I wouldn't jump to conclusions. Just for reference (it somehow got omitted from your quote, likely a bug in this site's quote function) Honda says in the notice I received:

The IMA battery level gauge more accurately indicates the battery's state-of-charge.

I would strongly suspect Honda's idea of "more accurate" display is at least slightly higher. It would be nice if they would be clear about that, instead of trotting out euphemisms.

But, I'm not totally alienated and mistrustful of their statements and intents. I think their statements are at least partial sincere, and based on their engineers' best judgement. Even though there has to be some element of "self preservation", hopefully that factor is minor.

Judging by how our car has performed post-update, the displayed state-of-charge does not seem to be at odds with reality, ie: I'm not seeing rosy display, followed by precipitous drop and re-cal activity. Or an increase in rec-cals.

More the opposite, though I haven't been the principal driver. I believe I've seen one instance where it started forced gen, and held back assist, but it seemed relatively short lived.

 

A couple of IMA comments in general and not specificially with regard to the Civic update.

What would be nice is Honda displaying the Hybrid pack's real voltage. And montored individual cells. If they won't put it on the dash for future models the next best thing would be releasing the code sequence so it could be read via the diagnostic port by SGII or other readers.

Right now it looks more like they are doing a bit of TLAR engineering to dumb down the IMA to help a weak pack. Firmware is likely cheaper than hardware.

When I ask my dealer what the status is on my IMA pack they say, "they can't really tell anything except when it is bad."

Wouldn't it be "sweet" if the Honda gasoline fuel gauge's worked like their IMA battery gauge.

 

Just before I got Honda to replace my battery I also saw the battery charge and discharge very quickly.

I came to realize that I only had 3 bars of actual battery to work with.

- When charging I noticed that everytime I reached 3 bars, the SOC would jump all the way to 8 bars
- When discharging I noticed that every time I reach 5 bars, the SOC fall all the way to 1 bar.

So....... If you are seeing the battery charge up very quickly, it is not necessarily a good thing....

 

Went for an extended freeway drive today. Had to run around in conjested local traffic doing some chores first, and did get a recal at about 2 bars: no assist, no autostop, 3 bars of charging at idle. Noticed something odd: just getting out onto highway to connect onto freeway, rolling up to a red light with about 4 bars of charge (just out of the recal), for some reason there was no green bars as we decellerated... I don't think I've ever seen that before.

Then, on the freeway, state of charge kept holding at maybe 4 bars, until suddenly (per Smurf), it jumped to full...

This is about 2 weeks post update for us.

And to EVDRVR2:

I can hook up a multimeter to the 12 volt and get a fairly accurate read on that guy. Yes, it is very frustrating that the IMA is so closed off. It displays the state of charge in dash, but there is a lot of potential smoke-and-mirrors between the battery and the display.

 

So, it is all hidden charge? And probably controlled better, so not such a hit when power is required? I was wondering about that. May be a good thing? H

 

Could be.

I notice also during recal's acceleration, while still pretty pokey due to no assist, seems a little better. The update documention notes PGM-I, IMA BATTERY and A/T software updates. It could be they've modifed fuel injection and transmission behaviour to help out during recal, just speculating.

 

You are probably right that Honda is being at least partially sincere and trying to do the right thing. For owners with Civics that have IMA batteries charging correctly, the worst impact of the software update appears to be making performance less peppy, and the positive impact is it could prolong the life of the IMA battery.

For owners like me who have IMA batteries that are partially deteriorated, no amount of tweaking with the software is going to restore the IMA to full capacity. I suspect Honda knows this but is hoping that the problem will go away or that there isn't sufficient pressure on them yet to cough up the money to replace the Civics with partially deteriorated IMA batteries.

 

I'm adding this brief comment to correct or clarify the belief that the software update will necessarily make performance less peppy. In my case (battery intact and charging properly), there has been no loss of performance at any time, and in many cases I have had a significant improvement in acceleration, drivability, and battery management.

 

Yesterday was really my first protracted drive since the update. Our battery state, in my estimation, is "middling": we get recals, maybe 2 a week. I've noticed:

1. On one occasion, just coming out of a recal, it behaved like a full battery while displaying around 4~5 bars of charge: coasting to a red light, even with a little pressure on the brake, it did no recharging. That was a new one for me.

2. Soon thereafter, state of charge suddenly jumped from 4~5 to fully charged.

3. On a few occasions we've come to a stop, with decent state of charge, vent system completely off, not in Sport, etcetera, but no Auto Stop. Shift to Neutral: it Auto Stops.

4. Sometimes it seems like it's on the verge of a recal, but doesn't go there, ie: no drop of charge state, lock-out of AutoStop and forced charging. But it does withhold assist for a bit.

 

Point well taken. Some owners have been pleased with the software update, and have reported better performance and acceleration. But some owners have been unhappy with the software's impact on performance even if their IMA battery is functioning normally. My unscientific survey is that opinion is fairly divided on this issue.