What's the cost to replace the Clarity PHEV battery?

I'm actually not that surprised. As more of these battery cars are in incidents, they may have to replace mostly the entire battery. That makes the replacement expensive. If you have a large battery BEV some may get totaled due to cost of replacement.

 

A02 supersedes first version of the battery: 1D100-5WJ-A01

Battery Size and weight:
Dimensions Metric: 1.99m x 1.25m x 62.2cm
Dimensions US: 6ft 6.35in x 4ft 1.02in x 2ft 0.49in
Weight Metric: 343.178 kg
Weight US: 756.71 lb

 

I wonder what A01 problem prompted the design of the A02 battery? I'm getting my outdated 11-month old A01 replaced ASAP!

 

That doesn't look like much damage and doesn't appear to be anywhere near the HV battery.

I think our worst nightmare came true. I think most people will retire the car rather than try to replace the battery when the time comes. Even if we could get aftermarket batteries, replacing it sounds difficult given that Honda needs a special lift. I hope all the gas savings we get makes up for it.

 

I had a Honda Civic Hybrid where the battery went bad at about 220,000 miles. I didn't get a formal quote, but was told it'd be roughly $4-5,000 to replace. So, I take that to mean, battery's have gotten considerably cheaper now that the cost (even at the insurance discount) for the Clarity battery is only $6,100.

That bodes well for us if we hang on to our cars. Battery prices could well continue to fall with all the activity in E-Cars being promised over the next few years.

 

Wow, that 'bump' of the bumper = $20,000!?!? crazy!

 

Driving through the countryside drives me crazy as I have to continually remind myself (sometimes out loud) "The deer can't hear you! The deer can't hear you! The deer can't hear you!" Sometimes I feel like my eyes are bugging out of my head because I'm looking so hard for movement at the side of the road.

 

I think it's due to many parts in modern cars being designed to be replaced rather than repaired. For example, the plastic front cover of the right headlight was cracked. They could not replace just the cracked cover, but had to replace the entire fixture at about $1,800 parts and labor. Also, there is an airbag sensor in the front bumper that was damaged along with it's connector to the wiring harness. They could not replace just the connector, but had to replace the entire harness that snaked throughout the car. The harness cost about $1.4K but it took $3K of labor to install. I'm not sure, but I believe the battery itself was not damaged, but some electronic components on the "IPU" (Integrated Power Unit, which is what they call the battery module) were damaged, and again, the only course is to replace the entire module. Note that after the collision with the deer, the car was still running with no problems other than a warning that the airbag system needed servicing.

I agree, it's CRAZY.

 

Here's an updated price for a replacement Honda Clarity PHEV battery. At this moment, it costs $4892.49.

https://www.hondapartsonline.net/oem-parts/honda-pack-assembly-battery-1d1005wja01?c=YT1ob25kYSZvPWNsYXJpdHktcGx1Zy1pbi1zZWRhbiZ5PTIwMTgmdD1wbHVnaW4tY2xhcml0eS1waGV2JmU9dmFyaWFibGU%3D

 

Or $4,344.53 from this source: https://www.hondapartsnetwork.com/oem-parts/honda-pack-assembly-battery-1d1005wja01

Or $3,750.00 (delivered) (but used) from this source: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2018-Honda-Clarity-PHEV-OEM-Hybrid-Complete-Battery-Assembly-/153369157541.

These are all the A01 version. The "newer" A02 version mentioned by @chris5168 above seems to be "discontinued" now -- strange! But, there is even a newer battery by p/n 1D100-5WJ-A02RM (re-manufactured?) that (including a $500 "core" charge) sells for $4796.24 at https://www.hondapartsunlimited.com/oem-parts/honda-pack-assembly-battery-1d1005wja02rm?c=az0x.

I have no idea what engineering changes, if any, there have been from the original A00 version to A01 to A02 to A02RM. Honda might be changing the p/n without any new engineering changes just to try to help keep market prices firm?

In any case, shopping around does seem to reveal some variation in prices, so it is worthwhile to read each company's "fine print" for "core" charges, shipping costs, local sales taxes, etc. if you find yourself needing one of these.

 

There is another one on eBay for $1,800. But who do they think they are selling them to? Anyone with a Clarity the battery is still under warranty unless they are over 80,000 miles (100,000 California) which is highly unlikely even for someone who bought theirs in Dec 2017. I suspect people have gotten them from totaled cars and assume they will get rich selling it, but don't realize there is zero market at the moment. Any defective batteries will still be under warranty, any damaged batteries will for sure be in a car that was totaled. I don't see that any have actually sold on eBay. That also raises the question why they are even listed on the Honda parts site, but I guess that's just automatic for any part in inventory.

Eventually warranties will expire and the companies that refurbish hybrid batteries will start to include Clarity batteries in their lineup. In theory those companies could start purchasing them now at a discount, but probably don't because they would have to store them somewhere and also keep them maintained, which isn't worth it as it is probably at least a few years before there will be a market for refurbished Clarity batteries.

 

I think you are most likely right, but there was a post on this forum from a member (@StickWare) who made some use of his Clarity for Uber driving, and he reported having 55K+ miles on his Clarity in less than a year of driving the car.

There definitely will be a (small) market for these batteries, but, as you say, just when will that be?

 

I was going to mention them but didn't for sake of brevity and intended that "highly unlikely" included them as opposed to saying that it was impossible. But probably "with rare exception" would have been better wording. I think there may even be a non-uber driver who already has quite a large number of miles. However even in these extreme exceptions which we expect to be very few their batteries will still be new so will likely continue well past 80,000 miles, we certainly hope. A tiny trickle of people will start exceeding 80,000 miles probably in the next year or two, but again they will likely not need a new battery for some time after that. At some point someone eventually will, and the first few will not have a lot of options other than going through Honda or taking a chance on eBay. Only when the refurb market opens up would there be any real alternative to going through Honda, and that depends on when out of warranty batteries start failing, which of course we don't know, and also what the criteria is for the refurb market in terms of numbers before they will decide it's worth it, which I don't know either.

 

I speculated in my earlier post on this thread that the latest Honda part number for the battery ends with "A02RM," which maybe (?) means "re-manufactured." Do you have any insight on this (i.e., Honda itself is already in the refurb market)?

 

That is very interesting, hopefully we can find out more about that. Still wondering though who would be the customer for this? I suspect the RM item is mainly produced for Japan, they have had the Clarity PHEV for a similar time period (July 2018 in Japan) however the Clarities in Japan support CHAdeMO allowing them to charge to 80% in 30 minutes, so maybe there are a lot of Clarity taxis in Japan. Also I don't know how many kilometers the battery warranty is in Japan.

I don't know where I got 80,000 miles from, it is eight years and 100,000 miles, ten years and 150,000 miles in California. I did some quick math and even someone who purchased their car on December 1, 2017 and who reached 100,000 miles today would have driven an average of 166 miles a day. But of course most of that will be HV. Someone who charges once a day will have put no more stress on their battery than anyone else regardless of the total miles driven, other than some battery stress when driving in HV as the battery discharges and gets recharged by ICE or regen. If we assume an average of 50 miles EV range per day (year round) that would be 30,000 EV miles since Dec 1, 2017. Now an Uber driver with a 32 amp charger can charge in about four hours, so realistically let's say maybe another full charge per day, which would be about 60,000 EV miles since Dec 1, 2017. Someone with CHAdeMO it's hard to guess but if if they fully charge say three or four times a day then they would be around the 100,000 mile mark if they have driven and charged that much every single day since July 2018. Obviously the warranty is based on the odometer not EV miles I'm just trying to think of scenarios where someone exceeds the warranty mileage this year and also does so much EV driving as to wear out their battery. Also I don't know but I assume CHAdeMO by itself is more wearing on the battery than regular charging.

 

I very much doubt that it will need to have its entire battery pack replaced, during a typical car lifespan.

 

Man, I thought Tesla Model 3 repair bill are crazy. Looks like Clarity is not far behind.

 

They have to remove the dash to swap out the electrical harness. Because airbag sensors are designed to sense a very specific resistance between it and the ACM, the only way to fix a broken SRS terminal is replacing the harness. You might get lucky with a splice, but that system will inevitably throw a fault code once the resistance changes due to the solder oxidizing, cracking, shorting, etc..

We had a clarity roll in to our shop, lady initially wanted to pay out of pocket because she thought there was only damage on the bumper. The bumper, and all ornamentation we needed was $2k in parts alone. By the time we finished the tally (cradle, right front suspension components, fender, two right doors, rockers, etc..), the bill rang up over $24k. Needless to say, the insurance company totaled it..

 

People have been buying used Prius batteries from totaled cars to make battery back up for their solar powered houses. The main reason for the big differnce in prices on those eBay listings, is one is shipped, the $1,800.00 one is pick up only. If one was in my hood, I'd go pick it up for that price

 

One thing of note: Folks have spoken about expensive Clarity replacement parts (generally) -- i.e. say a $2200 front windshield due to the honda sensing package which is attached and has to be calibrated. But look at many new cars from Honda, Toyota, whatever. They all have their 'sensing' packages, and guess what? they'll have same issue with windshield replacement. Back to batteries, many new cars are hybrids. I guess my point being that I acknowledge Clarity repairs after an accident will be expensive, but will they be more than say 2019 Toyota RAV 4 Hybrid? It also has the Toyota version of all the sensing stuff mounted on the windshield, and perhaps a cheaper (smaller) battery. Anyway, I see a lot of new cars will be expensive to repair.