I looked at a Civic Hybrid in a parking lot today. It had the hybrid badging out back, no apparent MSD, --- pop-up? --- and a manual 5 speed transmission. Strange, thinks I. I'm just getting to get good daily mileage, ~49 MPG on a daily basis, on my 2 month old, 2008 Prius. And thats with the HSD demi-intelligence taking care of the basic gas-electricty energy management, and me being the higher order intelligence, I hope, integrating HSD energy output, traffic, potential and kenetic energies. I can't imagine doing all that, and coordinating a stick shift and clutch as well. Is there a dynamic interplay of gas and electric power or just one or the other? I'm wondering maybe the hybrid badging is a red herring. I notice that on this thread some posters mention that they have a Civic hybrid in the house/garage. I'm hoping that you can give me an executive summary of how a hybrid/manual tranny works, or a debunking if that's in order.
The Civic-Hybrid is an ASSIST type. There's only 1 electric motor (15kW) and it is integrated directly with the engine, sharing the identical RPM all the time. Hybrids like Prius are the FULL type. They have 2 electric motors (10kW & 50kW for Prius) and a PSD (Power-Split-Device) allowing for independent operation of each component... providing capability well beyond that of ASSIST, like electric-only drive and on-the-fly electricity generation. .
The way Honda set up its IMA, it's possible to have both a manual and an automatic (CVT in their case) to be mated to the system. Both the Insight and HCH had 5-spd manuals with CVT as an option. The 5-spd manual was not offered in Canada and in the US, was soon dropped in favour of the CVT.
It sounds like this was an '05 or before since, I believe, they quit offering the 5MT in '06. You can follow the progress of an '05 5MT here as a group of people are going to reenact the North American portion of the 1908 Great Race.Hypermilers Re-enact the 1908 centennial of NY to San Francisco Race - CleanMPG Forums I would have went along to have a Prius represented but couldn't get the time off from work.
Oh, Jeez, I mean John, I've spent hours digging through your website. It was one of the first Prius specific sites I visited in the final stages of my decision to buy. I got lost in there, I think I got to level five, but could never defeat the dragon and win my hypermiling powers. This is sort of like an elephant trying to talk to an ant. And then the ant said... So, simplistically put, the Civic Hybrid driver just stirs around with the stick shift and stomps on the gas, and the Honda demi-intelligence decides when to use gas or electric?
That's sort of right. Think of the Honda Hybrid system as a normal engine. With the Honda, the gas engine always runs, except when the car is stopped. The electric motor gives the engine a boost when needed, starts the engine, and supplies regenerative braking, but the car can't run on only electric, so the control system never has to "decide when to use gas or electric". It can only use gas and electric, or gas only. Tom
Honda use a tiny 1.3 litre engine Engine stop on stopping lean fuel mapping low friction design to achieve good economy. This works well at constant speeds. The electric motor is needed for quiet engine restart and is used to provide boost and engine recovery to that tiny engine. The Honda gets good economy on the open road but less so in stop start city traffic. The engine must spin to drive the wheels. It works with a manual trans because when you lift your foot off the accelerator to change gear you also cut any boost from the electric motor. I think there is a consumption gauge somewhere on the dash board it just isn't a LCD screen.
I refer you to http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/training/prius02.html#sld2 Honda's systems are all parallel type, with the motor bolted straight to the engine. What comes after that in terms of a transmission largely doesn't matter, and can be a 5MT or the CVT as you've seen. But it's still a hybrid. . _H*
I owned a Civic Hybrid for almost 5 years before buying my Prius a year ago. Shortly after I got it I put together some information about it on my little freebe cox.net website and added a page for each year. It was a cvt model, but after the transmission had to be replaced at 30k miles I sort of wished it had been a five speed. If anyone is interested in looking at it, it can be found at My Wonderful Honda Civic Hybrid
If you had a five speed manual labor tranny, you may've end up replacing the HV battery pack because it allows the driver to drain it to very low level. I believe it was one of the reason why Honda discontinued the manual labor gearbox.
No, not likely to be a red herring at all. The 2003-2005 Civic Hybrid can not run on electric only. As the other posters mentioned, the gas engine is always running when power is applied to the drive wheels Hypermilers just love those manual Civic Hybrids because they can achieve rather very high FE when compared to the CVT equipped models. The orchestration of the assist and regen cycles are handled automatically by the BCM, so it is not a big deal at all. However, a greedy driver that is oblivious to the SoC can easily incur too many deep discharge cycles on the pack... particularly if the BCM software is old. That is why there have been more battery replacements on MT units than on the CVT's and also why Honda will not intro an MT hybrid again. john1701a: ... never mind... I got a head ache. Cheers; MSantos
I think it's time to close this thread down. Many thanks to the posters who responded to my query. I've gotten a quick thumb-nail sketch of the Civic hybrid's workings. So now I know. Should I see that car again, time permitting I'll see if I can work out getting a ride to see it in action. Of course I'll offer them a ride in a 'real' hybrid, my Prius. :
I bought an '03 HCH with the 5M transmission. It now has 140,000 miles without a bit of trouble. The only repairs have been routine recommended maintenance according to Honda schedule. Averages about 48MPG and is capable of 55 on a cross-country drive. My daughter drives it now since I bought a Prius.
