is affected.

[MN Driver]

Originally Posted by circa1986

I hope you succeed in your conversion! The only thing I'd be worried about is whether or not any of the safety equipment onboard the vehicle is affected.

It shouldn't be. As long as the ABS and SRS system have 12 volt power they will operate as designed and the seat belts don't care otherwise. I won't be making any structural changes outside maybe stronger springs such as Daewoo Matiz springs to support the battery weight in the rear since the back end will only take 260 pounds before sitting on the stops with close to a full tank of gas(about 60 pounds) right now and I'll be looking at a little more than 320 pounds for batteries so I need more support but then again after 10 years I expect the stock springs to be a little weaker than new anyway. I'm not too concerned over the stock safety systems and anything new I add will have the proper fuses and contactors/relays rated for voltage and amperage required for their application.

Thanks for the encouragement, since I'm saving up for the conversion and I don't want to work on the car in the garage during the winter which would likely be when I have the cash for this, I'm projecting next spring as the start date.

[Cobb]

Generally it is. A smaller than stock 12 volt battery is used in place of the oem one and a dc to dc converter to keep teh 12 volt side charged from the pack. This way you got all the accessories minus heat and ac. Then you need a vacuum pump for the brake booster, flaps in the ac box if equipped and a pump for power steering if equipped.

As one with a mechanical know how my concern is getting in an accident and having 1200 lbs of lead in front and behind you. To tell you the truth, I do not know of anyone who has wrecked or been wrecks who owns and drove the electric car. Ive seen plenty of prius and insights wrecked.

[MN Driver]

Originally Posted by Cobb

Generally it is. A smaller than stock 12 volt battery is used in place of the oem one and a dc to dc converter to keep teh 12 volt side charged from the pack. This way you got all the accessories minus heat and ac. Then you need a vacuum pump for the brake booster, flaps in the ac box if equipped and a pump for power steering if equipped.

As one with a mechanical know how my concern is getting in an accident and having 1200 lbs of lead in front and behind you. To tell you the truth, I do not know of anyone who has wrecked or been wrecks who owns and drove the electric car. Ive seen plenty of prius and insights wrecked.

Generally what is?

The stock 12 volt battery doesn't need to be smaller but usually the battery is there and oversized to be able to handle a ~200-300 amp starting load in extreme cold weather or for a short period if the alternator/DC-DC croaks. The group 51 that Insight, Civic, and other small engine Honda's use is small enough to where that isn't really necessary to get something smaller, for what it's worth I'm looking to swap mine with a lawn mower battery rated for 300CCA (U1 size) even with the ICE engine for when my original dies, not so much for weight savings but because I think it is all it really needs as it fits the CCA requirements of the car and its only $18-25 versus about $55-75.

A vacuum pump for the brake booster doesn't change much, its just a different source for the vacuum when you don't have it from an engine, the car operates and feels different and it otherwise doesn't make a difference, ABS isn't affected. I'm sure what flaps you are talking about, if A/C is retained, that isn't needed, if its removed or ignored, nothing needs to be added in its place. The Insight has power steering but no pump is required for it to operate since its electric.

So, I'm not sure what you meant by 'Generally it is.', I don't know what question you were answering.

"As one with a mechanical know how my concern is getting in an accident and having 1200 lbs of lead in front and behind you. To tell you the truth, I do not know of anyone who has wrecked or been wrecks who owns and drove the electric car. Ive seen plenty of prius and insights wrecked. "

1200 lbs of lead, who's making a car with lead? I'm not and nobody looking to make a practical electric car should ever make it with lead unless everywhere they go is within bicycling distance in the first place, in which case you might as well burn gas because you don't really have anything to gain other than a clumsy science experiment of a car that doesn't improve on much and is generally far less efficient than it otherwise could be.
...Instead I'm looking at adding about 400 pounds of lithium cells and placing a majority of them exactly where the IMA components and gas tank were that I'm pulling out. According to a recent conversion of an Insight on EValbum, he pulled 380 pounds of gasoline equipment off of the car. In that persons case, he will still within the GVWR as long as he isn't too much over 200 pounds and I'm not so I think that with my conversion I might still manage to be within GVWR too, which is quite a feat for a car that is designed for a 375 pound maximum payload over the stock car with 10.6 gallons of gas in it.

[Cobb]

Generally you have all the safety features when the 12 volt side is powered up. Air bags, abs, trac control,, skid control, wipers, flashers, lights, etc, etc, etc.

Most conversions I have seen have a small accessory battery vs what the car or truck came with. I dont know why the stock one isnt used, a deep cycle or something like a lithium, nickel metal or something fancy.

Most of the electric cars I see use lots of leads in the front and back.

I too would go lithium if I was doing it. Why go through all that effort, then use technology from over a hundred years ago.

Sounds like yours will be a sight to see..