2018 Clarity owners, please update battery status

For the first year (~25k miles) I was driving about 80-90 miles daily round trip. I would use up all/nearly all the charge on the drive to work, charge at work (about 80-90% charged by the end of the day on 120V), and then make it back home with ICE kicking in towards the end of the commute. The last 2 years has been a 40-50 mile round trip so I can drive to work with about 50% charge left over, don't charge at work anymore, and drive back with ICE kicking in at end of the commute.

For most of ownership, the cars gone through 1-2 discharge/charge cycles per day.

I noticed the sudden drop in EV range around Thanksgiving of 2019. During that week I was on a road trip and the battery was discharged for about a week in 40-50 F degree weather. I thought maybe that event caused battery damage, but it seemed kind of extreme for just 1 week of being discharged.

At this point, I've lost interest in trying to preserve battery capacity. I would rather have it drop below 36 Ah so I can get it replaced under warranty.

 

The variable engine RPM’s that you are experiencing, that are completely detached from the speed or acceleration of the car, are the sounds of an inverter generator at work. The car is being powered by electricity, some from the batteries, some from the ICE driven generator, both being fed to the traction motor to satisfy the request of the right foot.

While some Honda literature does indicate that the car has a eCVT, the drivetrain consists of a single speed electric motor and a single speed, engine driven, mechanical transmission. This is yet another example of an “e” being added before or after an acronym, that seems to serve as a marketing ploy to convince buyers that the car has some cool feature.

I’m one of those people who regularly gets 50+ miles of actual EV range. I’d have to look at my log book to see the number of 60+ EV trips, but it has to be more than a dozen in 10K miles. The conditions that produce these results are:
Heavy rush hour traffic on one leg of the trip, or a combination of heavy traffic for approximately half of the distance. I’m talking an hour or more to travel 25 miles.
Warm weather, above 60F.
Moderate accelerations, keeping the needle below 12 o’clock.
Coasting when approaching slow traffic or stop lights. I wouldn’t call it hypermiling, just efficient use of kinetic energy.

It never ceases to be entertaining to watch other drivers zip past and then slam on their brakes to stop at the red light, while i coast up to them, still waiting, a few seconds later. Most do not even have regenerative braking.

I’ve also realized that if I drive like Ricky Bobby on a 25 mile trip, I’ll probably only get there a few minutes earlier, so it’s just more relaxing to slow down a bit. Recently, with less traffic, speeds have been more in the 55-65mph range. I’ve been doing 44-48 mile trips with a bar or two remaining on the battery level gauge.

 

I had a 2018 Touring that saw a 5-10% drop in my morning estimate. I thought maybe it was due to the change in my driving habits due to Covid (more short trips, less freeway driving.). But, I recently upgraded to a 2020 and my morning estimate is back up over 50 again.

 

To clarify the above statement, there have been 1-2 bars above the 2 bars where the ICE triggers. So, the gauge shows 3-4 bars. I consider the last 2 bars as “unavailable”.

 

I have a 2018 Clarity. The first week or so I had my clarity I had the system power problem and got the dealer to apply software updates. The only time I ever saw 50+ (52 actually) on the GOM was prior to the software update. From the time I had the car new, my summer EV range would go between about 40 to 47. On average, summer I get 43. In the winter here in Oregon, the mileage goes down predictably, eventually reaching 28. I've never seen lower than 28, but I'll stay on 28 for a few weeks in the winter. I don't use the heat excessively, but I do live on about an 800 ft elevation hill from our valley floor.

So far the pattern has been the same. Save that I believe I was seeing higher GOM before software updates. But from fairly early on, the car has displayed estimated (and achieved similar actual miles) that are lower than what most Clarity owners see. To the point where I paid my dealer more than $100 to read the battery. When it was new, it read 53.2 I believe which seems fine. I'd assume it has gone down from that time, but my EV range has stayed about the same.

My commute is almost always EV save in the winter, where I do burn some gas. If the EV range gets down below 10, I hit the HV button to avoid "angry bees" sounds which actually have not happened for me in some time (maybe due to this behavior preemptively selecting HV).
If I do run in HV, then I also engage sport mode. I only avoid sport mode to avoid accidentally engaging the gas engine, but if I'm burning gas anyway, then sport mode it is (at least for me). Car continues to amaze me mileage wise. It doesn't cost very much to operate the car.
(Now with pandemic, we likely all drive a lot less, but it's less wear and tear too, and may extend the overall life of the car).

I still am excited to drive the car. Have enjoyed it since day 1.

 

My Clarity is 3 years old with 30K on it. Lately, driving locally with not much highway use I have been getting the most milage ever, ~60 EV miles. This is at 60-70F weather. So no loss of battery reserve for us.

 

Just had my annual service done on our 2018 Clarity and I had the dealer run the capacity test that is on Page 13 of the PDI. The printout shows a capacity of 52.0 AH. That's higher than I was expecting in light of the HV battery being essentially empty when I took delivery in March of 2018. The car currently has 16,800 miles on it.

The capacity reading seems odd because at 41% SOC right now, there are only 16.6 EV miles remaining on the GOM.

 

I won’t say this often, you’ll have to trust the dealer on this one.

Displayed EV range cannot be used to determine battery capacity.

 

Yeah, I know that. But my driving pattern hasn't been all that much different; that estimate just didn't seem related to percentage.

Anyway, we did a day trip yesterday up into local mountains. The total round trip was 161 miles. I used HV mode the whole way going up. Started with EV estimate of 48 miles. Estimate was 41 when we got up there. Switched to EV while doing some driving around between three different locations, about 20 miles total. From the last point, down in a small valley, up to where we caught the highway down the mountain, the EV estimate went from 53 down to 37 (steep hill).

The 18 mile trip down the mountain back into the flatlands, still in EV, upped the EV estimate from that 37 to 92(!) at three bars short of a full charge. I left it in EV and hopped on the freeway back home. The 92 mile estimate ran out after about 50 miles at 70 mph and the ICE kicked in. I drove the total 161 miles on 151 miles of the starting total range estimate of 400 miles (more on that below). My overnight charge from 0 EV to 100% charge took 12.51 kWh according to the readout on my EVSE (which is of unknown accuracy). The car says I can now drive 70 miles on battery (yeah, right).

What I found really unusual yesterday is that the ICE didn't kick on by itself when we first left home with a full charge. We live on a fairly steep street and it always seems to fire up with 100% charge. I didn't try any of my usual tricks (such as using N to force friction-only braking), but the ICE stayed quiet all the way down the two miles to the freeway where I switched to HV.

I usually get pretty close to the GOM estimate—on BATTERY that is. The HV range estimate is silly at best. After filling, it usually has been giving me estimates of between 340-350 for HV range and total range with full tank and full battery of over 400 miles. And, yes, I've had all the software updates (no more 999 HV estimates).

Anyway, really happy with the car and I'm glad to see that the battery pack is holding up well.

 

It depends on where you are getting the 41% SOC from. That reading makes sense to me with OBDII numbers. The 16.6 is not 41% of the total battery.

The EV range is zero at 11% SOC. The 16.6 EV miles is only 41-11=30% of the battery. 16.6 / 30% = 55.3 Total EV range.

Even with useable battery numbers, 16.6 miles at 41% of battery is total range of 40.5

 

I got my Clarity Touring in Dec 2017. I have under 10k miles on it now, and I mainly drive short trips every 1-2 days in the EV economy mode. I have not bought gas in about 2 years, and the tank is still 2/3 full. (I know - I need fresh gas.) The car is always garaged indoors and plugged into the 110v charger 100% of the time it is not being driven. My garage temperature never gets below 50F or so, but during the hot South-East summer gets to 100F.

My normal range shown is about 55M. At times it gets as high as 61M. When it is cold (below 50) outside it shows 41-45M.

Other than a recall, and yearly oil change (of oil that probably has 100 M use!) the car has had zero maintenance and zero problems.

 

Just had the battery pack capacity read today while having the A01 service done.

The car's capacity estimate is 51.7 Ah. The car's odometer is 22,840 miles, purchased in May 2018.
Interestingly, the estimate is the same as a year ago. At that time the car had 18,321 miles on it.

FWIW the guess-o-meter EV range this morning was 52 miles with a fully charged traction battery.

 

I don't own one (not yet, anyway) but am looking at buying a used 2018 Clarity. It has 32,000 miles on it and is for sale at a Honda dealer, so I asked them to run the capacity check on it. It came back at 51.8 Ah. If the capacity when new is 55 Ah, this would represent a 5.82% capacity decrease. This seems pretty decent for ~2.5 years / 32,000 miles of use.