Evaluating the Clarity for purchase

Discussion in 'Clarity' started by Lowell_Greenberg, Jan 20, 2019.

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  1. craze1cars

    craze1cars Well-Known Member

    Interesting stick it to the taxman lol. Presumably referring to the 7500 credit? Valid.

    Another tax consideration, in my home state of Indiana anyway, is that owning a Clarity results in a tax PENALTY of $150/year when it comes time for license plates. Because owners of these cars pay so little tax in fuel purchases, Indiana compensates by penalizing all EV's and PHEVs with a flat $150 annual surcharge per registration, and $50 for hybrids, to help pay for road maintenance and improvements since they're losing income from reduced and/or eliminated gasoline sales to owners of these vehicles. In the 2017 established law, this amount is structured to grow gradually with inflation.

    Each state is different in this regard, and new laws are in constant flux, but here is a breakdown that might help:
    http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/new-fees-on-hybrid-and-electric-vehicles.aspx

    Just another consideration that some do not think of. RESEARCH YOUR STATE. States who rely heavily on gasoline taxes to fund roads will need to find the money elsewhere as gas sales slow or cease. This annual registration surcharge is just one way some states choose to do it.

    At today's low gasoline prices ($1.79/gallon around me right now), plus a $150 annual penalty, I am personally no longer achieving ANY price savings in fuel costs by owning a Clarity PHEV and by paying a relatively low $1.64 per charge to go a cold-weather reduced 35 mile range. I could have just bought a standard gas-burning Accord and at least broke even. If gasoline goes up high again, and/or warm weather/range returns, some savings will undeniably return. We shall see.

    Now factor in the unknowns of future repair costs, and future resale value...I'm not convinced I'm saving one red cent being an early adopter of this car. Again I will let everyone know in 6 to 8 years. Those considering this car for financial benefit only should keep this in mind. Unless you get your charging electricity for free somewhere, $$ savings might not exist at all. But they might.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2019
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  3. I think Lowell was talking about true blind spot monitoring (i.e., the warning light in the mirror)
     
  4. LAF

    LAF Active Member

    I am really surprised this potential buyer is not impressed with low noise level on most roads. My friend said she thought she was riding in a monorail. I have not driven a new Accord but I should remind the critic that after rebates you can get a Touring model significantly less than an Accord and drive 90% of the time all EV. I moved up and way up it turns out from a Prius, which did not handle anywhere near as well, was much less stable on the highway, and only got 10mpg better than the Clarity on long trips when one does use the HV mode.
     
  5. LAF

    LAF Active Member

    Another reason to move out of Indiana.
     
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  6. Mesa

    Mesa Member

    I have never had a perfect car/truck and the Clarity is not perfect. I wanted a nice car, with all the safety gismos, and reasonably priced. I wasn't even necessarily looking for an EV or PHEV. The Clarity fit my criteria. My only concern was the resale value in 3 years, because I am planning on trading it. I wanted to lease it but in my state, you could not lease it and get the $7,500 tax credit. Honda kept the credit. This bothered me because I was wondering if Honda was also worried about the resale value. So ten months and 13,000 miles later, I love the car.
     
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  8. Mark W

    Mark W Active Member

    CT
    I'm pretty much the same as everyone else here. Really love the car after 4 months. I just love the way it drives, especially in EV mode. I will echo the warnings of others about the insurance cost though. I got what I thought was a fantastic deal on the car, but the high insurance cost offset that somewhat.

    As far as the reliability ratings, it does seem that most of what people report are more technological annoyances vs. things that are more critical, but I must say these annoyances are ... annoying! I think Honda did a poor job on some of the electronics, and making things clear how they work.
     
  9. su_A_ve

    su_A_ve Active Member

    Total cost of ownership - that was my main goal.

    I test drove every PHEV I could (the Ioniq was nowhere to be found in a 150 mile radius). I've been driving an 09 Accord, and then for a few months an 11 Outback. Size was an issue for me.

    The Clarity was hands down the best due to it's size and comfort. 2nd best was the Fusion, but could only find a 2017 nearby.
    With regards to electronics and features, the Volt came slightly ahead, if I went with the higher model. Prius lost because of the lack of Car Play.
    But then price. Clarity beat them all after the fed tax credit and Honda incentives in ZEV states, making it less than Accord.

    If it wasn't for the fact that I get free L2 charging at work, I would have probably gotten a new Accord. After the credit and incentives, price was lower than a new Accord, plus the gas savings.

    Plan on keeping it for 5 years, but no more than 7. At the time, I'll reconsider.
     
  10. petteyg359

    petteyg359 Well-Known Member

    If you don't buy it, you don't get credit for buying it. The tax credit does not differ by state. Why would you expect anybody to give you effectively over 50% off the lease price by handing you the tax credit? (If anybody managed to get a dealer to give them that, then I question your dealer's brain matter.)
     
  11. I thought that reports here showed the tax credit went to the leasing company, which allowed them to lower lease rates to reflect that benefit. Some really low lease payments posted here seem show that’s the case.
     
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  13. SteveinSD

    SteveinSD New Member

    I think one of the main benefits, assuming you are coming from a non-plug in vehicle, is not having to go to the gas station for months at a time. Like most, I typically keep within the EV range on a daily basis, so I just plug in after my last drive and wake up to a fresh 50-ish miles the next day. That said, I took a short road trip from San Diego to Los Angeles a couple of days ago, where the adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist really took the edge off of some heavy traffic. All I had to do was keep my hand on the wheel and steer a bit, and the car did a great job of keeping a safe distance from the car in front of me, and accelerating when conditions would allow. This is far and away the easiest car to live with on a day to day basis I have ever owned. Even with our Chevy Bolt, the drive to LA would have forced us to find a place to recharge overnight, which would have been a major hassle. Because I wanted to burn off the gas that has been sitting in my tank for a couple of months, I needed to make a quick stop for gas (only took 5 gallons) and we were back on the road in minutes. So we virtually get all of the green "attaboys" as a Tesla, at a significantly lower price and greater convenience during long drives. Win win!
     
  14. AlAl

    AlAl Active Member

    Because in the end, they are in it to sell a car. There are a few dealers in my state who roll the credit in with a reasonable lease price.
    My co-worker told me about one of his friends getting into a Touring for $230/mnth, no downpayment, residual <$15k after 3 years. Coupled with the $2.5k state rebate(at the time), his car came to less than 21k, for a touring.. That's not all far off from the deal I got; for a sale..
     
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  15. An “homage” to our heritage:

    [​IMG]
     
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  16. Tomrl

    Tomrl Member

    I don't yet have a lot of miles experience but, I am more excited about this car than any I've owned since my first, a '63 MGB. When I started looking I was considering the Ford Fusion and the Chevy Volt. That led to committing to a BEV or PHEV, so then it was the Volt or a Tesla which I just had some friends buy. Then I discovered the Clarity. Cue rainbows and cheesy new age music... Since the Volt was being killed the last two cars standing were the Tesla and the Clarity. But for our purposes the PHEV is a far more practical choice and after driving the Clarity both I and my wife who never in her 56 years of life has cared at all about any car, even when I had a supremely cool Alfa, fell in love. This is a car I am tending to become evangelical about. I still have not seen another on the road yet. It feels like when Clarity owners see each other at this point they will be giving each other a big thumb's up. At this point we are part of a small clique, hopefully growing when people discover the unique niche this car exists in.
     
  17. petteyg359

    petteyg359 Well-Known Member

    True, but they have to buy the car to resell it. Honda may take a loss to improve the average fuel economy across their line, but the dealer is not Honda, and they have no incentive to take a loss.
     
  18. AlAl

    AlAl Active Member

    Lots of dealers tell you they pay MSRP for the car, but they get a ridiculous amount of kickbacks once the car is sold. From what I've gathered(speaking with different dealers), kickbacks are tiered with the volume of vehicles they sell in a given period, or are periodically thrown bonuses for clearing inventory on a particular model(clarity being one of them in the CARB states). The whole "we pay MSRP" shtick is just another point the dealer uses to make you feel guilty for asking x00 discount.

    At the very end, even if a dealer barely breaks even on a sale, they've still made money off the doc/fee(which trends around $300-500 in my state)
     
  19. I have managed to refuse to pay any “doc fee” on our last several vehicles, including the Clarity.

    That doesn’t include legitimate tax/tags and title.
     
  20. insightman

    insightman Well-Known Member Subscriber

    My experience is so different from people who discovered Clarity PHEV by surprise (and by luck) after considering other hybrid cars. Here's my very long story:

    I've been following Honda's alternative fuel vehicles closely for more than 30 years. I ordered my first Insight gas-electric hybrid in 1999 after seeing the Honda VV Hybrid Prototype at the auto show in Detroit. It took more than a year before the car, now named "Insight," showed up at my dealer.

    In 2008, two years after buying my 2nd gen-1 Insight, I read about the Honda Clarity FCX, a hydrogen-powered car that some said cost more than $1 million each to manufacture. Jamie Lee Curtis got one, but I knew I'd never see one of those in my garage.

    In 2011, two years after we bought a gen-2 Insight, Chevrolet came out with their ground-breaking plug-in hybrid (or, as they called it a "range-extended electric vehicle") with an all-electric range of 38 miles. I was very impressed, but being a long-time Honda stalwart, there was no chance I'd buy one. Friends of mine who bought gen-1 Volts continue to love them to this day. I wished that Honda would make a plug-in hybrid, too--I knew it would be better than the Volt, especially because the Volt came first. I wonder how many Volts Honda purchased?

    In 2016, eight years after the Clarity FCX, Honda brought forth their second Clarity Fuel Cell car. It was exciting to see Honda take their hydrogen car a big step closer to mass production, but I knew it was a California-only car because only in California is there any kind of hydrogen-fueling infrastructure.

    Then the Clarity Electric appeared in 2017--with its perplexingly paltry 89-mile range. With Tesla's battery-electric cars going hundreds of miles on a charge, why would Honda produce one that can't even hit the century mark? The answer, of course, was that the Clarity Electric is purely a compliance car that generates eco-credits that enable Honda to sell more gas-guzzling Pilots in California and Oregon. Honda priced the lease on this car so low that it was actually not a bad deal. If you don't need to go more than 89 miles in a day (and don't require a big trunk), this luxurious 5-passenger car can make sense.

    But the really good news Honda delivered along with the announcement of the Clarity Electric was that there would also be a plug-in hybrid variation coming later. I started pestering my local dealer for more information, but I always had more information than they did because I spend so much time seeking it out on the internet while the salespeople weren't interested in what was essentially vaporware.

    Finally, in November, 2017, Honda announced the Clarity Plug-In Hybrid would go on sale at the beginning of December. Of course, I knew about this before any of the salespeople at my local dealer, but they were willing to promise me the first Clarity Plug-In Hybrid that arrived. I was so lucky that the first one was painted in my color of choice, Moonlit Forest Pearl.

    upload_2019-1-21_23-12-58.png

    Now the part that might seem surprising after reading how eager I was to get this new car. I told my salesperson we would delay taking possession so the dealership could put our new Clarity Plug-In Hybrid in their showroom for a week to give other potential customers the opportunity to see this amazing new car in person (we did take it for a brief test drive first, of course).

    I was disappointed in the reports from the salespeople. It seemed that almost nobody bothered to even glance at my Clarity. It seemed that only the car's color drew attention from visitors to the showroom. The only comments were from people asking if they could get a Civic painted in that color (which you can't--only the Clarity gets that Honda color). They didn't sell another Clarity for months. Sigh.

    So we brought our Clarity home and 10 months later, on our first long trip, our Clarity PHEV visited a gas station for the first time. We love this car. It's everything I'd hoped for. OK, it could have been better looking, but I've come to embrace it's unique appearance--the rear wheel well never bothered me a bit, but I love gen-1 Insights, too.

    Now I'm infected with the EV bug and my 70-mpg Insight seems like a gas-guzzler. I need an EV. I need a Honda EV, but Honda's not planning to sell their upcoming all-electric 2020 Urban EV (due to get a new name at the Geneva auto show this March) in North America. Sometimes it's so hard being a fanatic who's always looking over the horizon for the next big thing--especially when the next big thing is going to be available only to those who live over the horizon in Europe and Japan.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2019
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  21. 4sallypat

    4sallypat Active Member

    I had been in the search for an alternative fuel driven car for awhile and found the Clarity PHEV was the perfect fit for someone who drives 5 days a week as a commute car without using a single drop of fuel.

    On the weekends, love the range and regeneration so I no longer drive my gas guzzling ICE crossover (Land Rover).....

    The price of the car coupled with a $10,600 discount plus the post sales rebates ($2500) and HOV carpool stickers made it a slam dunk.

    As for the car I really wanted, it was the Clarity Fuel Cell but the waitlist was so huge and the timing was not good to get one. Eventually I would love a hydrogen powered car that gets great mileage and uses no fossil fuel....
     
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  22. 4sallypat

    4sallypat Active Member

    Ah, my color too - love the Moonlit Black Forest Green - such a elegant and unique color unlike other "Honda colors" that are built for Civics and Accords....
     
  23. Mesa

    Mesa Member

    I am pretty sure that in CARB states Honda Finance rolls the tax credit into the lease. It's not up to the dealer to give you the credit on the lease, it's Honda. Why would you lease a car based on the full price with Honda getting the $7,500 credit?
     

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