I've had two episodes recently where my Clarity was in Eco mode, with a full or mostly full battery and the gas engine came on inexplicably. The first time was several weeks ago. I was stopped at a light and all of a sudden the engine came on and stayed on for a mile or two after I pulled away from the light, before switching off and back into EV mode. As it should have never come out of EV mode while stopped, much less on a full charge, I had the dealer look at it and they ran a diagnostic and checked Honda's internal forums and found nothing. This afternoon, I floored it up a small hill in Eco mode kind of just playing around and the engine kicked in, as expected. But then it wouldn't go off. For the next 15 minutes, the car would not flip back into EV mode, even though I was driving 35 mph in Eco mode with 75% battery charge and using the regen paddles. Finally, when I thought I was going to have to pull over and turn the car off and then on again, it suddenly switched back to EV mode and then worked fine for the rest of the drive home (15 miles). Thoughts? Similar experiences?
For the benefit of others who may come across this, it’s pretty normal behavior for the Clarity to do this, not an indicator of a problem.
When the battery is full and you're going on a decline. The engine will kick in because the car can't Regen anymore electricity into the battery.
What you noticed the second time (bar going white and car going in and out of EV mode for 15-20 minutes) is likely a "system check" that the car does every few weeks. It is a bit opportunistic; if it's been a couple weeks since the last one and the engine comes on for other reasons (e.g. flooring it or regenerating with full battery), it'll do the system check then. After ~3 weeks if the engine hasn't run at all it can just happen even without a trigger.
but, if the ICE start when the battery is full and we go for regen, I don't see the logic to start the ICE to empty the battery. ICE starting ask for fuel, not electron ? Envoyé de mon iPad en utilisant Inside EVs
When the battery is full and you're going on a decline. The engine will kick in because the car can't Regen anymore electricity into the battery.
also, we don't know if these are bugs or normal operation, so taking it to Honda is good, but you might need to push dealer to report issue to Honda. Don't expect an immediate fix or anything.
