This week the Clarity PHEV has, along with the Honda Insight and the Nissan Leaf, been selected as a "Top Finalist" in the competition for the 2019 Canadian Green Car of the Year. The winner of the award will be announced at the Vancouver auto show on March 19. http://www.canadianautoworld.ca/industry-news/top-finalists-announced-for-canadian-green-car-of-the-year
Interesting group of competitors! They are all so different in their approach of using electrons vs carbons. Would be interesting to see who wins, and even more important, why they won (or didn't).
Maybe I missed it, but didn't see any thing about the requirements for winning a spot on the list. If we're really looking at Green, any list that contains the Clarity but not the Volt and Prius (Prime and none Prime) is suspect at best. As much as I liked the Clarity, and still do!, over those, I know my decision wasn't based on it's energy efficiency over the other two.
Ken, its very ironic and sad given Honda Canada's fiasco of not having filed the paperwork in Ontario to qualify the 2019 Clarity as a GREEN car. The car certainly deserves a little love from the Canadian media; unfortunately the same can't said about manufacturer attitude towards their test platform - lol.
I am not sure about the "field" they considered either. However, both the Volt and the Bolt, as well as the Prius, were each a previous winner of this award in 2016, 2017 or 2018. http://www.ajac.ca/car-of-the-year-winners.asp?year=2018 (I also don't know whether GM and Toyota timely filed their paperwork with the Ontario vehicle registration department so that those cars could immediately get the special "green" colored license plates, which @RichL complained about for the Honda Clarity. It is just another example of Honda's apparent lack of a full-throat support of the Clarity PHEV in North America, which we have all seen at various times in plenty of ways.)
Which should make sense to most, regardless of how much we love our Clarity. Prius/Prime. while has smaller battery, still beats HV MPG of Clarity by 10 per EPA. Volt beats Clarity in both EV and HV ranges, again per EPA ratings.
I'll say it one more time and as an owner of 2 previous Priuses. The Prius is no longer a family car. I usually hand down my cars to my daughter who has a husband and 2 children. With a Prius Prime, I would be doing myself out of the ability to ride with them when I visit. I find the enormous size of the Clarity quite daunting. It doesn't look like "my car", but at least it suits my purposes.
Perhaps the criteria included comfort, utility and accommodations in addition to green cred. Perhaps the contest entry panel was populated by people who think much like the brilliant members of this forum who chose to drive a Clarity Plug-In Hybrid.
Yes, you are right. This is a quote directly from the AJAC (Automobile Journalists Association of Canada) web site about their awards process and criteria: "Team members use a detailed rating form, comprising various evaluation parameters that include acceleration, braking, vehicle dynamics, maneuverability, even off-road capability, where applicable. Each parameter is rated using a prescribed 0 – 10 rating scale. "Every detail, from safety features to cargo capacity, is thoroughly scrutinized, discussed, and individually rated by secret ballot. "Those ballots are then tabulated by the international accounting firm KPMG. The results are kept confidential -- even from AJAC -- until the awards press conferences wherein the category and overall winners are announced."
