First will be the Fog lights anyone else doing this?

ANy info re. adding a charging plug. Charger selection? Attach points? Reply, Just to say no help. This is not going to be a forum unless there is dialogue.

Only thing I can say is that this is futuristic right now for the Altima.

I do not even know if a Camry Hybrid has yet been converted
to a plug-in. Only about 200-300 Prius have been converted.
A few Escape hybrids have also been converted but that's about
it.

You will be the pioneer for the Altima if you do it and will be
exploring some uncharted technological challenges.

It may still be doable by a knowledgeable engineer and a there
are some case studie available as to how to do it for the Prius.

Look at this site:
http://www.calcars.org/howtoget.html

GripperDon,

I'm interested in what could possibly be done with an Altima Hybrid, and I do hope more folks join the NAH forum, but I'm still learning how to best drive mine, and the only modification I've done to any car was changing the stereo. I would like to hear how things go for you.
Best Wishes

IGh ! Thanks for replying I have seen the calcars site and am trying to get some real info from them by direct contact. Basically I am trying fo a stealth approach and one that is very stright forward. The batteries are not disconnected from the rest of the vehicle when you are turned off for the night but are simply sitting there in a partial stored state.

I want to sneak in the high voltage connections from an appropiate charger to the battery connectors and plug the charger into the wall.

I plan on "sitting" the charger in the trunk area with a cord to run to the wall outlet.

That way I could make a quick removal for warranty work.

This will make a minimal improvement in performance in that I will leave home with a fully charged battery after have gagued my driving so that I pull in with it near empty charge.

Thanks for the reply. I feel that more discussion will expand the topic and foster idea generation and discussion of the topic.

Ian33 please tell me about your mods to the stero! and about your driving experiences. How many miles on you NAH now? What kind of mileage are you getting so far?

Thanks for the reply Don

GipperDon,

Your plan surely looks feasible but I do not know how much you can
gain by that. A full battery charge gets you about 1 mile of gas free range
under 40 miles per hour. If daily driving is about 25 miles like me, that will be a max
of 5% improvement.

However, as we discussed earlier, in the morning the gas engine has
to come on irrespective of the battery charge state to heat the catalytic
converter to 750 C. In the bay area this takes about 5 mins of driving
for me at about 20-40 miles per hour. In this time if you stop and go the
regenerative braking power will be wasted as the battery is already
topped off. Thus the gain can be become lower than 5%.

If you can drive straight out of your home in the morning and go for
5 mins at around 30-40 miles per hour without stopping, then you can achieve the
full 5% gain. To do better, we need bigger batteries, atleast 9-10 KWHr
worth and need to mostly drive under 40 miles per hour in EV mode. Then we can
get spectacular mpg numbers.

By the way I am currently at 38.2 mpg for last tank in about 80% city
driving. I cannot seem to get over 40 mpg on the freeway. EPA says
36 highway so I guess, I may be expecting too much.

I modified my 9 mile homeward commute to take city streets instead
of a 4 mile freeway stretch. This increased my commute time by 4 mins.
I think I can live with that.

IGH Thanks for the reply.

1. I have no daily commute.
2. My average drive is 10 miles.
3. I Live in Scottsdale Az and almost always I drive out on EV and the ICE never runs until I need a battery charge.
4. Based upon the forgoing I expect a 10% improvement or about 3+ MPG. My goal is modest and is to average 40mpg around town.
5. I do things in steps so as to make them easier and of shorter duration.
6. I will add battery capacity later after this is working well.
7. I will add battery capacity in a "baby step" by adding a single NAH battery pack so as to allow the currrent electronics to manage the system. Adding a different type (say lead acid) or an unbalance pack capacity would require a lot of electronic changes to both the onboard controller and the charger.
8. Doing a "big deal" at once and in the beginning invites an increased chance of failure IMHO.
9. A major reason for making these changes is for the enjoyment of the experience, so I want things to be as easy as possible and have educational value. When Nissan comes out with their own design Hybrid in 2010 with LI-Po batteries all this will, IMO, already be done.

So wish me luck in this first step. I am trying to identify the appropiate charger at this time. PS I am still on the first 1/2 of the first tank of gas.

You have all my best wishes.

I am still surprised that you do not
have a cold start problem. When you
start in the morning does the engine
temperature blue (cold) light come on?

I know you are in a hot temperature
zone but still there should be some
heat required by the catalytic converter
before it reaches 750 degrees.

One more thing you need to rememeber is
that these batteries should not be fully
charged or discharged to prolong their life.

When you charge from the wall the charger
should be intelligent enough to sense 80%
charge and then turn itself off.

I guess in the battery power meter in the dash
80% charge is shown as full charge and 30%
charge as zero charge.

Your step by step improvement plan looks
practical. Do keep us informed about your
progress.

GripperDon

You sound like you know what you're doing but this would be a little too intimidating for me to attempt. Not so much the lights themselves but the replacement control stalk on the steering column that has the foglight switch. You have to remove the steering wheel and airbag to do this plus a bunch of other electrical coils and springs.

I would like to try to have seat heaters installed - I only have the base NAH - anyone ever have this done? The seats have the airbags as well so I probably wouldn't try this myself either.