[Rick]

Ok this is interesting. I would put my hand on a bible and say the Insight uses 6.5 ah cells. This is the figure I seem to recall for the past several years, and this page agrees with me.

http://www.insightcentral.net/encyclope ... ttery.html

And I know the Civic uses a slightly different 6.0ah cell. I happened to be pouring through the page for the 2006 Insight and noticed something interesting, it now says 6.0ah!

http://automobiles.honda.com/models/spe ... tegory=ALL

At this point I kind of started worrying so I dut out all my past model year brochures. 2002 - 6.5ah, 2003 - 6.5ah, 2004 - 6.5ah, 2005 - 6.0ah!
This is interesting, either someone made a typo that's continued through this year, they decided to de-rate the cells down to 6.0ah, or they switched to a common cell with the Civic.

An interesting find.

 

[Kobushi]

My money says they switched to a common battery with the civic and accord to lower costs.

Or perhaps, instead of changin the battery pack, they just changed the controller, so that you can only get 6.0AH from it, as opposed to 6.Ah before it cuts you off and says "AHH I NEED TO CHARGE!"

Also, from what I can tell so far, the 2006 Civic hybrid will use the exact same chassis as the Civic Sedan... which should help lower cost significantly. (unlike the prvious civic hybid which had it's own chassis)

I'm betting that afte rthe tax rebate for a civic hybrid, the cost will be equal to that of an EX Sedan, since they have basically the same equipment other than the IMA/drivetrain. (we'll see when honda releases an MSRP for the hybrid, current MSRP on the 06 EX Sedan w/auto is 19K