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Personal project · 2013

Honda Insight 144V Battery Teardown

Honda Insight IMA battery pack cover removed, exposing orange interconnect

Pulled an 80 lb, 144V NiMH pack, ran cell-by-cell diagnostics, and designed a custom PCB grid charger instead of paying a $4,000 dealer quote.

ElectronicsDiagnosticsHands-on

Removing the cover of the Honda Insight IMA battery pack, exposing the orange high-voltage interconnect plate — Pulling the pack cover to expose the high-voltage interconnect plate.

Working gloved on the exposed orange cell interconnect plate of the 144V pack — Cell-by-cell work on the exposed 144V interconnect — insulated gloves and a healthy respect for the voltage.

The opened IMA battery pack on a workbench with cylindrical NiMH sticks visible — The opened pack on the bench: 120 NiMH cells in 20 sticks, 7.2V each.

Working on the extracted IMA battery pack at a workbench — Workbench diagnosis of the extracted 80 lb pack.