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by madphilosopher
665 days ago
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I don't know what era a 6th gen Honda Civic comes from, but I just bought a 2011 Honda CR-Z hybrid sports car this year, and I love it. I bought it to supplement my 2012 Toyota Prius-C, which is a pretty awesome hybrid. The Toyota gets way better gas mileage and can cruise in all-electric mode in the city, but the Honda has way more zooms. And the Honda Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system allows the transmission to be a 6-speed manual (more fun). On the CR-Z forums and CR-Z subreddit, every prospective buyer worries about the hybrid batteries, but virtually no owner has ever had to replace them. The older NiMH batteries are more reliable than the newer LiON, and the former are that much cheaper to refurbish. A plugin hybrid seems to be the best way to go for someone who lives in northern Canada and is not a city person. But I don't want to pay the new-car premium price, nor do I want an Internet-connected vehicle sending all that personal data back to the mothership, which they all seem to do. |
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The CR-Zs are awesome! I believe the 2011s use LiON batteries, which ironically are supposedly more reliable than the NiMH batteries they were using prior (and in my Civic). Apparently Toyota had patents on their prismatic batteries, and Honda was stuck using D-cell style NiMH ones which were poorly cooled.
The poor cooling caused them to slowly drift their state of charge, but because they were wired in series, there was no way for the battery management system to rebalance them, resulting in horrible capacity loss. Worse yet, Honda didn't include an alternator in my Civic, and the 12v battery was intended to be charged by the hybrid battery + IMA.
Guess who had a fun time when the car shut off in the middle of the highway (!!) on the way to work? Thankfully CA mandates a 10y/150k mi warranty on PZEV powertrains!
Everything but the hybrid part of my Civic is great, and I no longer need to drive to work, so I don't use it all that much. Hoping it lasts long enough that by the time I need to replace it I have tons of options to pick from.