| OK, MIMA is installed, Now how do I work this thing??? How do I use it for better MPG??? Some tips and suggestions: MIMA for beginners PDF by Ray Holan Getting Familiar with MIMA Just use the joystick at first to see how the extra assist and regen works and feels, and use it to run your battery up and down to see how that works. Get a feel for max assist in all gears, feel max regen in each gear. Get in an open parking lot, and with the engine idling, let up the clutch and cruise with engine at idle. Foot off the gas. Use MIMA to accelerate the car and decelerate the car. This works all the way up to third. Get back on the road, and run your battery gauge up to the top with regen, and avoid assist, until you get the SOC gauge to the top. Then use assist a lot until the battery runs to the bottom and starts to limit assist. Bring the SOC back to the middle and you are ready to try boosting your MPG. Always blend the assist with a slight increase in gas to accelerate. Use too little gas, and you are not at the optimum efficiency point on the gas side. Except for the parking lot fun, never use assist without also using gas, at least drop the MPG down into the 100MPG range. This gets the gas engine so it is producing power for the gas that is burned. If you try to do it with all electric you will deplete your battery quickly.(Lead finger syndrome) The trick is to meter in just enough assist as required to maintain best efficiency of electric and gas power plants. Hills are everywhere around here. The best technique for using MIMA on hills depends on the hill. The guys in mountains that look at our hills call them bumps. The small battery packs in the Insight will give between 3 and 10 minutes of very strong assist. That can be stretched to forever if that energy is used wisely. The guys that have a 8000 foot climb to work, verses the CT highways with their rolling hills, San Fransisco, Florida. The flatlanders: On flat areas we have a predictable load on the power plant, with accelerations and decelerations the main areas where MIMA can help. A slight background charge with ABC to trickle energy into the pack, and shots of assist whenever a slight hill or overpass comes up, and a shot when you need to accelerate slightly, can add up to a nice MPG boost. Keep the pack in the top area, but do cycle it occasionally to "blow out dendrites" and keep the pack strong. The hills: You know the terrain, you must learn to meter out the assist where it will do the most good, and how to be a regenmaster. You must balance the gas and electric efficiently, with an eye on the maintenance of a charge on the HV battery. OK, I admit the maintenance of a charge when that MIMA joystick is right there is a hard one. You must be a regenmaster, and like a Jedi warrior, learn to use every opportunity to grab any wasted energy you can, but only in a way that will maintain the best MPG. A Zen meditation for sure! Some sources of wasted energy: Engine breaking Idling or driving with very light loads Using the hydraulic brakes acceleration of mass deceleration of mass |