Hi NASAgineer:
___As you stated above, your hybrid has much smaller displacement ICE and a slightly atkinsonized intake. New for 06 Use the hybrid qualities when you need them. Faster accelerations for lane merges and regen for the times you have to get into the binders (only when needed however). The pack itself charges your 12V through a drop down Inverter-Rectifier of some sort so it is not like it’s not in use much of the time. I am not sure how Assist is programmed in your HCH-II but I hope it is not right from the bottom like the Insight’s and HCH-I’s (it was tough to keep it at bay in them) but more like the AH, only when you need it with a healthy dose of throttle input. This is the way IMA assist should be designed and I hope Honda learned something here. FAS’ in your 99 MT Accord does the same thing but you have a lot of unwanted actions to perform this vs. simply using your accelerator pedal as you would in a Prius II, FEH, and now your 06 by the sounds of it It is really great to hear about that small touch of throttle in a coast down from higher speeds to enter into Fuel cut w/out regen. This is the HCH-II’s real advance in design as long as everybody else can duplicate it in theirs. Please keep us informed about your progress and experimentation. Everything you have written so far goes along with what I believe the core IMA team at Honda would do given the constraint of IMA being locked to the ICE. HS-P&G results as well as steady 53 mph on the flats with little to no wind is what I will be waiting to hear from you next

___CGameProgrammer, the gas consumed to bring your SoC back up after assist comes into the equation as well. In terms of pack longevity, each cycle, no matter how small, is one less cycle you have available at End Of Life. That end of life might be just 100,000 miles for someone riding the thing all the time or 400,000 miles for someone just using it when its actually needed. Who knows what the answer to that question is? The less you use it, the better for the pack. It is not so much a 2 - 4 bar Assist/Regen regimen with their relatively low current flows but the max assist/regen or cycling the pack from 2 bars to 20 bars repetitively that can do her in. You really want to avoid heavy pack use scenarios if at all possible.

___ElanC, there is a lot more then just the next ½ mpg available here.

___Exactly! You have to add user input by throwing a switch to achieve maximum FE (range in your EV) when the car could have been designed for it in the first place! It doesn’t matter that Toyota, Honda, and Ford designs Regen as a quasi ICE braking scheme but it is wrong to do so for FE reasons.

___Because you did not have any idea as to what I was talking about in regards to hybrid design with the statement: “There is so much demand for these "improperly designed" cars that three year old used cars are selling for more than their original purchase price.” Do you now?

___Philmcneal, Regen isn’t bad but it should only be invoked when necessary. Coming down a hill when you would have to use the friction brakes, use regen. Coming to an actual stop from speed when a light changed or traffic conditions changed so as to not allow you a much longer glide, use regen. It is grabbing Regen instead of a much longer glide where the crossover point is. Regen does not convert your hybrids kinetic into chemical energy at anywhere near 100% efficiency. Use Regen when you have too just as when you need assist but do not use it ***** nilly. Your overall FE in the real world may actually be less because of it depending on where and when you decide to use it.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

 

I think you can. I've been trying some of the hypermiler techniques discussed in these forums, and gotten trip mileages right around 50MPG. I've also done several freeway trips at 60-65MPH where I just set the cruise control, and also gotten right around 50. So far, I haven't been able to outsmart the car Of the roughly 200 miles that I have put on my 06HCH so far, half are freeway cruise control (60-65), and half are city/highway where I was trying hypermiler techniques. The tank average is 49. So far, I haven't been able to outsmart the car

I'm sure an experienced hypermiler could do better than I have, but the bottom line is that simply using cruise control and keeping your speed down will also give you great mileage. This thread is more about pushing the envelope.

 

Thanks for all the great info, Wayne! I'm really having fun learning how this technology works.

I'm afraid you might be dissapointed there. After a bit of practice, I have been able to accelerate without any assist, but it is hard to do, and the rate of acceleration is S-L-O-W.

I did some P&G experiments yesterday and I found that I could do it as you described. No regen and no fuel flow on the glide was pretty easy to do once I got the hang of it. The hard part was pulsing w/o assist. I could do it, but it took a while to get back up to speed. Maybe I'm just impatient. Another variable complicating my tests is that I don't have any real flat areas around. Almost every stretch of road is either a gradual incline or descent, so it's hard to tell exactly what's going on. It's funny, I never really noticed it until I started driving this car. I need to go out to the central CA valley where there's miles and miles of flats.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that it gets harder to do this as the SoC drops. The SoC gauge has 8 blocks total. Once it gets down to 4, it's really hard to cancel out that last bar of regen without the fuel flow starting back up. Below 4, I haven't been able to do it at all. 6 or above, and it's easy. I guess that's just the ECU protecting the battery.

I've definitely seen the steady 53 on the flats, it just didn't last very long because the flats didn't last. Hills are also complicating my HS-P&G attempts. I've only been able to do a couple of P&G cycles before I get caught gliding on an uphill and have to use assist to reach the top (or let my speed drop too low).

 

Hi NASAgineer; Thanks for this most "Recent-Post" because I think and you have just said it in so many words that a person can just set the cruise control and turn on the X/M and sit back and enjoy their brand-new 06 HCH ll and not worry about all the many-many other ways to increase their FE. I am (NOT-SAYING) that for those that like to get the "Most" out of their vehicles (hybrids or Not) that they are wrong or foolish or any other negative comment concerning Hypermiling but simply to say it is really nice to read that you can set your cruise at say 65 MPH and the HCH ll will take care of the rest and you can concentrate on (Driving-Safely) in this over-whelming Bumper to Bumper Traffic and Semi-Trucks right on your Rear-End.

Thanks for your "Post"

Terry

 

Hi Philmcneal:
___Read NASAgineer’s description of a coast w/out regen. As I understand it, it is a simple feather of the throttle. Let off to get you into Fuel cut and add a touch to get you out of regen with fuel cut still invoked. No key off/on, no swinging of the tranny from D to N to D, no watching of the tach, nothing. It is simply a straight forward accelerator feather just as it is in the Prius II. Escape HEV w/ a quick D to L and then to D if you want a similar result …

___NASAgineer, do not forget to tell us about real world EV/Glide mode distances from a given high SoC to a low one in the HCH’s Fuel Cut/EV mode, HS P&G FE, and steady cruise 53 mph like FE. That last one is going to make or break the 06 HCH-II vs. the HCH-I for some slow speed highway pilots given a well setup HCH-I can run in lean-burn with the instantaneous camped at 80 + mpg while at extremely low load.

___As an edit, I am typing these posts up slower then the posts are coming in. Thanks for the detailed FE analysis on your HCH-II so far NASAngineer.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

 

Exactly! I'm really happy it's this way too, because I don't see myself as having the patience to be a full-time hypermiler. Many times I just want to listen to the radio (I'm a news/talk junkie and a baseball & hockey fan) and let the car drive itself, so it's nice to know that it can do so well.

BTW, I graduated high school from Overton HS in Nashville. Franklin was our arch-rival in football if I remember correctly (I was in the marching band, so I had to go to every game).

 

Small-World Is-It-Not ? and sometimes you meet the Nicest People:

Later;

Terry

BTW; I am from Frankfort, Ky.

 

Ahh, your location tag on your posts says 'Franklin, Tennessee'. Did you move?

 

Sorry for the confusion. Maybe I should have said that I was transferred to Nashville, Tn. from Lexington, Ky. with IBM (Senior-Customer-Engineer) OPD (Office-Products-Division). I now live in Franklin, Tn. and have for the past 18 Yrs. I am actually from Frankfort, Ky. and as I was just saying moved to Lexington, Ky. while working for IBM. Hope this clears this address thing up a little.

IBM (I've-Been-Moved)

Terry

 

I found some flatter terrain to do some more EV testing today. I found that I wasn't able to maintain a constant speed using assist only (no fuel flow) on the flats. With 4 bars of assist @ 50MPH, speed would bleed off at about 1MPH per every 2 seconds. At 30MPH, speed would bleed off at 1MPH/4-5 seconds.

Note that this terrain was still not completely flat, so these numbers are probably skewed a bit from what they would be if it was completely flat, but it looks like the DC motor just does not produce enough power to hold speed by itself. Maybe it would at full assist, but the ECU won't give me more than 4 bars (out of 12) before the ICE starts firing again. The assist was, however, extending my glides significantly.

I'd be very interested to see what an experienced P&G hypermiler can do with this car.