Clarity Issues

Here's an 'issue' my wife was complaining about today. Not a biggie, but again not what I would call expected behavior.

When you use the phone app to search for a location to send to the car's nav and then send it, it doesn't retain it in memory. Only those locations you've input while in the car, seem to be retained. The location sent to the car from the app is there once you get into the car, and that location can then be navigated to from the car's nav, but it just won't be retained for future use. Weird.

 

@Ken7 is the same as my experience - Fuel Mileage estimate is a joke, but right side graph is fairly accurate. EV Range is pretty good (in fact sometimes I beat it) but graph is way off. So, I just live by my rule of thumb - refill gas tank every 250 miles on the odometer and expect EV mileage to kick on the ICE when EV range is out...

 

On mine, the fuel gauge is well below 4 gal (used) at half bars...

 

Highest I’ve seen so far has been indicated range of 61. Without the ICE kicking on I’ve hit 48 actual EV miles on a single charge with 11 indicated remaining.
Currently sitting in my 64F garage with 99% charge (as per HondaLink) it’s showing 59 miles.

I’ve been converting kWh used to charge into “gallons” (ant charged/33.7) to log in my mpg as the car doesn’t display MPGe. My average so far has been 128 MPGe and all EV.
Here is my log so far:

 

Where did you find that form for recording and calculating MPG?

 

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do

You have to manually track your kWh, if also means you can’t use chargers that don’t tell you how much power they put in the car. To convert kWh to gallon equivalent you take the charge input in kWh and divide it by 33.7. You can then take miles since last full charge and divide by that result. This gives you your MPGe. Now for trips that use all charge and start using gas I have no idea how I am going to handle that yet.

 

Honda really needs to update things to give us a better idea how energy is being used in the car. I’d also like the range shown next to the battery and gas tank gauges and the total range to remain where it is.

The current fuel economy information completely ignores they energy input from the battery. The only time this will be at all accurate is in HV mode.

 

My confusion exists on a number of levels, but this whole MPGe thing throws me for a loop. Since most of us log far more miles in EV than in HV, shouldn't we be more concerned about the actual COST of driving EV? In other words, if gasoline costs me $2.59/gal, and I do get 40 miles on that gallon of gas, shouldn't I be more concerned about how many miles I get on $2.59 worth of KWh's? Example, assume your electricity is $0.12/KWh, how many miles can I go on 21KWh of electric draw from my charger?

So if I get 23 miles during the day, and my charger uses 7.5 KWh to refill the battery pack, wouldn't the true equivalent be 64.4 mpg ((23/7.5)*21). Obviously, changes in fuel pricing (whether gasoline or electricity) change that dramatically - but still...?

 

We can only do that for ourselves because electric rates and gasoline prices vary from town to town so the Feds can't do that calculation. For my situation, I get over 100 miles of in town EV on my clarity for $3.00 of electricity (current price of unleaded regular in my town) compared to 20 mpg in town in my AWD vehicle. It's a no brainer which car I've been mostly driving.

 

My apologies - first, I changed my example above to be clear I wasn't divided and multiply by same factor.

Second, I realize the importance of a national norm for comparative purposes, but it IS dependent upon our personal situation. The fact that my gasoline may cost less, or electricity cost more, impacts my OWN economics regardless how good it looks on a national level. And frankly, despite my love for all of you, it is ALWAYS about me...

 

Just like MPG, MPGe or kWh per 100 miles varies with driving style and from “tank to tank”. What MPGe does is give a familiar way to compare efficiency between two vehicles. It is not there to show which way it is cheaper to power the car. For instance one gallon of gas here today is 2.14 average. On the electricty plan I am on I pay around 9 cents per kWh so one gallon equivalent of electricity (33.7 kWh) would cost me 3.03. Now to compare which is cheaper you have to find cents per mile.
I know the clarity is rated at 44 city on gas and 110 on electric so I take 214/44 to get a cents per mile of: 4.86 cpm
And I take 303/110 to get a cents per mile of : 2.75 cpm

I can also figure gallons per mile or kWh per mile:1/44=.0227 gallons per mile x 100 miles = 2.27 gallons for 100 miles.
337*/110 = 3.063 kWh per mile or 306 kWh per 100 miles

*not sure why this isn’t 33.7/110 but if you take 3.063*17(the size of the clarity battery) it comes out to 52miles so this seems to be the right math...

 

This also gives me a way to track my effectiveness efficiently operating the vehicle. Since is runs on gas and electric keeping in all “MPG” make it more easily comparable for my feeble brain.

 

I purchased my Clarity in December and installed a level 2 charger with a KWH meter in early January. Since then I have been calculating my costs daily. I have yet to have the engine start so all my miles are EV. I live in Salt Lake City so our temperatures have been varied, but I calculated the following averages for my car:
Temp in Low 50s = about 3.00 miles/KWH
Temp in Low 40s = about 2.75 miles/KWH
Temp in Mid 20s = about 2.5 miles/KWH
I assume the miles/KWH will go up with the temperature. The highest I have gotten at this point is 3.08 miles/KWH when the high was 57 degrees.

The cost for gas in my area is about $2.50/gal, and the cost of power is $0.086/KWH

To convert to MPG for my area and my costs I use the following formula:
(cost of gas)/(cost per KWH) * (miles driven)/(KWH used to drive those miles) = MPG for my area.

Using that formula I find:
3.00 miles/KWH costs me the same as 87.21 mpg on gas
2.75 miles/KWH costs me the same as 79.94 mpg on gas
2.50 miles/KWH costs me the same as 72.68 mpg on gas

 

Shouldn’t it be kWhs per mile vs miles per kWh?

 

No, the formula I use needs miles/KWh. The car actually goes 3 miles (depending on temperature and electric heater use) on 1 KWh of electricity. I could say the car goes 1 mile on .333 KWh of electricity, but then I'd need a different formula.
The first part of the formula shows that 1 gal of gas costs (in my area) 29.07 times as much as 1 KWh of electricity. The second part shows how many miles I am going on 1 KWh. When I multiply the two together, it show how many miles I can travel on (at $2.50 per gal) $2.50 worth of gas.

 

I think you mean:
33.7/110 = .3063 KWh per mile or 30.63 KWh per 100 miles.

 

I don't think Honda will ever give us those information. They don't believe in Electricity, only Fuel Cell. Look at the Clarity EV, when I first heard about it mid last year, I thought I must have heard it wrong as I can't believe any car manufacturer will come out with an EV in 2017 with less than 100 miles of range.

Now look at the Clarity PHEV, it is a great car in a sense (when I was looking into getting electrify vehicle, I only consider the Volt, Leaf, Ioniq. I was less than 24 hours away from putting down a deposit for the 2018 Leaf when I happen to see a review video of the Clarity) but I think Honda really does not want you to think about the charging part, I have been to a dealer that told me it is a hybrid like a Prius, just more up-scale and with better MPG than Accord/Camry. Another dealer didn't even want to talk about Clarity and keep on steering me to Civlc/Accord.

Unlike every manufacturer, Honda calling it 'Deceleration Paddle', instead of 'Regen Paddle' so ordinary people won't get 'confused'. There is also barely any energy information in the display and I think that's intentional.