We ordered a grey touring in Ontario a couple of weeks ago. We were told about a 10 week wait - which will hopefully get us through the worst of winter. Definitely looking forward to it coming!
We've all heard stories of dealers who know little about PHEVs, in contrast however I can recommend Dave at Lakeshore Honda, who put together a great slide package about the Clarity. Take a look at this if you're interested in the car.
Thanks for sharing. BTW, Do you get the invoice price deal when you order it? Or you have to pay 43K for the touring?
As the cars are in high demand at present, you can try and negotiate but you're unlikely to.get much below MSRP.
Ordered mine (plug-in trim) Jan 24 in Ottawa, dealer said 6-8 weeks. Base trim as I don't think it's worth $4,000 for leather seat/steering wheel, Navigation, XM radio and HomeLink. Especially they removed the power seat from the Touring. Got $700 off MSRP
Yes, the dealer deduct $14,000 from the final after tax price This car is cheaper than the 2018 Accord Sport in Ontario and you will save over $1000 per year on gas saving if you drive 15-20K km base on 80% EV mileage. They should be selling a ton of these in Ontario if they let people know about this model
With respect to the Ontario green car rebate - some dealers want you to pay the full amount and then they'll apply for the rebate and return your $14,000 when they receive it. If that is the case, go to another dealer! I ordered my Clarity and the dealer took off the $14,000 rebate (after tax) and so my on the road price was $37K taxes in.
I had to pay the 14k up front first as well. At the time, I didn’t have much of a choice. I got my Clarity in late Dec, and no other dealer was even willing to sell me a show room model. Had to take w/e was available. However, the government rebate came to me surprisingly fast. Only took them about 4 weeks to process.
Ordered my plugin-in model in white to replace my Wife’s gas guzzling (15l/100kms) SUV on Feb 17th with a $500 “refundable” deposit. Delivery date shows end of March. From what I’m reading on this forum, there is low demand for this car in the US, whereas in Ontario dealers can’t keep these in stock. It must be the $14k provincial Electric Vehicle Incentive Program rebate the the Clarity just qualifies for with the 17kWh battery ($13k) and 5 seats ($1k). Cars with 5-16kWh batteries “only” receive a $10k rebate.
I paid MSRP since they would not haggle; so $33,939.94 CAD after tax all in. No local dealers I spoke to would haggle. At least this one applied the $14k EVIP. BTW, thanks for the tip on the Tuxmat.
Good presentation from a dealer, but as a dealer still make the mistake on the drive mode. On page 3 about Drive Mode, it says 4 drive mode, it actually is 3 drive modes (Normal, ECON, Sport) and you can use the HV or HV+Charge mode on all 3 drive modes. How's the public even going to learn if the dealer can't keep their facts straight. Also on the page near the end regarding pre-conditioning, it said 'Standard on Clarity Touring' implying that the Base trim does not have it. I heard from someone that said his base trim does have pre-conditioning. Can any current base trim owner confirm (Canada and/or US)
I placed my order in Ottawa, ON for a Touring last week, they told me I should wait between 1 and 3 months, because they are coming from Japan. I guess the demand is ramping up. Talking about the difference between our version and the US one, the only thing that I will miss is the seat position memory, but besides that the changes are OK.
Honda doesn't make this easy to figure out. I'm still not clear what "Normal" mode is or how that would be different from HV. I clearly see "Sport" as a mode. It leans toward providing more power at the expense of using more gas and battery power. It also allows stronger Regen. I see HV mode as Hybrid. As I understand it if HV mode is off then the car is in EV mode (assuming sufficient charge in the battery) and the ICE is not in use. If HV mode is on then the car is in hybrid mode using the ICE to provide power to the battery so the electric motor can power the wheels. Above 100 mph the engine is directly connected to the drive train. HV+Charge keeps the ICE running 100% of the time and the battery is being charged. Econ does not apply to HV+Charge. Is this the fourth mode? I see Econ as an enhancement to other modes except Sport. That is when the car is in EV, Normal or HV mode then ECON can be layered on to improve efficiency. So rather than HV being used in ECON I think it's the other way around. Econ changes the response of the accelerator pedal, and modifies the AC so it uses less power. All of this is a bit mute for us because we have only two modes of operation in our family. EV mode with ECON for around town, and HV mode with Econ for the highway on long trips. In the end it just all works superbly and ever so smoothly. Who can offer another description of the "modes"?