How Good is the Clarity?

You can hide the aerodynamic spats (probably works best with light-colored Claritys).

 

Best car I've ever owned or driven. I really think the Clarity could hold it's own in the current market. It is quiet, comfortable, corners well, decent acceleration, good MPG when the gas engine is (rarely in our case) running, has pretty good EV range, decent trunk space, quick charging for a PHEV at home. It's just all around good.

I think Honda could reawaken the production line and sell a lot of Clarity cars; well more than in the eary years because the interest in EV/PHEV has matured.

 

I still feel I'd be hard pressed to replace it at this point so don't plan to. Already have a gas SUV so this fills in most other tasks very well even though work has moved to remote permanently

 

Best Honda I've ever owned and I started with a '76 Civic wagon. It is a shame its intro here was so lackluster. Unlike stories I've read here, my salesman was well-educated so it wasn't too hard to convince me. 5 years later (53,000 miles), no problems other than the winter reduced mileage per charge. One other complaint: passenger seat sits too low. Needs an adjustor like the driver side.
Terry

 

Devils Advocate here. Remember the “How to improve the Clarity” thread? There’s a pretty extensive list of gripes from the relatively few owners who frequent this forum.

We may have lowered our collective standards by fawning over this car. Or, we’ve driven some pretty mediocre cars in the past.

Sure, there isn’t another PHEV currently on the market that has the same or greater EV range and few cars get 40mpg. Are we just comparing it to PHEV’s or cars that get 40mpg? Do those factors make it a great car?

I like PHEV’s. So much so that we bought a second one, the Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe. Even though it cost twice a much as the Clarity, has 25 miles of EV range and gets about 25mpg, it is a far superior vehicle to the Clarity, in my opinion. It is now our go to vehicle for road trips and it is capable of covering almost all of our local driving in EV. Yes, it’s less energy efficient than the Clarity.

If we’re going to narrow it down to an efficient, front wheel drive PHEV sedan that is reasonably pleasant to drive and could be had, new, for a net cost of less than $30K, than the Clarity is a very good car.

 

I’m relatively new to the Clarity, having bought mine three weeks ago Friday, but I spent quite a lot of time researching my purchase, including driving a lot of other PHEVs. Oddly, the one I liked 2nd best was the BMW i3 REx (for an entirely different set of reasons…) It’s absolutely a more appealing car than a similar vintage Prius Prime on just about every front.

I will say that, coming off of 17 years and more than a half million miles of Prius ownership, my (2018 Touring) Clarity has immediately won me over. From driving dynamics to comfort to level of equipment to efficiency, I’m thrilled with my purchase. I’ve read, on the various forums, the dislikes and issues others have had, and I’ve spoken to friends in Honda service departments about their experiences, and what this car provides exceeds my expectations.

Longevity? We’ll see. But, it’s a Honda! And, so far, pure electric range and hybrid fuel mileage are running consistently above EPA estimates and figures many here have reported.

All in all, I’m pretty happy!


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We adored our 2018 over the 3 years we had it, and it’s still in the family.

But I would never describe the handling of our 2022 Tesla Model 3 as “bouncy”. It’s quite firm and “planted”, leaning towards sports car ride and handling. Which for us are positives. Can’t speak to other EV’s, beyond the Model Y which felt roughly similar. Our Clarity always felt a bit “floaty” - if not exactly “bouncy” - to me on twisty roads, though once used to that it did handle quite well with little body lean in turns.

 

I agree Eddie, We have a Y and a Clarity and the Clarity is the bouncy one. Probably the relatively short wheelbase vs car length has something to do with it. The Tesla ride, handling, and steering are all more to my liking, but since it cost more than double the clarity it should be better! But I do plan on keeping my Clarity till death do us part, its a great car.

 

As an aside, we went with the stock 18" wheels our Model 3. Larger wheel sizes cost extra, and apparently make for a harsher ride, while simultaneously leaving the rims more prone to road damage and also costing EV range. Different folks have different priorities, but the stock wheels made the most sense for us.

 

Hands down, our 2018 Touring (ok it has only 6k miles because we didn’t drive alot during the recent unpleasantness) is the best car I’ve ever had, bar none. I love the ‘floaty’ ride on long trips, and I’ve been impressed with the handling and acceleration (I used to have a Mini, and the Clarity is better overall, just feels different as you would expect.) The range is so good that about 85% of my miles are EV. We use HV Charge on I-5 and less than 2 hours later, we have another 26 ‘free’.EV miles. The ICE mpg is impressive for such a heavy car, too. The appointments are very posh for the price, too. Have you reviewed the maintenance schedule lately?

One point that hasn’t been mentioned is that driving a PHEV at this stage of EV adoption in North America is the best of both worlds. We have better than average charging infrastructure on the West Coast, but still, having the option to easily switch to ICE looks pretty smart to me.

 

I'm with you Sloanhoo. I pretty much agree with your entire response.

I'm 76 years old, having owned or driven many cars. None comes close to the Clarity. We had a 2018, then our current 2020, for a total of about 60,000 miles. At this point I do not see another EV or PHEV offering which would be better than the Clarity. Is the car perfect. No. But the few minor things that I find annoying are easily ignored. Honda would do well to restart production on Clarity PHEVs.

 

I have 60k miles on my Clarity (2019). It’s been a great car. I drive 50 miles to work and 50 miles back home, for a total trip of 100 miles. Drive the highway at 45 to 50 mph. Average 100-130 mpg in warm weather, and Average 80-100 mpg in winter driving.

The drive train is solid. However the Clarity software seems to be un-polished. It’s behavior is unpredictable at times. (When it wants to stay on battery is controllable. Staying on engine is not! Learned a few tricks, like turning the heater on high kicks the engine on.
It feels like possibly a car that Honda was learning From before using the technology on their main lines.
My wife’s Honda Hybrid Accord (2020) is very similar, but much more polished. Unfortunately that’s not a PHEV.

 

You burned extra fuel to get those “free” miles.

 

yes that’s my experience too!
However I have noticed gains by coming into town with a reduced speed limit. Putting the car in neutral, turning on HV change and gaining just a mile or two with little hit to the mpg average. Best to use sparingly.
That said, on days that I forgot to charge the battery running just on gas it’s 44 mpg. Using the hv charge for the first half of the trip I’ll average 55-60 mpg.
So it has its uses.

 

I have become a believer that net mpg may go up by allowing the overall efficiency of the gasoline engine to increase when in "HV charge mode", depending on the needs of driving the car when in HV mode (if you define net mpg as total miles driven minus miles used from initial charge (not removing hv charge miles) divided by gasoline burned). It's tricky to outsmart the car to get this effect, however, and I believe most effective when HV engine loading is low - slow speeds or downgrades. I had a 250 mile trip last week. After removing the EV miles from the charge (about 40), I averaged 52 mpg (4 gallons of gas consumption). I used HV charge when coming down from a mountain (after I had gone up it in EV mode - top of mountain was my destination) and driving sub 50 mph on 2 lane roads so that the car would continuously reset the setpoint upward for holding the battery until I would switch back to HV mode (starting with about 5 miles on the battery). Picked up about 10 miles before I got to the interstate and switched back to HV mode (I believe interstate driving burden on the engine isn't generally economic to add miles with HV charge since it moves the engine past most efficient load point). Again, burned 4 gallons of gasoline on the 250 mile trip and had about 1 mile remaining in EV when I got back home. Regardless, I think the HV charge miles were essentially zero cost.

 

Here’s an interesting read on the subject of HV Charge, from the owners manual.
While anecdotal stories can be fun to read, we still have to live with the laws of thermodynamics.

FWIW: I’ve gained 10 miles of EV range, or 3-4 bars on the battery gauge, on a descent while in EV mode. Engaging HV Charge in that situation would seem to be an inefficient method to achieve the same goal.

 

I think it is all about increasing the overall efficiency of the gasoline engine when it is operating. If you can coax the gasoline engine to operate at a more efficient point on average during a trip by using HV Charge, then the cost to charge the battery with the engine can be minimal. We can argue (discuss) back and forth whether this is possible, but I have gotten some great mpg with the car while using HV charge in this manner, and believe that the overall mpg can be actually increased if used effectively as compared to not using it at all (again calculating mpg by removing only miles derived from EVSE charging, not those gained from HV Charge mode). In other words, I burn less gasoline to drive the same number of miles. Do I think it is a huge difference, no, but I do believe it can make some economic sense if used during light engine loading periods when driving in HV mode. I'm not overly defensive about this position. I was one that early on driving PHEVs said HV Charge was economically a bad idea and that it would always cost money to use it as compared to not doing so. I actually shamed a Volt driver once telling him that he was wasting money to do this and I do still feel that way if you turn on HV Charge when doing 80 mph on an interstate highway.

 

At the risk of sounding insensitive, it isn’t what you think or believe, it’s what you know.

How have you determined when the ICE is operating most efficiently? What do you consider to be light engine loading periods? Have you repeated the same drive with and without using HV Charge?

A 4000lb sedan needs to produce about 25hp at 65mph, or 35hp at 75mph, in order to overcome aerodynamic and rolling resistance. Are those the high speeds at which Honda recommends HV Charge be used?

 

I really don't have hard proof to offer (never ran the same trip at essentially the same time with and without HV Charge to prove this concept - just don't routinely burn gas, so no easy routine to do with and without). I do like @Woogetybop 's statement that "However I have noticed gains by coming into town with a reduced speed limit. Putting the car in neutral, turning on HV change and gaining just a mile or two with little hit to the mpg average. Best to use sparingly.
That said, on days that I forgot to charge the battery running just on gas it’s 44 mpg. Using the hv charge for the first half of the trip I’ll average 55-60 mpg." I'd accept this as some proof that efficiency improvement is witnessed to happen by @Woogetybop on a repeatable basis. I've seen others post here that they have witnessed this behavior as well. As to answers to questions as to when to back off using HV Charge, I try to listen for higher RPMs and generally turn off HV Charge if I can hear the engine running louder than what I deem to be "normal".