Clarity Issues

Interesting. I was told by Honda Corporate the Clarity PHEV did not have the TCU. I can't ever recall seeing a display like that on my car. Anyone else?

 

Tiralc just did the research for me. So our vehicle must communicate back and forth with our phones. That's how it gives us the vehicle location, how we tell it to start the climate control, etc. Thanks for the info!!

 

I think it's a HUGE mistake to try to blend EV miles with gas-powered miles, when figuring fuel economy. For PHEVs, gas-powered miles and electric-powered miles should be counted separately, and any comparisons with other cars should also be made separately. Mixing the two together says a lot more about a driver's individual driving/charging pattern than it does about the performance or energy efficiency of the car.

For example, if Driver A goes out of his way to make sure he burns as little gas as possible, either taking only short trips or by stopping for an en-route charge whenever the battery pack gets low, and if Driver B doesn't worry about it, and lets the car burn gas as necessary until it's put back on the charger, does that in any way help a prospective car buyer know what MPGe he would get if he started driving one?

Of course not. A high MPGe or -- if you're driving a Volt -- a high fake "MPG" rating* is useful only for bragging rights for the driver.

For PHEVs, the EPA ought to give separate ratings for MPG in gas-powered mode and MPGe ratings for energy efficiency in EV mode. (Well, better, it should dump the very confusing "MPGe" metric and use something more appropriate, such as kWh/mile or miles/kWh. EPA ratings do include a "kw-hrs per 100 miles" in smaller print, so that's at least something.)

*The Volt's computer adds EV miles and gas-powered miles for a fake "MPG" rating which is displayed on its instrument panel.

 

All I want is an average mpg number shown when it uses gas and an average m/kwh when on electricity. They can put the numbers right next to the estimated miles to empty for both if they want. It can even reset every time a trip counter is reset.

 

From what I understand, the Bluetooth connection is completely separate from the connection to the TCU.

 

I agree with you as far as comparing person to person with the same vehicle. You are exactly right, a person's driving/charging habits will have a huge impact on the potential you can get out of a vehicle like this. If you use the much more efficient electric motor more, your mpg-e will be higher. The EPA does give you separate ratings when in gas mode vs electric mode. If you look at your window sticker, it says something like 42 mpg combined using gas engine, and 110 mpg-e when in electric mode.

My point in calculating the overall mpg-e, including gas and electric, is not for bragging rights whatsoever. It is not to compare person to person with the same vehicle, it is to compare vehicle to vehicle, such as this PHEV Clarity with my HEV Accord and my wife's gas Civic. In order to compare apples to apples, you have to convert the electric usage into a mpg-e. Once I have done that I can then look at the cost of driving the PHEV over a certain distance compared to the other cars. I use the same climate/ECON settings in all cars to get an accurate comparison. I can then calculate how much cheaper it is to drive on electric power vs gas power, and from that a break-even point (since electric vehicles cost more upfront), etc.

 

The Leaf uses 3g to connect with the app, I bet the Clarity is doing the same.

 

Confusing, yes. Why Honda doesn't just spell all this out is a mystery. As best as I understand so far, the car can connect either by,
1) Bluetooth (through our smart phone), or 2) by WiFi directly (there are setup pages where you can connect the car directly to a WiFi access point, such as your home WiFi system). It is unclear if the default WiFi setting can detect and automatically connect to any unprotected WiFi (no password required) without any driver intervention. (possibly, but seems less likely).

As far as I remember, My HomeLink on the iPhone no longer works when my car is, say in a shopping center parking lot, and I am in a store. A mystery is Ken's report that he can still use iPhone HomeLink when much further away from the car than Bluetooth range. (no spare or other phones remaining in the car?).

 

Tiralc, yup, I can still turn on my climate control wherever I've tried it. Malls, free-standing restaurants, etc. No other phones sitting in the car. Go figure.

Have I just not been in an area where this is not possible? If so, what's the missing ingredient that would cause this? It would seem if it's truly relying on an open WiFi, with no password required, that would seem a real security issue.

 

Usually when I shut off the car, I think I have been seeing 4 of 5 bars next to TCU. After doing some snow clearing, I got the idea to turn off my iPhone and the WiFi network near the car that it connects to. If all the bars went off, I was going to turn the phone and the WiFi on one at a time. Just one problem ... with both off, I still get four bars?

There are a lot of WiFi access points in my area, tens of them in the neighborhood. One or two are open. No idea if that is what is happening?

A little more info. If I turn off the Bluetooth connected phone, the Bluetooth and the Cell phone bars go off from the center display top, so that would seem to make sense.

Looking through some of the system details, "Baseband version" says Unknown, which may be consistent with no onboard cellular radio. Also, Unknown, are Mobile network type (UNKNOWN:0), Service state (Out of service), Roaming (Not roaming), Mobile network status (Disconnected), MDN, IMEI, and IMEI SV. Possibly more indicators that the TCU does not have its own cellular radio.

 

One of the great mysteries of our time.

 

I like to brag.

 

Hey, thanks for the correction! Clearly my info about how the EPA rates PHEVs is out of date. For example, here's a picture I find online of the 2016 Volt's Monroney sticker (sorry if that's somewhat off-topic, but I can't find a good picture of the Clarity PHEV's Monroney sticker):



If I read this correctly, then as you say, the MPGe is a rating for EV miles only, and the MPG rating is for "gasoline only" powered miles.

I knew the EPA has updated and improved its rating systems for BEVs and PHEVs, but I didn't realize they are now doing exactly what I said they should do -- which is to report EV energy efficiency and gasoline energy efficiency (MPG) entirely separately.

Things have improved quite a bit since the days when the EPA originally gave the Volt a ridiculously high MPG rating, one which combined EV miles and gas-powered miles; a ridiculous rating which GM gleefully used in its advertising:



I still see Volt drivers posting brags about the meaningless, fake "MPG" numbers displayed by their car's instrument panel. But hey, Honda isn't to blame for that, are they? So, again, that's off-topic.

 

Back to issues:

THE FUEL AND RANGE GAUGES ARE WORTHLESS.

Seriously - I drove 155 mile in HV mode; 4.23 gal; after refueling it said I had 515 miles HV range. Drove another 64 miles and it still showed 472 miles range (guess that's an improvement), but not a single tic off the gas gauge.

Meanwhile, I noticed what I would call as "battery leakage." During that first 155 miles of today's adventure I had it in HV mode the entire way and lost 17 miles of EV range (from 48 to 31). My reading of the manual says it is supposed to preserve the battery for EV use at your end point - not so much.
Likewise, now at my destination, it shows 13.5 miles EV but nearly 1/2 battery remaining on the gauge.

My Prius was far more accurate on fuel usage, and usually within 2-5 mpg of calculated consumption. What gives?

 

I hope you weren't offended by my complaints here. My objection isn't to the bragging; if I was driving a Volt, I'd love to brag about all the EV miles I was getting and all the gas I was saving, too!

My objection is really to the abuse of the term "MPG", a term which properly refers only to energy efficiency in using gasoline to power a vehicle. MPG means "Miles Per Gallon" of gasoline (or diesel). It does not mean "Miles powered by a gallon of gas plus some variable and unspecified number of kWh of electricity". The latter is what I refer to as "fake MPG".

I'm glad to see that the EPA is now using the term "MPG" correctly.

 

Yup, I totally agree with you. I don't know why these gauges are so inaccurate. I've never seen anything quite like it. Aside from the lack of a backup alarm, I think this is the most serious issue of the Clarity.

 

On the brighter side, I have to say the Clarity is probably the most rattle-free car I've ever owned. Regardless of the kind of road you traverse, there are simply no rattles or noises. This puppy is screwed on tight.

I've had a couple of Acura TLs & Lexus ES350, and they all rattled to one degree or another. It's a pleasure not hearing those rattles. I've spend so much time in other cars saying, 'where is that noise coming from?'. Rattles drive me absolutely nuts.