When I first started driving the Insight (2001 5sp), I had trouble keeping the battery level indicator anywhere above halfway (actually, "had trouble" isn't the right phrase; I just wasn't paying much attention to it at all - it still worked fine). As time went by, I learned that some judicious use of a lower gear in certain situations (particular hills around my area being the biggest culprit, although some of them don't appear abnormally steep) would keep the batteries from draining much at all. Using the lower gear for these "rough spots" doesn't seem to affect my mileage much (it's gotten steadily better as I've learned more about the causes and effects anyhow) and prevents the Insight from using its electric motor at full power in high gear, which seems to drain the batteries very quickly (although it's probably just that in high gear it's easy to use "a little assist" for a long period of time without noticing much).
Since I started dropping to fourth at times, I've nearly always had the battery charge indicator above the "must charge at cruising" level. I don't think it's necessarily "better" for the batteries to be at high charge, but I've certainly had fewer recalibrations. I do typically use full throttle to accelerate whenever it is necessary, and the difference between the amount of assist available at high charge vs. low charge is very noticable.
As a friend of mine says, "you're always playing the Insight Game."
Since I started dropping to fourth at times, I've nearly always had the battery charge indicator above the "must charge at cruising" level. I don't think it's necessarily "better" for the batteries to be at high charge, but I've certainly had fewer recalibrations. I do typically use full throttle to accelerate whenever it is necessary, and the difference between the amount of assist available at high charge vs. low charge is very noticable.
As a friend of mine says, "you're always playing the Insight Game."
