In Boston with weather in the 50s I am getting ~55 EV estimate. My impression is that this estimate is not only based on temp or how aggressive you drive or whether you use the heater but also whether you have driven mostly locally or on the highway. The latter gets low EV miles so I think the car averages what type of driving you have done the last few days to make an educated guess as to what you will get now.
And not to disagree (i.e. I do realize speed kills), my own commute is about 25-40 mph all the way, with zero highway. I live in a small town and commute across the town. Nothing fancy. No highway at all. Mostly flat ground save the hill I live on (800ft above valley floor). I never see high EV. Anyway, while there are many factors, the idea that folks seeing poor range probably going fast on highway doesn't apply to me at all. I try to drive the car like its on a cloud, not speeding up quickly and taking time to regen for stops. This time of year, no heater or defrost use at all. My car still gets EV range of about 43 estimated miles. Anyway, not a lot of optional things I can adjust. i.e. the hill is real, but I need to go home eventually I drive very conservatively. Anyway, not everyone's experience is same is the main point. I also don't think folks who see poor EV range is necessarily their behavior-- while I also admit this is important. Some of us even with hard attention to the driving behavior just don't see big EV range numbers.
Dan, do you actually drive out the EV -- how many miles are you actually able to drive before the EV light goes off and the engine comes on? I wonder if the fact that your commute home is uphill skews the range estimate -- if it's averaging the miles/kWh of the most recent drives, but weighting the last drive (with the 800ft elevation gain) most heavily, when you charge up it's kind of assuming you'll be driving more uphill again the next day. If you were to turn around and drive back and forth to work again I suspect you'd get (a lot) more than that initial estimate. My theory is that the range estimator is just a weighted averaging of some sort of recent miles/kWh data multiplied by the current charge % / total kWh available. I really wish Honda would show us instantaneous and average/trip miles/kWh directly instead of the totally useless gas miles per gallon (which just pegs at 199 for me because, well, I'm not using much gas). Another thing that might be causing more batttery use for some is leaving the climate control at a set temperature. Heat seems to consume a lot more electricity than AC. Where I am right now I usually have the AC on in the afternoon, and I set the temp to 70 so it will cycle off as appropriate. Morning temps are in the 50s/60s; I really don't want or need heat then (I'm already dressed for the mild weather!), however if left alone the system blasts me with expensive unwanted electric heat to get to 70 until I remember to dial it down. That would be worse for those who set the temp even higher. I wish there was a separate "heat on" button that I could leave off similar to the AC button (and I wish the AC button were physical and I didn't have to pull up the stupid climate screen to get to it). Or maybe separate heat and cool temperatures that I could leave alone (I'd cool to 70, heat to probably 58).
Another thought, If you charge to 100% and then go down a hill that is steep enough to require brakes then you have no where to 'put' the power from the regen system. You end up using the friction brakes or the engine starts to absorb the energy. If I pay attention I try to unplug the car at 95% to give some room for regen. I also agree with 'JCA' The range estimate is based on your most recent driving, if you went up a hill that required 1 kWh to go 2 miles that will weigh your average down quite a bit compared to the 1 kWh every 3.5-4.0 miles the Clarity gets on the flat. Question, do you reset your trip meter after a full charge? If so, after you leave the house with indicated 43 mile range what do you see at the end of the day before going back up your hill(estimated range + what is on the trip meter.)
Engineer #3 here, predictably agreeing with the others. Most PMAC motors today hit 90% efficiency at around 35-40% load. As others point out, the biggest energy burner is wind and rolling resistance. To trivialize some equations, drag force increases mostly with the square of the velocity -- increasing your speed from 70 mph to 80 mph will increase your drag force by (80²-70²)/70²≈30%. As you've observed, wide-band drivetrains and regen braking ameliorate typical losses of aggressive acceleration and deceleration, so the speed limit has more effect on your mileage than your lead foot. Temperature affects batteries a lot, too, but I'll leave that explanation to the chemical engineers. All I really understand is that if the temperature is low, the voltage bottoms out before the battery is fully discharged, essentially "locking away" a lot of the charge. I can attest to this. If I have 100% charge, then I can hear the friction brakes engage on the downhill. That's a fair amount of energy loss. And the range estimate is heavily weighted by the most recent trip -- if I drain the battery on the highway, my range estimate bottoms out the next morning. So if the last trip before each recharge is an uphill journey, you could see artificially lowered range estimates.
Your impressions are correct. Pretty much everything one does in the car affects its range; even the radio and headlights but that's pretty much unmeasurable especially since the Clarity has LED's. Yeah, your range estimator knows that daily ascent very well; especially if you do it more than once a day. I live on the coastal plains so a highway overpass is considered a hill around here! My range estimate will plummet come summer as I have short drives and the a/c runs full blast trying to cool down a 125+ F interior the entire trip. My C-Max Energi has a kWh usage display for the HVAC system which really helps drivers understand where the energy is going in addition to the wheels.
The EV guess-o-meter in my case seems to be overly optimistic. If it says I have 25 miles, then I have at least 20 actual miles. I haven't measured in a while but can do so. From memory, the EV range estimates were closer to real when the weather was good. So when I get a 40 mile or so range estimate, I actually get closer to 40 miles. I've never witnessed more actual miles than estimated.
Also keep in mind that the estimate it's not what you will get. Drive until the battery goes out and see how much you drove on a full charge, I bet it's more than the estimate, at least that was my experience, the estimate was showing 44 and I was getting 50. The heater really kills the range the most.
My daily commute is 52.5 miles. Fully charged I can easily do the commute with 6-10 miles left on the elec meter. However, I've seen that some fast chargers are different in terms of the amount of charge. For example, blink fills me up to 50 miles, whereas the other's in the mall moves it up to 55- 56.5 miles.
Just got the plug in Clarity last month. I'm in Southern California (mild weather) and I'm getting 35-45 miles EV range (45 miles with very conservative driving and a non-hilly route). I notice when charging has finished the Info -> Vehicle Energy screen shows that the battery is not apparently fully charged (the HV meter also showing not full is correct due to a gallon or so of gas having been used). See picture below after charging was just completed. Question as a newbie owner, is this normal? I'm a bit concerned because I found out my "new" 2018 Clarity was manufactured a year before I bought it, and am wondering if the battery may have degraded due to improper storage for a year.
I hear ya Munster. I ended up paying the dealer's service dept. to give me the amp hour reading off my car. Some dealers will do this for free (and in my opinion should) but anyway, for me it was worth it. I never see high EV range readings and I wanted to know the status of my traction battery. -Dan
The Vehicle Energy screen can't be taken as % of charge (just because it doesn't look full doesn't mean it isn't). You have to look at the bars on the battery indicator on the dash (or the % charge on the hondalink app). I don't know why Honda added one more thing to confuse us, but of course they did. As to the health of your battery, it is hard to determine yes/no just based on your best 45 mile range. Too many variables like speed, climate control, and amount of stop/go impact this for me to give you an opinion (as well as wind, vehicle loading, tires and tire inflation). You can try to get the traction battery capacity test (Amp-hour) done by your dealer to verify. I drive pretty aggressively and with temps now in the upper 70s to lower 80s, I am getting a little over 50 miles of range in city driving right now. If I were to drive on relatively flat 2 lane highways at 45-55 mph, I am pretty sure it would be more like 60 miles with these temperatures.
The left side of the picture is EV estimated (47) being the highest it will show. If in the winter your EV is at 25 it will appear to be 1/2 full. And in the summer if you hit 70 it will still show the max of 47... As another person wrote the bars on the battery meter is the only way to see if your battery is fully charged and what amount you have left. Remember that it will not go lower than 2 bars - that is the reserve and it will show O EV at that point - and will go to HV.
Maybe because my daily driving is mostly freeway because I average 52 miles and still have charge left (4-9 miles). Except yesterday I got about 48 and had to go HV Charge mode for about five minutes then I looked down and I had 13 miles so went back to electric.
I guess-o-meter is always an educated guess the car thinks it has. Actual real world driving makes a huge variable (mathematicians) in the total EV miles. So Cal driver for the past 4 months and never have dropped below 45 miles guess-o-meter. Currently with 80+ degree weather - guess-0-meter starts at 60 miles range. Interesting data point: Currently real world mileage is about 70 miles per charge based on bumper to bumper driving. Before the HOV Carpool stickers arrived, I was the driver for 2 months and got less than the guess-0-meter's range because my distance was shorter, hilly climbs, and less braking/regen (no climate control). I got about 40 EV miles per charge. Now that the stickers have arrived, my wife took the car and her commute shows HIGHER than the guess-0-meter: distance is further, flat (freeway), slow speeds, bumper to bumper with lots of braking (A/C cooling on the way home). She is averaging 70+ EV actual drive miles during the commute weekdays. Guess the car is suited for urban street traffic driving!
