As some may know I have been working closely with Paul Andrews the owner of the highly succesful UK Rally CVT MK1 Insight. I have been advising Paul re an upgrade to lithium and he has just taken delivery of a 156v 15ah Lithium Lifebatt pack. This uses the most upto date high performance lithium cells (Way better and more expensive than my 40ah ones). He is after maximum peformance with continious max assist and regen during special stages. He is running a modified MIMA type system and I have supplied him with a BCM fooler based on the one I have working in my curent vehicle to help with positive recals etc. Eventually of course the intention is to use the BATTSCI fake BCM system.
Here is a pic of the batteries in the back as arrived today! I shall be going over next week so we can all stand around looking at how to mount them and scratching our heads at the same time!
Looks like they may well fit in the standard space with a cut down old pack to the left for mounting the switchboard. The new pack is divided into two to allow it to connect directly to the four standard oem nimh connection points on the back of the relay/switch board.
It is cool to see more than one brand of Lithium cells to be part of the Insight. So, LiFeBatt's do 6.7C continuously while prismatic cells have trouble with 2.5C continuously? How has your experience been with the 40Ah cells? Can they pull a full 100 amps(2.5C) for awhile or is it a voltage drop or temperature sort of issue? ...or I suppose regen would be a big issue since he is looking to max that out.
I am thinking of using TS cells sometime in the distant future, I wasn't planning on using 40Ah cells as a PHEV like you have but was thinking more along the lines of your ideas using a 34 cell 200Ah pack, except that discussion would be for your other thread instead.
The lifebatt can do 10C (150A) continously I understand and can handle the 50A regen. The weight of the 156v 15Ah Lifebatt pack is pretty similar to the standard 144v 6.5ah nimh. Although the lithium pack has well over 3 times the useable 4ah nimh capacity.
My Hipower 40ah cells can do 100A when warm with sag to about 3v per cell. I try not to abuse them like this though and I am more content with a lower level 1C drain. I'm going for max mpg, Paul is going for max performance over a short period before a charge in the pits between special stages!!
Paul will have a mains based 3Kw 15A charger in the support vehicle or he can use his modified IMA control which has a tick over forced charge mode which allows the car to sit in the pits ticking over charging at about 15A.
The 10C performance figure is a very nice figure, kudos to Lifebatt! Those cells look to be ideal for performance use and I've read praise from a few different EV sites that I visit from time to time.
I enjoy the UK Rally CVT Mk1 Insight videos you have posted, it proves how agile and fun the Insight can be.
Last edited by MN Driver; 10-07-2009 at 09:24 AM.
Reason: Thought those cells in the 40Ah pack were the yellow ones.
Thanks for sharing and researching that. I have an Insight 2 and plan to drive it for ever. When my pack dies or I have a few extra grand laying around I want to upgrade the hybrid battery.
Sure hope the mima comes out for this model too.
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I took a quick review over the PHEV thread once I saw you mentioned Hipower and revised my post after I saw the white cells in your pictures. I've been spending a decent amount of time over at the diyelectriccar forums where people are currently putting the LFP cells to use and for some reason I thought your cells were the yellow TS cells too, I think this thought was based on your original discussion over getting the TS LCP cells and for some reason that brand incorrectly stuck in my head.
I may end up using the TS cells myself(which is the third brand being used in Insights, now with ericbecky and his TS booster pack) depending on how the results fare with all the TS cells that I'm seeing various EV forum users buying at the moment, but I won't be getting started on anything for at least 2 years or so. I have the chance to wait and see, but the current $1.10 per Ah on those cells and possibly continued drop has me watching closely to see how they perform over time before I make any decisions with that company, especially considering their pre-2005 performance, but I won't dive into that topic here.
This version of the PHEV I1 is nice as it is close to the OEM weight... but as posted has ~130% more stored chemical energy than the OEM 10 year old NiMH.
It nicely shows some of the battery progress in that last ~10 years or so.
Although he will be using it more for performance ... Ironically the same type of modern battery pack would also offer significant MPG improvements with the a grid charge option... from a full charge this kind of battery pack might provide up to 5kW of IMA assist to replace 5kW of gasoline useage for the first ~20 minutes or so of driving... then as nearly the same weight it allows normal MIMA I1 performance after that first ~20 minutes or so.
For racing removing the 6kg of charger shouldn't hurt him significantly.
Driving in loops in 1st gear with MIMA to get ~40 Amps of Regen or he could idle at ~15 Amps .... after all for the racing I would think the hit to MPG would be much less important... due to the CC/CV for the batteries he won't be able to get 100% full SoC this way... but it could get the first part of his charge cycle in much faster... than top it off as time allows with the proper battery charger he has outside the vehicle.
How much time does he have between events? ... he probably doesn't want to over heat the batteries either... so there might be a bit of a balancing act between how much time to spend charging vs show much time to spend letting them cool.
How well will the BMS he is using manage it if he tries to do charge cycles at ~40 Amps driving in 1st gear loops?
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Lifebatt Lithium Install
