Seem to be getting to 1 bar a lot lately

Sport also recovers lost speed from being behind a slower vehicle much faster. I find that if I give a little "gas" to encourage it then it is even quicker.

 

There's an intersection like that in Las Vegas. It's called the spaghetti bowl.

 

Having the energy flow display screen up, may confirm whether or not the engine is providing electricity during a warm up period.

FWIW: every generator that I’ve owned or operated provides electricity as soon as the ICE is running.

 

A good point, as I've not read of any clutching mechanism between the ICE and MG1/MG2. Not only this, but I was able to repeat the conditions this week (First start of the ICE was due to 0 EV miles/10-11% SOC, steady state 70 mph cruise, and the battery never dipped below 8% SOC; also, no angry bees.

If I may split hairs, however, I have a 36KW turbo-diesel generator behind the house that does not supply electric power when running unless and until you close one or more of the several circuit breakers. To be fair, the generator, as a component, is making power that is available should the system utilize it. On the other hand, most would call the whole unit, a big green box sitting on tandem axles with a tongue protruding from the front the "Generator" and in that state it would be running yet not producing power.

Now it may be possible that Honda have implemented some remote circuit breakers to interrupt electricity production from MGx (I can't remember which one is the traction motor/gen and which is the power-supply between 1 & 2) during initial ICE warm-up, but that is a stretch......

I don't know if it's a glitch in the bus traffic, the ELM Adapter, or the CarScanner app, but I occasionally see anomalous behavior regarding the HV battery, flicking to 0% SOC, "battery power" will flick to minus beyond pegged, if on another screen, all cells will flash to 0V. These are split-second deviations that will repeat numerous times in a 1 or 2 minute period sporadically amongst many hours of normal values. But during my angry bees incident described above, it wasn't one of these events. Battery was showing a steady-state 1% or 0% SOC with other parameters reporting normal, in-range values.

 

The generator is producing electricity. An open CB simply prevents that electricity from reaching a receptacle or terminal where it can be utilized. Meter the input side of the breaker to confirm.

 

Managed last evening to get not only to 1 bar, but actually scored 0 bars on the way home. Carscanner reported 0% State of Charge (SOC) as well. Wasn't due to the battery becoming depleted prior to the ICE warmup cycle, either. I had prodded the ICE to action in the same leg of the journey about 20 minutes prior with a jab of the pedal in sport mode for a bit of spirited acceleration, at least such as can be had in the Clarity.

Carscanner has intermittently reported 0% SOC since I started using it. The occurrences are somewhat sporadic and it is always quick flashes to 0 and then back to actual, whether actual be in the 80-90% range or 8-10% range, or anywhere in between. I attributed it to excess bus traffic. Don't know if anyone else has experienced this behavior?

Landshark, I don't know if you just want to argue, or what? I thought I was emphatically clear above in agreeing with you that when you rotate a generator, it spawns electricity? I thought I was equally clear that when people speak phenomenologically, they would, pretty much 100% call the big green box/tandem axle trailer assembly I have a "generator." Like when the weather girl speaks of "sunrise at such and such time of morning." She most likely accepts that the sun does not revolve around the earth, she is speaking phenomenologically. Back to my point - the generator, phenomenologically speaking, can be running at rated rpm of 1,800 and yet producing no power at the output lugs, again- phenomenologically speaking - due to the position of the circuit breakers, despite the fact that the generator component is generating potential. (I mean, it can hardly be called "power" even though resistance is infinite, as current and thus current squared is still zero) The point of the point is that from the instrumentation available on the Clarity, even as supplemented by that available through the Carscanner app, that is the phenomenological behavior I observe during the warm-up phase of the ICE engine. According to the available information, there is no clutching nor disengagement mechanism between the engine and MG1. Consequently, ICE reporting rpm would indicate MG1 is producing potential. I have yet to see any evidence during the warm-up phase, that any of that potential is being converted to power to either charge the traction battery or power MG2. Maybe it is? And is not "sensible" given the available instrumentation....or maybe Honda have employed remote circuit breakers to allow for a no-load warmup period for the ICE?

 

Phenomenal!

How does Carscanner determine battery SOC and report it as a percentage?

 

It is producing power. You're not using it.

 

Not exactly, if the breaker (switch) is not closed and no current is "flowing" there is no power. The power doesn't exist if you are not using it.
P = V * I (Power = Voltage * Current), if current is zero, power is zero too.

 

I think you are correct that no power is being output to the battery or wheels. When my ICE kicks in on my downhill drive on a full battery, both the battery range and HV range increment down...even though coasting with no power being called upon to move the car.

 

Power, no. Electricity, yes.

Touch the output terminals and feel the power.

 

Allus Klar...just wants to argue

 

That is a question for the app developer, though @MrFixit may be able to field it. I can only speculate that it is a PID (sorry, I forget what that abbreviates) found in bus traffic that can be queried through the OBDII port. If you buy the recommended ELM327 adapter and the CarScanner app, then choose "Clarity" when setting up your vehicle, you will find it on page 3 of 19 pre-set pages. More information presented there than even Landshark could imagine arguing about!

I modified page 3, however, and now don't recall exactly if it was there as a default value. I know I added an engine tach, fuel quantity and fuel burn rate in gal/hr. I left the large "Battery Power" meter in horsepower. Just can't now recall whether SOC was pre-existing or if I deleted something I didn't understand nor find useful to make room for it.

 

As a point of clarification, the correct formula for power is shown below. The formula above calculates Watts.

 

Congratulations. You’ve just earned a spot on my ignore list.

Ciao.

PS: It’s Alles Klar

 

Yes, all of the Car Scanner parameters are PID's (Parameter ID's) that are read from the CAN bus through the OBD connector and scaled to present the values in human / engineering terms.

It has always bothered me that the SOC gets presented in multiple ways. I like to think of the HV battery itself - It would go from 0% to 100% SOC. But the Clarity protects the battery by not allowing this battery SOC to go below ~10% or above ~85%. On the dashboard, there are 20 bars. When there are 2 bars showing the HV battery is at ~10% SOC. When there are 20 bars (all lit), the HV battery SOC is at ~85% because that's all the BMS will allow (for enhanced battery longevity), but 20 bars implies 100%.

Since there are multiple ways to view SOC (bars on dash, Hondalink, Car Scanner, etc), I am never sure which one is presented which way. My advice is to evaluate whichever SOC parameter you are looking at and relate it to the actual battery (0-100%) by doing this - If the number reads 100% right after a full charge, then that is really 85%. If it reads ~10% when the EV miles just reach zero, then it is reading the true battery capacity at the low end. I think the SOC in HondaLink reads 10% at the low end (true HV battery capacity), but reads 100% when 'fully' charged (but that is really only 85% of the true capacity). I forget how Car Scanner works, but have a look and remind me...

In my opinion, it should be one way or the other ie: 0-100 should represent the full HV battery capacity, or it should represent just the usable capacity (10% to 85%). It seems like most of these SOC's are a mixed bag - They represent true battery at the low end, but usable capacity at the high end. This just compounds the confusion, and is inconsistent in my view.

 

Carscanner reports 100% (Maybe 99, not sure I've actually seen 100 by the time it connects, etc.) at full charge and 10% at 0 miles range / 2 bars on the dash.

 

That could simply be the result of the engine running at idle speed -- it's generating some power, but not enough to fully power the car, so the rest is coming from the battery so EV range depletes also (but probably at a slightly lower rate than it would have). That's because the computer is only keeping the engine running to warm it up -- when needed to actually generate enough to drive the car, it's running at higher RPM.

I'm very certain the engine can generate significant power from a fully cold start -- stomp on the gas (beyond the detent if in Econ mode) and you'll get full engine run at high RPM and extra acceleration kick right away. Modern engines simply don't need to "warm up" before being used -- hybrids like the Clarity let the engine warm up *after* being used before shutting them down for other reasons (boiling off moisture for long term reliability is a reason I've read).

I don't know how to explain what @AHolbro1 is experiencing so often -- whether 0%/0 bars is really the bottom of the battery or not, most of us never see it dip below 2 bars with some rare brief 1 bar excursions (and I've done intentional significant hard mountain driving using all the EV and letting it do its thing at 0.0). I'd suggest there is something wrong with that particular car, but unless it's throwing a computer code it may be hard to get a dealer to even look at it ("they all do that"). Normally, the computer will run the engine at as high an RPM as needed to keep the SOC at 10% -- up to 5500 RPM (aka "Angry Bees", which is really just a Honda engine running as designed, nothing wrong with it. I call them "Busy Bees").

 

"Often" is a bit of a stretch, as I've had the car dip to 1 bar one time and 0 bar one time, after nearly 6 months of ownership and 14k miles. You are absolutely correct that you can stomp on it ("Stroker, Dad says Stand on it, son!") from a cold go and get full engine response. On the other hand, my commute allows for significant minutes at steady-state conditions, such as cruise set at whatever speed I prefer, as well as routine, repeatable bouts of stop and go traffic on identical sections of road from day-to-day. I do not experience your observations that EV range decays at a slower rate with the engine at ~1500 rpm warm-up mode. Perhaps it decays at an infinitesimally slower, undetectable rate, but the difference is noticeable between that operation regime and after the engine has completed the warm-up cycle and is again running about 1,500 RPM. In that case, I do see evidence of the engine's contribution to forward motion.

Furthermore, the aforementioned incidents are the only occurrences of busy bees I have experienced. From my experience, your statement "...will run the engine at as high an RPM as needed to keep the SOC at 10%...." is in err. The ICE lights off a minute or two after you hit 10%, warm-up mode if it is first start in several hours, but it'll go immediately to the 2,500-2800 RPM range, burning 2.5-2.8 gph of petrol if it has completed the warm-up cycle relatively recently. As to charge, yes, it eventually will get you back to 10% but is happy to let it decay as low as 6% before increasing RPM and fuel flow and then only to the 3,300 and 2.8-3 gph range. Once restored to 10%, it will fluctuate between 8-10% the rest of the journey, or at least for the next 15 miles of largely 70 mph freeway drive, which brings me to my destination.

This performance may be peculiar to 70-ish mph runs on relatively flat freeway. Mountainous terrain may precipitate greater variations in engine operation to achieve and maintain 10% after driving it to depletion of EV range.

 

If we agree that a SOC set point is established when EV range is 0, in the same way that a set point is established when the HV button is pressed, then we can reasonably conclude that the vehicle will attempt to maintain the set point at EV 0. Experience has shown that the SOC almost always fluctuates a nugget or two below the set point. The car does a very poor job of “keeping” the set point.

That is likely the result of Honda’s decision to have the car operate as efficiently as possible. It will maintain the set point when it can do so efficiently. Of course, there are some owners who report that the battery gradually discharges while operating in HV, and it could very well be those vehicles that experience one or zero bars on the battery gauge.

Our Jeep 4xe holds the SOC to perfection while operating in e-Save mode, which is similar to HV mode on the Clarity. The dash shows an EV range estimate in miles, and SOC as a percentage.

Without knowing the parameters by which the SOC, displayed as a percentage on any device, is determined, it is a relatively useless number. So back to the question of how the percentage is determined. Is it measuring voltage, Ah’s in and out, coulomb counting?