Car switched out of EV mode even with full battery charge

Discussion in 'Clarity' started by RV-CAR, Mar 17, 2019.

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  1. RV-CAR

    RV-CAR New Member

    This happened to me today again (twice in less than a week). Battery is fully charged. Temperature is around 70 so it is not cold and the engine is not cold. Within half a mile of driving, the car suddenly switched from EV mode to regular mode (not even sport or HV) and ICE kicked in. Only way I could get it back into EV mode was to pull to the side, power it off and on.
    I am not pushing the pedal (I never do) and drive gently. I've driven in colder temps (when temp was around 50s) and no issue.Wondering what's triggered ICE to start.
    Any thoughts or suggestions?
     
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  3. petteyg359

    petteyg359 Well-Known Member

    You and everybody else need to stop that. Let the car manage itself. If it turns the engine on it has a reason to do so, and you need to let it warm up and turn back off on its own. Second, it may not even be turning the engine on, but just running the starter to eat excess regen power.
     
    Geor99, Gearhead, Texas22Step and 2 others like this.
  4. RV-CAR

    RV-CAR New Member

    I knew somebody would say this:)
    Yes, I do want the car to manage on its own. However when this happens twice in a week after 1500 miles of absolutely nothing like this, I have to wonder why it did that. And I know it used my ICE. I am not blind and deaf. I can hear the motor very clearly and both times I see my HV range went down by 1 mile each.
     
  5. Sandroad

    Sandroad Well-Known Member

    There is no EV-only mode you can select. When in ECON mode, the car will occasionally switch off EV and run the ICE for a bit. This behavior is noted and discussed on many threads here. There are a variety of reasons the iCE may need to run once in a while for at least a short time. For one, it may be that after about 1500 miles or a certain time period of no ICE operation (in your case), it needs to run to get fresh fuel moving around. Or maybe some emission system checks. Or maybe to stir up the oil. I'm sure everything is fine with yours---enjoy the ride;)
     
  6. fotomoto

    fotomoto Active Member

    RV,

    There's nothing WRONG. The ICE came on for a reason and it's going to run till it reaches proper temp. This is normal. I've owned a 2012 Volt and currently a 2013 C-Max Energ and just got a Clarity. The usual reason my Cmax ICE comes on is the battery is either full or warm or both and too much regen from braking occurs at the end of the block from my house and the battery can't absorb it so it spins up the ICE to burn it off that excess charge.
     
    Texas22Step and insightman like this.
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  8. Viking79

    Viking79 Well-Known Member

    Unfortunately it seems to do that occasionally, maybe more often if the car just completes charging and you are driving down hill. Personally, I don't worry about it, but can get annoying if you are trying to drive on EV. It will switch back to saying EV after the engine warms up. It is infrequent enough that I don't worry about it, I suspect less than 10 or 15 times in 33,000 miles.
     
    Texas22Step likes this.
  9. bfd

    bfd Active Member

    Having been there any number of times over the past 7 years with a PHEV, I can only say that while irritating, it's one of the trade-offs of owning a PHEV. We subsequently bought a BEV because I was tired of being irritated by obnoxious ICE starts. However, after buying the BEV we replaced the PHEV with a Clarity. Here we go again. Go figure.
     
    fotomoto likes this.
  10. Texas22Step

    Texas22Step Well-Known Member

    I have about 5500 miles on our Clarity PHEV and, like you, have recently experienced this ICE turn-on even with a full battery leaving our garage and otherwise moderate temperatures outside, etc. But, I just let the ICE run for a few minutes early in my trip, and the car then turned the ICE off within about 2 miles of driving, reverting to full-electric mode automatically. Happened twice. Nothing wrong. Just continue to "drive the car" would be both my experience and my advice to you as well.
     
  11. It happened to me leaving the dealer’s lot right after purchase. It rarely, if ever, seems to occur now. My take was that there’s an algorithm that told the car it had been sitting for weeks or months, and that the ICE was overdue for running to keep thing properly lubed.

    We need to delve into HV mode pretty regularly on our trips back and forth over the mountains, so that no doubt keeps our engine oiled and happy.
     
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  13. KentuckyKen

    KentuckyKen Well-Known Member

    This has been excellently discussed in exhausting detail {:)} in several other threads. Here is just one:
    https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/engine-runs-at-full-charge-in-econ-for-no-reason.5036/#post-53627

    There are many others as well
    https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/ice-does-not-turn-off-after-turning-on-to-protect-full-battery.4864/page-3

    https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/solved-unexpected-ice-turns-on.3402/

    As mentioned above, the manual lists several reasons why the ICE can and will come on besides going past the click in ECON or past the blue power arc and into the white. And the ICE will run until it warms up in order to protect the engine. Mine shuts off after a few minutes (slightly longer in winter).
    Also many owners have posted (and we have found a paper to support this) that the ICE will come on after a full charge to somehow protect the battery from being over charged. The known triggers for this behavior seem to be full charge and downhill braking/regenning or hard braking or heavy paddle regenning. If you look at the power meter immediately after a full charge, you will see that the amount of regen is limited until you have driven a bit and reduced the SOC.

    So occasional ICE start ups with short run times are perfectly normal, beneficial, and to be expected. I strongly recommend against trying to manuall stop these ICE runs since engines need to warm up to operations temperature to remove moisture and condensation in the oil and in the exhaust system. (Ever seen water dripping out is someone’s exhaust?) There’s less corrosion potential if you warm every thing up and let it dry itself out.

    IMHO, we do not have the Volt feature that tracks how long the gas has been in the tank and runs the ICE to keep it from getting more than 1 year old (or is it 2 in the Volt?). I say this because my Clarity has let gas sit in the tank for 9 months without losing a bar and with hardly any ICE starts once I learned how to prevent the ICE on for no regen for battery protection thingy.

    Ana as also mentioned above, the Clarity is a PHEV not a BEV. It has a gas engine and to keep that engine lubricated and ready to start at all times, it’s going to occasional exercise it. Remember, engines are like our joints; they don’t do well if they just sit immobile. It will burn a negligible amount of gas over a year if you use the strategies mentioned to prevent the “ICE run for battery protection with full charge/limited regen”.
    Those are:
    1. Don’t charge to 100% (too hard for me to do)
    2. Burn up some SOC by using resistance heat (esp if you have a downhill close to your last full charge)
    3. Use brake pedal instead of paddles and avoid hard braking (works for me on relatively flat area)

    I am tickled pink that I have a comfortable, quiet, roomy vehicle that only used 13 gal of gas in the first year of ~8,000 miles and only needed a single oil change. With solar on my roof it’s practically like driving for free.
    Yes, I have drunk the Clarity Koolaide!!
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2019
  14. MNSteve

    MNSteve Well-Known Member

    I completely agree. The collection of folks on this forum are not typical of Clarity owners; I wonder how many "normal owners" even notice that the engine started. But here we are, getting all concerned because we don't understand why the car is doing what it's doing. I wish that the designers understood that there's this population of geeks out there who would really appreciate better visibility into the internals of the car. They could make it one of the buried options that we could toggle on and see an informational message when things happen. We would like that.
     
  15. Richard_arch74

    Richard_arch74 Active Member

    So do you sit in your car in the driveway for 10 minutes or so and let your ICE come to temperature?

    Sent from my SM-G955U using Inside EVs mobile app
     
  16. fotomoto

    fotomoto Active Member

    No, why? In my example, it happens at the end of the block the first time I apply the brakes in my CMax (also in L gear which is like double the amount of Clarity's regen) with a battery that's either too full, too hot, or both. I don't have enough seat time in my new Clarity to know if I'll experience the same thing but I highly doubt it. Why? Well as I said, regen is much lower, there is no L gear equivalent and the battery is thermally cooled unlike the air-cooled CMax. We'll see!
     
  17. MNSteve

    MNSteve Well-Known Member

    My engine has never started at the end of a trip. If it did, I would pull into the garage and power down. I wouldn't be happy about it, but an occasional run of the engine without getting to temperature won't end the world. But if I am in the car and the engine starts, I let it run until it decides it has run long enough . . . which my experience has been maybe five minutes.
     
  18. Richard_arch74

    Richard_arch74 Active Member

    @fotomoto, my bad, I read your post as you were within a block of coming home and your ICE turned on. After reading your post again, that is not what you said.
    I have had my Clarity's ICE come on within a few blocks of coming home and hate to turn it off when it is cold out. So I let it run for a few minutes in the drive and check my emails and such as I'm in no hurry.

    Sent from my SM-G955U using Inside EVs mobile app
     
  19. Omgswify

    Omgswify Member

    This happens whenever I accidentally pull the regen paddle or coast for a long while before stopping on a full charge.
     
  20. Steven B

    Steven B Active Member

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