I just noticed my local Honda dealer has no Clarities for sale even though they've been a tough sell. I looked at a couple of high volume Honda dealers in CA. One has none and the other has one. Those dealers had as many as twenty each just a few months ago. Are they finally selling or has Honda stopped shipping them?
Our local dealer had 10 of them two months ago. There are only 3 on the lot today. I doubt if those 7 were sold locally. More likely they were sold at other Honda dealers. Our city is small and we've only seen two other Clarity PHEV around town.
I have no hard evidence for this, but here in CA they may be moving faster as the end of the year approaches and the current HOV decal program is coming to an end. The Clarity is one of the plug in hybrids that will qualify for the new program that begins on Jan 1. I suspect as owners of cars that were previously qualified start to receive their DMV notifications that they will lose access to HOV lanes, they are shopping more for replacements and the Clarity is starting to move off lots.
My guess is that people were waiting to make sure that they would have enough tax liability to utilize the $7,500 tax credit and any other credits that might be available. They were probably hoping that Honda would introduce some aggressive incentives to get rid of the 2018s.
That’s certainly possible but I’d think the tax liability question would apply equally to all qualifying cars, and yet many of those moved more quickly and earlier in the year. In any case the “why” of it all isn’t really important. I’m just glad to see more of these cars moving off the lots.
Agreed, although here in the wilds of MN I haven't seen the needle come off the zero peg yet. One motivation, I think, is that if you buy late in the calendar year there's less of a delay in seeing the value of the Federal income tax benefit when you file your return.
I was shopping a local dealer back in Sept or early October and they told me the cars on the lot were the last they'd have until December. I told them I wasn't going to be in the market until December so that didn't matter to me. I thought this was just a sales tactic but looking at dealers around NorCal the last month or so and inventories have not been replenished. If this dealer is to be believed, we should start seeing more inventory in the coming weeks. Probably 2018's since the 2019 hasn't even been announced in the US. I do believe there is an uptick due to the HOV stickers. Another dealer mentioned he wasn't too motivated to deal because Bay Area buyers have been sniffing around. I'm out of the market now (recently turned 16 year old received an old CR-V from his grandfather who no longer drives so I'm sticking with the Altima Hybrid with 177K for a while I guess) but I'm still keeping my eye on the Clarity PHEV. I may decide to pull the trigger but without being in a hurry I might stay on the sidelines and see what other BEVs come out in the next year or two. Saw the Kona at the auto show. Would be a fantastic car for my commute (about 60-65 per day) but a bit cramped in the back for our teenagers. Anyway, good luck to all with this car. Drives like a dream.
Looks like Chevrolet is ending Volt production, (now confirmed) so if you want a good plug-in hybrid, the Clarity may have this market niche to itself. Hopefully, Honda will capitalize on this opportunity.
That's sad because many people love their Chevy Volts, but clearly sales didn't justify continuing the first significant plug-in hybrid (OK, extended-range EV if you like). After Ford dumped all their passenger cars except for the Mustang, GM's shuttering of passenger-car factories seems like the other shoe dropping. Has Honda yet guaranteed there will actually be a 2019 Clarity Plug-In Hybrid? With the end of the Volt, Honda has less incentive to make any improvements to the already wonderful Clarity PHEV in 2019. With domestic car companies bailing out of passenger cars, I guess I should stop writing letters begging Honda to bring their Urban EV to the US. BTW, InsideEVs has an article with the first spy shots of the camouflaged production test mule for the Urban EV. It's lost a lot in translation from concept to production with the addition of two rear doors, but I still want one.
I see quite a few posters worrying about whether Honda will kill the Clarity and I have to laugh. Honda is quoted as having a 4 year sales goal of 75,000 which they should blow by since they're currently selling over 2k per month. The days supply numbers for Clarity is under other Honda cars and the sales volume is about double that of the Fit or Acura ILX. For a car that nobody knows about. Having said that if the 7500 tax credit were killed (which it almost was with the last tax bill) that would certainly create risk. But Honda also uses Clarity sales to meet emissions and MPG guidelines (which again, could be done away with legislatively).
