Trying to purchase Clarity in WA State

You're going to find the pricing on those as terrible as for the Clarity in these crazy times. My best advice is to wait until the insane need to buy cars has slowed.

 

It has been reported on this forum that there are very few Clarity’s on dealer lots. Even California dealers seem to have very few. There is also some speculation that there may not be a 2022 model. So, what is currently for sale may be all that is available. The chip shortage has motivated car manufacturers to put the available chips in their most profitable vehicles. The Clarity is rumored to be a money loser for Honda.

As an Oregon resident, I’ve purchased 2 vehicles from California dealers and 2 vehicles from Washington, one from a dealer, the other from a private party. Oregon has no sales tax but has recently initiated a 1/2% New Vehicle Privilege Tax. I’d guess that an Oregon dealer will not charge the tax since you will be registering the car in Washington. They’ll most likely issue a temporary travel permit and off you go. Should be pretty simple.

Getting a car out of California is another issue. We had ours delivered to Oregon by a California dealer. It is a process and includes having some documents notarized. The same dealer was delivering another Clarity to Oregon for a Washington buyer a few days after we bought ours.

Ultimately, it comes down to whether you want to wait and see if more Clarities are delivered, buy what is available now from a dealer or shop for a used vehicle. Prices and incentives are factors for what is currently available. What will be a later this year or next, and a what price, is anyone’s guess.

 

The market for cars right now sucks. A chip shortage and a pent-up Covid demand is really screwing up the market. It sounds like you will have to bite the bullet. This used one with low miles is in Beaverton, OR. Considering the high asking price for new this might be a good deal even without the $7,500 credit from the feds. That $37.5k minus the credit puts the price at a par.

https://www.carmax.com/cars/honda/clarity-plug-in-hybrid?year=2020-2021

 

I also love to negotiate and have had some success. But i wound up being happy with the tax incentives and paid close to the 37000 mark plus tax. I would ask for some other perks like service agreements and such. It may be smart to look at the other vehicles you liked just to help in your negotiation strategies. If the dealer knows that you love the clarity and there's not many available, it will be hard to get them to come down. I wound up leasing mine to get all the rebates wrote into the lease. Then later did a lease buyout. I strongly advise not to loose out on the ev range all the quality in the clarity.

 

Man, I am so glad we purchased our 2020 Clarity back in October when there were still plenty of them to go around. We even found one in the Midwest...

 

There's a $5k manufacturer to dealer right now: https://www.costcoauto.com/new_cars/buildvehicle.aspx?trimid=417694

OR has another $2500-5k state incentive, but it has to be registered in Oregon for 2 years. Which dealerships have you been in contact with?

 

The $5K from Honda is also for vehicles registered in OR (or other Section 177 States)

 

When I bought mine in September, there were only 3 in stock at dealers in WA.

Gene 2020 Honda Clarity
Sent from my Pixel 3 using Inside EVs mobile app

 

If getting Clarity is issue at this time and you cannot wait, Did you look at Prius Prime? It seems you can get $6K below the MSRP + Fed Tax of $4500.

 

We got ours used in WA. The way I figured it, the $7500 credit was taken off the top so I didn’t need to make it part of my monthly payments. No regrets buying used.

I should note we didn’t even test drive it and negotiated the price via chat. You said you tried Carvana and Vroom and they had really long lead times?

 

Relevant:

https://www.clarityforum.com/threads/great-car-headache-to-buy-in-washington-state-though.1577/

 

When considering a used Clarity, note that production peaked in 2018. There are very few 2017's and 2020's.
Undoubtedly there will be even fewer in 2021, and I strongly suspect none in 2022.
These numbers include a few FCEV's and BEV's, but most would be PHEV.

Year # Produced
2017 2455
2018 20174
2019 11654
2020 4215
2021 (low)
2022 (gone)?

 

Wouldn't the 2017's be all Clarity Fuel Cell and Clarity Electric cars? The "mass production" Clarity Plug-In Hybrid didn't come along until 2018. If the numbers you posted are for only the PHEV, then that 2,455 number must refer to the small number of 2018 PHEVs produced at the end of 2017 (including mine).

 

I believe the numbers include all flavors of Carity.
You are likely correct that most of the 2017's are BEV's and FCEV's.

The point remains that you are mostly going to find 2018's and 2019's if looking for a used Clarity PHEV.

 

Those numbers appear to be sales figures rather than production figures.

We’d need to add in the 1836 units sold in Canada from 2017-2020, plus YTD Canadian sales for 2021 and then total up all dealer inventory.

The sales figures indicate that ~90% of Clarities on the road are 2018-19 models.

 

Here is the source, you can parse it however you want.
https://carsalesbase.com/us-honda-clarity/