Comment: I realize losing EV charge in HV mode is anomalous when not going up a mountain-- or maybe anomalous under all conditions. My car does this for sure. When I go into dealer next time I'll ask for the battery test KentuckyKen told me about. I'll bring the relevant service bulletin that indicates this should of been done. Also, I'll mention my car's lack of ability to retain EV charge as the reason I want this done. My dealer here is just aweful, so I don't have high hopes of any kind of reasonable experience, but I'll ask and see how it goes. -Dan
Absolutely. And this problem I have never experienced. And if I do experience it I will absolutely be pushing buttons, pulling over, shutting down and rebooting the car, or doing whatever ASAP to get it out of its funk. And I'd be complaining to Honda that my car has a defect extremely loudly, especially if it repeated... As for mine? With only 2 bars showing on the battery gauge, going uphill, above 10,000 ft of elevation (where indeed the 103 hp engine can only produce about 70 hp by simple physics of lacking oxygen to mix with fuel -- bpratt's altitude comment is spot-on), in 25 degree F temps with heat on and snow piled up on the shoulders, with me/wife/and 2 weeks worth of luggage piled in back seat and trunk crammed full...my Clarity still had enough gumption and guts to continue at 55 mph steady, and I was going that slowly only because it's all that was safe to do on that 2 lane mountain road. And on one uphill straightaway I dropped my go-pedal to the floor to pass another car that was going slower than I wanted, and it accelerated up to 70 mph for the pass with reasonable spirit without any issues. When we finally got to the 11,300 ft top of Monarch Pass in Colorado, and pulled over to take photos I think I actually heard the engine say "bless you for giving me a respite...". After photos and making a snow angel we started coasting down the mountain, in EV mode, and I was able to add about 5 bars of charge to the car by the time I got to the bottom of that grade on the other side, which was pretty cool. That was one of 4 mountain passes we went over that cleared 10,000 feet. Never a problem, just a screaming engine going up, and blissful silence of EV mode going down with paddle shifters. And yes the whole time, uphill, the engine was spinning 5,000 rpm+, and when I floored it I think it redlined at 5,500 then slowed back to 5,000 after I released passed the detent. Certainly it was operating as designed, since it had been going up a STEEP grade for the past 20 miles at altitude, and the battery was fully spent and had been for hours. But there was no noticable loss of power that would slow the car, it always accelerated and maintained speed fine. AND most importantly the repeated steep up and down runs netted a display of nearly 55 mpg, which calculated to actual 48 mpg when I finally filled it up and did the math. This car does AMAZING in terms of MPG in steep up and down mountain passes -- far better than it does long 80 mph interstate hauls where gravity never is available to recharge the battery and I sometimes could only muster a hair over 30 mpg for a few tankfuls. I'm drifting again. This is what happens when I get a few days off and it's raining like a monsoon outside..
Why in the HECK did that whole post UNDERLINE and turn unto a live link to my profile? Can the rest of you see that? If so, I can't figure out how to fix it.. That was fully unintentional....sorry. I'm baffled I must have bumped something...
It can't be an accident or oversight that HV Mode allows the battery's SOC to decrease while you drive. If the designers wanted the Clarity to maintain the SOC during HV Mode travel, they would simply use HV CHARGE Mode as necessary to make it so. So the degradation of the battery's SOC during HV Mode travel is on purpose. That bugs me.
To me it would be quite logical to have a mode where you start with a full battery and a full tank of gas, and at the end they both are on empty.
Wonderful idea. But this assumes that the car controller knows all the details of the trip you're planning. We humans don't have a huge problem with "Hit HV when I'm on the highway; go back to EV when I'm about far enough from home to drive into the garage with 0 EV miles." That's simply not something that a car controller can do.
More angry bee data. I ran exclusively in HV mode for winter mpg data to post in another thread. While I was at it I also placed a OBDll device at the beginning of the HV test. The OBDll device has a SD card installed and I programmed it to start a new log file every time I start the Clarity. 31 log files generated 81,800 data points. Speed breakdown 1 - 35 mph 39.4% 36 - 60 mph 42.3% 61 - 79 mph 18.3% RPM breakdown ‹ 1000 - 40.47% 1001 to 2600 - 56.59% 2601 to 3600 - 2.39% 3601 to 4445 - 0.55%*** ***This RPM occurred under the following conditions. EV range 12 miles. Travelling 55 mph up a 6% grade for 5 miles. These RPMs were recorded 3/4 of the way up and only for 42 seconds. I could hear the engine whine for sure but did not consider it egregious at all. Sounds to me like any other 4 cylinder when being asked to handle a arduous task. Engine clutch mechanism engages as I expect on all roads where speed limit is 45 or greater. When maintaining ~45 mph speed or greater...it goes off when climbing noticeable grade and when descending a similar grade. Stays on majority of the time when maintaining speed. Very pleased with performance of the engine clutch. Like I said...mo' data Hope this helps.
Very nice data Clarity_Newbie ! So this was a total of 31 'starts'. Roughly how many days, and total miles? I am assuming that your one instance of 3601+ was the "Angry Bees", but your observation that it didn't seem egregous is interesting. Perhaps there is a general over-reaction to this (or maybe you didn't actually experience the bees)? When I tried this, I never saw anything above 3200, but only have a very limited data set. It is also interesting that you experienced the highest RPM's while still having 12 EV miles remaining. The wisdom seems to suggest that low battery state is more apt to cause the high RPM's. You may have seen my thread entitled "Want to know your ICE RPM's?" where I was intentionally trying to invoke the bee's (without success). Your observation about the engine clutch is interesting... Now that you mention it, I think it is pretty clear when looking at my data that the clutch is engaged. Whenever the RPM's and MPH's are fluctuating with the same apparent pattern, it looks like the clutch is engaged? Some here have observed that it is tricky to maintain clutch engagement, but I wasn't even looking at that, and it was engaged a large portion of the time during my test too. Can you elaborate on your setup? I was using a basic ELM327 Bluetooth OBD2 dongle with an Android tablet running 'Torque'. I like the way you set it up to just collect whenever you were running (I assume hands-off)?
MrFixIt The link below will take you to the other thread which includes the parameters of the test you asked about. I should have included a link with the original post. https://insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/hv-only-gas-mileage.4089/page-3#post-45189 The highest revs at 12 EV miles remaining makes sense to me given the 5 mile, 6% grade I was climbing. The Clarity maintained 55 mph the entire incline. What I noticed in the data was a gradual increase in RPM's which peaked after 4+ miles into the climb. It lasted 42 seconds at 55 mph and ended when I crested the hill...so it makes sense to me. I imagine it increased gradually to compensate for mph loss due to the incline. I did not find the engine noise to be "abnormally" high...at least in my opinion. Noise is subjective and relative so I don't get wrapped up in definition. If what I heard is defined as "angry bees" by some...then my definition is different. No right or wrong...just difference in tolerances etc. Not to make light of it... I tend to think most who hear excessive engine noise probably experience a much higher level of RPM revving than I do. It would be great to have some data points from folks who call the noise "angry bees". I use the Kiwi 4 OBDll device from PLX. It is expensive but I wanted to have one with a SD card so I could "set it and forget it". I like the fact I can let it run a month if I choose then download files and have a sack full of data points to pull from. I don't want to mess with a phone/tablet every time I drive so I basically forget about it until my calendar tells me to pull it...lol I have it set up to generate a new log file every time I start the Clarity...seemed simplest to me. I will run another test on the Clarity in April for the entire month using the car as I normally do...mostly EV with sporadic use of HV mode. It will be interesting to see the comparisons. The device is now on a friends Clarity who will drive it like she normally does for the rest of January. Hope this helps with the effort by @leop, @AnthonyW and yourself to gather data points to make sense of this. Good luck.
Fast Eddie B Yes...it is the first of several. I actually put the device on a friends Clarity for the rest of January. The plan is for her to drive as normal. Looking forward to viewing the results. I plan on another HV mode only test in May when temps are much warmer. Good comparisons IMHO.
I think these comments are the key to everything. It's all subjective, and short of driving around with OBDII scanners plugged in, few will ever put true RPM numbers to it like a select few. Nice job to those...they pretty much support how I believed this car is running much of the time. Please nobody be offended, but to me an interesting data point would be the number of "angry bee" complaints by age, and gender, of driver/owner. Because I believe a younger driver, and maybe female drivers, would be more sensitive to actually hearing the noise created by a higher revving 4 cylinder engine, as compared to an older male driver who may be losing some hearing sensitivity and frequencies...this is not prejudice, it is simple biological likelihood, and feeds further into the subjectivity of what a revving 4 banger sounds like to different people. Likewise, number of angry bee complaints could be cross-referenced with what kind of car was owned and driven prior to the Clarity. Those who owned high-torque V6's and 4 cylinder turbos likely are coming off a car that regularly revs lower (quieter) than a 112 HP 4 cylinder naturally aspriated engine ever will under a load. These owners will of course be more sensitive to the "new to them" noises from switching to an underpowered engine being asked to propel a surprisingly heavy car. Whereas someone who is coming off of another underpowered 4 cylinder naturally aspirated heavy vehicle, may be quite accustomed to such noises and therefore not find them to be very noticeable or objectionable. Of course I know such data could never reliably be collected. Mostly all just points for thought that I do feel have some relevance in how such complaints can be interpreted differently by different people.
Well put. One person’s angry bees may be another person’s unobjectionable hum. And previous experience can be a bias. And about old age and hearing...I resemble that remark, sir! However some are reporting that it sounds like the engine is red lining which sounds extreme enough to take seriously. I don’t think we can discount all those reports. I have never experienced anything more than what I would expect from my gasmobile days when engine rpm goes up moderately with downshifting on a hill. And that was only on a very steep hill. But I have never tried steep hills with a completely depleted battery which is what I think is asking for the angry bees. I can say that with just rolling hills and speeds under 60 mph, that all I get is hardly more than an idle speed rpm. And the hill experience was the only time I’ve heard more than a fast idle, barely noticeable engine sound. And for the record, I am 64 with lousy hearing from too much 70s rock and some unprotected military gunfire, but that is well compensated for by means of frequency agile digital hearing aids. Past engine experience is a 340 4 barrel Barracuda and a tame 4 cyl CRV. So I am able to hear engine sounds and know what a close to redlining 4 cyl sounds like. I’m waiting for a Clarity specific OBD but until then I am fairly confident in saying I’ve never heard engine rpm over 3K; and that only once on a steep hill and it was not objectionable at all. I think this is another instance of some operator subjectivity and some instances where once again our Claritys are exhibiting very different behaviors despite being the same model with the same software. I have no idea how or why that would be. Could it be sensors with slightly different outputs? Who knows? But on several different issues there are reports of markedly different behaviors from our Claritys.
Interesting but not all Clarity's are equal. Mine, for example, is completely unable to preserve EV range in HV mode, even on flat ground, and even with the heater off, even below 50Mph. I suspect this is what makes the difference. i.e. when I hit EV range of zero, my car cannot recover. I think in some Clarity's if the EV range hits zero, the car can regain some type of balance by regaining enough EV to still do a true hybrid mode. I've not experienced this, but I presume others see it. I also mean to add, when I hit the high RPM sound, it isn't variable at all. It goes to highest RPM sound and sticks there until I turn the car off. So what I think some of us experience is highest RPM sound when EV range hits zero, that does not self-recover. And yes, I don't think all Clarity's have this behavior. To me the "angry bees" sound like a manual transmission stuck in first gear beyond the time when one should shift. So if you're in 1st gear at 40mph, that's the sound. And yes, in my case it's definitely louder than a "normal" gas car. Anyway, YMMV, -Dan PS: I do find it insulting to assume someone elses experience is inaccurate and diluted by age or gender.
During my 1500 mile trip from Vermont to Kansas and back, I never heard anything that could be described as the angry bees. I was driving alone and generally stayed under 70 mph. Today I drove with my carpool (3 people in the car) 177 miles from VT to Durham NH through the White Mountains. Although the route was up hill and down dale and through Franconia Notch, the over all trip was a reduction in elevation. No angry bees. Having arrived a our hotel, we discovered that the dance weekend which was the reason for our trip had been cancelled because of the expected storm. Angry bees sound from carpool, after which we started the car for the trip back the way we came. We stopped for dinner. It was when we got going after that I heard what i believe are the angry bees for the first time. We were on I93 accelerating up what seemed like a fairly steep grade (since it was dark it was hard to tell) and there was quite a bit of traffic (for rural NHwhich usually has none) and I realized that I was going along with the traffic at well over 70 mph. The battery was about half full according to the gauge and the temperature was about 23F which is more or less what it had been for the whole trip with the heating on. I cut my speed to around 66 and the bees buzzed off and did not return even through the more mountainous terrain and increase in elevation. What did I think of the sound? It sounded pretty much like my 2012 Prius Plugin whenever it accelerated uphill on the interstate, even at slower speeds. In fact, I have driven the Clarity over the same routes and under the same conditions that would have set my Prius roaring without any significant engine noise. The only difference in noise on the Clarity is that it seems to happen less frequently and seemes to be slightly higher pitched although no louder.
I have a couple graphs that I thought sounded like angry bees. The first one hits 4000 rpm, and I went to EV to stop it. It looks like the engine warmed up at 1500 rpm, then decided to go full recharge mode. The second graph, I allowed the angry bees to continue, and it stopped after a while. Driving the interstate, the engine seemed to balance the loads nicely: I think the computer overacted the start of the trip and gave the angry bees....
And that's exactly how the car is programmed to work. ClarityBill that is an excellent illustration and very good explanation showing the 2 examples. I see it and experience it all the time. This is also more pronounced in winter with longer warm-up times, or if you're going into a headwind, or up a long hill, or running the heater. So for random example pretend you activate HV while you have 20 miles EV range showing, the engine will walk along at 1500 rpm for a while as the engine warms up...but during that time your EV range will drop to 19, 18, 17, maybe 16, because the load on the battery is greater than the 1500 rpm warm-up cycle can recharge it. But then finally the engine is warmed up and the computer tells it that it now needs to rev? Why? Because you hit the HV button at 20 miles of EV range remaining, and you lost 3 or 4 miles while the engine warmed. So the car essentially puts itself into a recharge mode for a while until it claims those 3 to 4 miles you lost back -- and if paying attention you will see your EV range will now very slowly climb back up to near 20 eventually, because that's where you hit the HV button. Once it gets back there the computer tells the engine to slow down, it will settle in eventually to whatever RPM the computer find necessary to maintain as close to 20 as possible. I've seen this cycle many many times, as I take a lot of long road trips...hundreds of miles long. I've found sometimes the cycle takes 20 to 40 to even 60 miles to find its level during times of high load (cruise control set at 78 mph into headwind, considerable rolling terrain, etc). And other times if you get lucky and go down a very long hill, or have cruise set just at 55 or 60 mph on flat ground, it'll recover and slow the engine down in a matter of just minutes. But until the car figures out what it thinks the ongoing load is going the be, the engine sort of "overcorrects" and the high rpm angry bees activate periodically...and may last a while. In your first graph, you interrupted the cycle it was trying to reach by pressing EV to shut down the bees....it was a short HV drive. In the 2nd graph, the car went thru its cycle and found a level. Your HV drive was long enough for the car to effectively do this. Those who don't drive the car regularly for longer road trips will rarely see this cycle go thru its entire range, or (like in your first graph) they may activate EV in an effort to stop the revving. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but understand it interrupts the programmed cycle, and now you've permanently lost the EV range target the car was aiming for at the time, so you now lose a few EV miles for that particular trip. Also if some people maybe only need HV for 10 miles of their 50 mile winter interstate commute. In that situation I would fully expect the car to run quietly for the first 4-5 miles, and then rev pretty darn high for those next 6 miles, for nearly very commute. The car DOES take opportunities to shut down (or notably slow down) the ICE rpms at stop lights, downhills, etc, even if revving high when under load, saving fuel. But then next time you accelerate the high revs immediately return -- and they will repeatedly return when under load, until the car finally hits the EV range/battery charge target it's aiming for...then it'll settle in. Remember the car has no idea where your destination will be, or if it's getting ready to go up, or down, or into a wind, or how fast, or when it will shut off. It just is blindly doing whatever it needs to do to hit a target charge, with no larger knowledge about your trip like you might have. So the car's logic FREQUENTLY may not follow your own logic, of what it should be doing. As I've stated several times, some think the angry bees are annoying, or even a problem. I still maintain it is a feature, and the car is operating as designed. It's just different than a normal ICE because the car seems to rev at random times. But it's not random...it's following a program. I think many have a hard time getting their head wrapped around what it's doing. Once you understand it, it frankly makes a lot of sense IMO.
@craze1cars, that’s a very cogent explanation of your observations and I don’t dispute it. It makes sense to me too. However, how can we account for those of us who have never experienced the angry bees?
