Maximizing Honda’s Insight with MIMA

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Yves Morisette and Mike Dabrowski love their Honda Insights. And why not? They’re highly advanced little cars: aerodynamic aluminum structure, spacious cabin for a two-seater, and still the lowest fuel consumption in America. But Yves and Mike realized that as much as they loved their Insights, they could love them even more. The trouble, as they saw it, was that the Insight’s computer — and not the driver — decided when and how to employ the car’s Integrated Motor Assist to augment the 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine’s meager torque, or to allow the engine to shut down altogether for electric-only cruising. The stock system was engineered to offer a generally acceptable balance between drivability and frugality, but Morisette and Dabrowski knew the Insight had more to give. Their solution: MIMA, or Manual Integrated Motor Assist. The duo reconfigured the Insight’s IMA management system and installed an innovative joystick-style controller that allows the driver to adjust the electric/gasoline power balance in a variety of ways — on the fly. Nudge the stick one way for 100-percent gasoline power, useful for recharging the car’s batteries; nudge it another way for 100-percent electric power, ideal for high-mileage cruising. The system’s operation, at first glance, is quite complicated, but the preliminary results are impressive. Over a moderately hilly 15.2-mile test run, a MIMA-equipped Insight returned a stunning 118.6 mpg — considerably better than the standard car’s (still pretty impressive) 61-mpg highway fuel-economy figure.

And as if MIMA wasn’t enough, Mike has pushed his Insight’s frugality even further with a completely ingenious fifth wheel featuring its own electric motor. Shod with a scooter tire and lowered from beneath the car by a hydraulic actuator, Mike’s E-wheel (visible in its deployed position in the photo above) provides 100-percent battery-powered propulsion to speeds as high as 30 mph, leaving the Insight’s engine and IMA out of the equation entirely.

Read more about MIMA and Mike’s Insight here.

Thanks to Autopia readers for the tip. — MP

The MIMA system’s joystick controller sequence.

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