Online discussion at Accord Plug-in Hybrid Forum

We have an older Honda Accord Hybrid that we would like to convert to a Plugin Hybrid. Can anyone tell me what I might expect to pay someone to do this conversion?

Can't provide you cost estimate I'm afraid, but some things you'll need to do...
1) Replace transmission with 2 electric motors. (the original Honda Hybrid used Honda inline IMA, not parallel Hybrid system).
2) Replace NiMH hybrid battery with a L-ION hybrid battery. NiMH will take up to 2 days to charge, not at all practical.
3) With all new electric motors and new L-Ion battery, you'll need an entirely new software system to handle hand-off between Engine and Electric.


In short, the power train and hybrid battery pack of the original Honda Hybrid is just not designed for this.
If you have a 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid, this would likely be a much simpler effort. Just increase the battery capacity and install charging circuit. Minor parameter modifications to the car software.

I really don't know a lot about this car and it sounds like you know way more than me. Forgive me for asking a couple more questions that are probably not very thought out.

I was hoping that there might be some minor things that we could do to just charge/top off the NiMH batteries a little each night. The car would mostly be driven to and from work which is about 20 miles round trip. Are there higher capacity NiMH batteries today than there were 5 years ago when the car was made? Can't we upgrade to a higher capacity NiMH battery?

We basically want an inexpensive cheap version of a plugin car. The trade-in value of the 2008 Civic Hybrid that we has is not much more than $10,000. Even if we have to spend $3000 bucks on a conversion it's still a lot less than a nice new Plugin.

Ok so to verify…you have a Civic Hybrid..or an Accord Hybrid prior to 2012?

Also re: charging, topping off the NiMH batteries in either case will not allow you to drive in electric-only mode.
The Honda Integrated-Motor-Assist requires the gasoline engine to be running the entire time, the electric motor os solely for torque to reduce gasoline consumption (in the civic) during acceleration, or for the accord to provide additional power to the V6 engine (so the electric is designed for Power, not fuel efficiency, in the V6 accord hybrid).

Both are completely different than the 2014 PHEV and the 2014 HEV Accords. The 2013 civic hybrid is still very similar to your design, but uses L-Ion batteries.

So if you could let us know what you're end-result is as well as the car model (civic or accord?) other than just charging your existing NIMH battery which is unlikely to provide much benefit…

So are you wanting electric-only operation for a few miles? Just a bigger battery for more torque for the old V6 accord hybrid? More battery-time for the civic hybrid? Something else entirely?
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