READER’S SAGAS
Prototype battery means mojo renewed for Guy’s Honda
When introduced in 1999, Honda’s first-generation Insight offered drivers a brilliant and novel approach to fuel efficiency. It combined a low-drag aluminium and plastic body with an ultra-efficient, three-cylinder petrol engine and an integrated electric ‘boost’ system that provided a handy extra 13bhp from a high-voltage battery behind the seats, using a motor built into the flywheel.
I love them and that’s why I bought my Japanese import example a few years back. Honda christened the boost system IMA, or Integrated Motor Assist. The batteries were state-of-the-art (at the time) Nickel-Metal-Hydride (NiMH) with a mere 6.5Ah capacity, charged by regenerative braking – also via the flywheel. With even the heaviest versions of the Insight weighing less than 900kg, the combined petrol/electric powertrain made the cars fun to drive as well as extremely economical. Manual Insights can easily achieve 80mpg, and even 100mpg is available with care. I have tried and almost achieved it – it’s a pastime known as hypermiling.
Unfortunately, the little car proved too far ahead of its time and in the end Honda only sold just over 17,000 first-generation Insights worldwide, mostly in the USA. Just over 200 were sold in the UK, hence many being imported. Owners of early Insights, myself included, are now finding that their much-loved cars are becoming somewhat difficult to support. The batteries are becoming tired, and although the electric system can be disabled and the car driven with just the engine, doing so makes it rather slow and boring.
With future supplies of the old-tech NiMH batteries becoming uncertain, and parts for first-generation Insights drying up rapidly, owners needed someone to come forward and save their quirky little cars for posterity.
Cavalry Insight!
Fortunately, two enterprising enthusiasts on opposite sides of the Atlantic have joined forces and developed their own solution to the ageing battery problem. Peter Perkins in Hull is a retired policeman who has had a love of these cars for over two decades and has also developed several performance and economy ‘hacks’ over the years, while John Sullivan in Tennessee, USA is an electrica
