If Honda offered to install an after market option to the 06 HCH to make it a PHEV (Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicle) would you buy it?

 

I don't think it would work with the Civic because the small battery and electric motor aren't enough to power it on their own, with the exception of low speed cruising for short periods. They would need to reengineer it with a smaller ICE and larger electric motor/battery pack similar to the Prius for this to be viable. Also an extra $2000 on top of the regular hybrid premium would be hard to swallow for most. Plugging in the existing Civic Hybrid would simply top off it's charge and provide little added benefit.

 

Actually, the Prius' motor is larger than the HCH II's.

 

Right. It's not practical.

I might go for an option of doubling the battery capacity because in my driving situation (a lot of hills to climb and descend) I think it would help.

 

Combine that with an EV mode control and I'll buy it.

I hate geeting close to my destination with a fully charged battery and not been able to wrap-up the trip on EV mode.

 

Exactly, with some manual controls and a doubled battery pack, I believeI could see massive improvements in MPG, as much as 25%, because of the large number of hills I drive on.

Honda should have at least given the ability to enable/disable charging while coasting, and the ability to select mroe or less aggressive profiles for climbing longer or shorter hills (how much assist is to be used, in order to save the pack, or use more if there will soon be an opportunity to recharge.) Another stock option I'd like to have seen would be an electric-modulated cruise control mechanism that maintainined speed by varying the electric proportion alone, rather than the gas throttle, unless absolutely necessary. Such a system would allow the engine to "live" at a particularly efficient RPM band, in exchange for slightly more background charging.

I can understand not giving complete manual control of the battery pack, as Honda doesn't want people to fry their battery packs by doing something stupid, but none of the options I suggested would need to have that problem as they would essentially only change parameters in the comptuer control, rather than presenting a full manual control. They woudl also be easy for most any driver to understand.

Having an extra battery pack as an option does make sense though, as those people who live in hilly areas coudl benefit from it, while those who live on the flatlands who might not use it would not have to carry around the excess weight and pay the excess initial cost.

Also, although an EV mode optoin would not work on the Honda Civic, a reserve of wall-charged electricity woudl allow for the electric motor to shoulder a much larger burden during the first several miles of driving, which woudl still save a lot of money on fuel, even without moving up to a EV-Alone system.

 

With a full battery every monring and EV glide, I could make some terrific mileage.

 

I voted yes assuming you mean there would be a big enough battery pack to do more than just a boost, so it would run mostly on electric until it went dead. I would buy that in a second. By this I mean like ten or fifty times the battery power it now has so it could go 20-50 miles on its own without running the engine. That would meet most of my around town driving needs. That would be great.

With the current battery pack this would be completely useless. This battery is only enough to power the car for a mile or two by itself, or maybe up one short hill. What would be the point of that? Mine goes into the garage fully charged most of the time anyway.

 

That much battery capacity adds a lot to the weight of the car, and would probably leave you with very little trunk space. Carrying all that weight around would hurt FE significantly. There's no free lunch. The HCH simply was not designed so it can be a PHEV. The electric motor has only 20 HP, barely enough to move the car at a constant speed at 20 MPH on a flat road.

Once lithium batteries become rugged and safe enough for automotive use it may be possible. There are after market upgrades of the Prius to PHEV, using lithium. The HCH in its current generation won't cut it.

 

Precisely why I think having a plug-in HCH is pointless if the car is left as-is.