Vlogger on YouTube was 50% wrong reviewing the Clarity

1) not a CVT transmission. Completely wrong about the transmission
2) paddles are not shifters
3) HV is NOT electric mode
4) push the break extra hard for Break Hold! Huh?
5) uses the word weird to describe standard features - about 15 times.

 

So many errors in so little time! It’s too bad we don’t give an award for the most ignorant and misinformed video on the Clarity. This one certainly would be in the running.
Wow! Was this guy just making it up as he went along? This video had so much false information that I don’t even know where to begin. In the interest of time and not overloading @Domenick ,s servers, I’ll just mention a couple of the more glaring ones.

-Push the brake extra hard to get Brake Hold. (Really!)

-Engine reving keeping steady is due to the CVT’s seemlessly shifting the gear ratio instead of rpm going up and down with gear changes. (Guess I gotta take mine back since they forgot to give me any gear ratio change.)

-The paddles are for shifting. Well, technically he got it right by calling that weird. (It is weird that a real CVT, which he thinks it is, could even use let alone benefit from manual shift points.)

And my personal favorite ignorance:
-The HV button is for putting the car in electric mode. (Guess I’ve been using it wrong and @insightman has been lying to us all this time about the modes.)

And I don’t know which is worse, the fact that this guy just made up stuff out of thin air, or that evidently no one at the dealer saw anything wrong.
Unbelievable.

 

I did add some comments to the video. Despite the woeful misunderstanding of much of the car's operation and the superficiality of much of the review, I did appreciate his enthusiasm for the enviormmental impact of new car designs. For the midwest, that seems very avant-garde.

Here's what I wrote:

I like the enthusiasm this video showed for attempts to improve the environmental impact of personal transportation, but there are some misunderstandings in the description of the Clarity' s operation. He focuses on the gas engine, but the significant propulsion in this car is from the electric motor. The only time the gas engine drives the car alone is during very low power demand situations. To be clear, the engine is small and the electric motor is big.

The paddles on the steering wheel are not shifters. They are used for regenerative breaking to recover energy to charge the battery to power the motor.

The back seat seats 3 people so the total is 5 comfortably. This is a luxurious car at an affordable price if you can take advantage of the $7500 federal tax credit and any other state incentives for energy efficient vehicles.​

 

I would really like to know who this idiot is and why he thinks he's qualified to do evaluations? Obviously, he isn't qualified to even do research to at least give an accurate description of the car he is evaluating.

What a dufus!

 

He is very little different from any of the youtube reviewers. Check them out. None of them know much about the car and all of them have some errors in their presentations. This young man had several things going for him. He was enthusiastic about the car, PHEVs, and their ability to I'm prove the environment in an area of the country that is notably wedded to ICE leviathans. It bodes well for the future.

I remember the first time I drove my Prius to my daughter's in Kansas. I did not see another Prius the entire time i was there. People looked at it as though i was driving a flying saucer. Every time I parked it, it was lost in between the honking great SUVs and pick up trucks.

 

I sent an email to the dealership that “sponsored” the review suggesting that they should ask this guy to take the video down given how grossly inaccurate it is. If I was a dealership I’d be embarrassed to have my name on something like this.


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Accuracy has never been a requirement for posting a YouTube video.

 

No...but if you’re gonna put my business’ name all over the thing you made, it best be made well.


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I contacted Valley Honda and they said they had received other complaints and were looking into it. The also siad the Vlogger did not represent the company. But if you advertise on his video I guess you are implicitly endorsing his statements.

Tim

 

Comments disabled. LMAO

 

Not only are comments disabled, but the video is now private (doesn't show on the channel page). So perhaps he is planning to remake it, or at least acknowledged there were too many errors.

 

I feel a little bad, because the young man was really quite enthusiastic about the car. If you have watched many of the video reviews, his was not much worse than any of the others. Considering that he is coming from an EV wilderness, I have some remorse that we have dumped on him and not all of them.

 

I found a link to a much better review from cars.com; maybe it was posted here when it came out. I didn't find any errors in it, though I disagree with some of the opinions.

Seems to be a problem with links in the forum right now, so just put this in the youtube address: RWGsH5MpFGw

 

I’m curious what some of the opinions were that you disagreed with.


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Enthusiasm doesn't outweigh inaccurate information. The Ginzo Knife guy is enthusiastic but his knives suck. If you post informative videos on YouTube you should be prepared to address inaccurate or misleading information. With all the claims of Fake News now a days it I'm glad to see people being called out for inaccuracies. If you feel that there are others out their making false or misleading claims about the Clarity (or any other subject) you are free to notify the poster or the sponsor.

 

1. Everyone will want a 240V L2 EVSE
2. No one like the regen settings resetting themselves
3. The charging system needs more external visible indicators of charge level (use the app, or get in the car and turn it on, or look on the EVSE for energy delivered)