My Clarity experiment is done

[squidge]

I've had my Clarity, a CPO 2021, for most of this year. Took it from 7k miles to 21k. I decided to split my PHEV into two cars and am buying an i3s for city duty and a comfy ICE car for occasional road trips. While the PHEV was a great foot in the door for me, I ultimately came to feel that it's compromised in all situations. It's the all-in-one inkjet printer of cars (okay, maybe that's too harsh!)

What I liked:
• Overall build quality
• Visibility
• Solid EV range -- 40 in cold weather, up to 55 when it's hot
• Quirkiness factor
• The automated "brake" warning is not overly intrusive and was actually helpful a couple of times
• Onboard charger is fairly high speed for a PHEV
• Spacious cabin
• Pretty good stereo
• Serial hybrid means it drives like an EV around town
• Bought it for $31k and am selling it for $29k after saving at least $1k on fuel this year
• It sold me on EV ownership, at least for short trips

What I didn't like:
• Weak fuel economy on the highway, mid/high 30s at 75mph (tires properly inflated)
• Cruise control is so lazy, basically requires Sport mode on the highway
• Lack of blind spot monitoring, although good visibility reduces the need somewhat
• The front seats in the base car are fine around town, but truly miserable on the highway. I bought a special cushion which helps but makes me sit too high in the car. I'm a 37 year old in pretty good shape and I have to be out of the car every two hours on a trip.
• It takes a lot of managing to really use the car to its fullest -- on a trip I would juggle between EV/HV and Eco/Sport mode a lot and it was hard to explain the optimum strategy to my wife. Of course, this can just be ignored.
• LKAS is useless.

I did consider going with a longer range EV and using it for highway trips, and heavily explored the Tesla path including renting one from Turo for a 1,000 mile trip, but ultimately the right car and the right charging network doesn't exist for me yet.

BTW if anyone is in Raleigh, I'm practically giving away most of my accessories for it. Don't want to post a link in a non-Classified section (and the Classifieds here look dead), so search Raleigh Craigslist for "Honda Clarity accessories" and reach out to me through there.

 

[Landshark]

While the PHEV was a great foot in the door for me, I ultimately came to feel that it's compromised in all situations.

I guess I missed your explanation of how a PHEV is compromised in all situations. Many of your gripes could be experienced with any vehicle. Nanny features, blind spots, uncomfortable seats, fuel economy not what was expected.

Full disclosure: We are a 2 PHEV household, Clarity and Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe. We’ve made multiple 700 mile single day trips in the Clarity, typically in 10-11 hours. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, it was actually a one week trip, we drove the Jeep about 700 miles in 11 hours, then 120 miles the following day. The return yesterday was 800 miles in 12 hours. Try doing that in an EV. We also do nearly all of our local driving in EV. Every vehicle is a compromise. Two compromises that largely don’t exist in a PHEV are waiting for the batteries to charge and buying fuel.

 

[squidge]

Uh, okay. It's compromised in the sense that it's not as good on the highway as full ICE (when compared to something like an Accord, it's heavier and gets worse real-world fuel economy at 75mph on an all-day drive, EPA rating is similar, to say nothing of the engine drone) and it's not as long-range in town as a similarly priced EV, such as a Bolt. It also lacks any kind of fast charging provision, so once the EV range is done it's done.

I totally agree that every car is compromise, having owned ~30 cars. I liked the Clarity, I just prefer things that are dedicated to doing one job as well as possible.

My likes/dislikes of the car were Clarity-specific, not PHEV-specific. You're welcome to not agree with my take.

I mostly came here to try to give somebody $200+ worth of Clarity stuff for $40.

Oh and as for the highway comfort -- maybe the Touring is fine, but the base is brutal. I've taken half a dozen NC to FL trips this year visiting sick parents and it's just not good.

 

[Dan Albrich]

To me one of the value propositions of PHEVs is that I'm not "required" to own/insure/maintain more than one vehicle. The people that I know that own a fully electric BEV, all have at least two cars, and one that uses gas. And of course everyone's situation is different. If you have a family that requires multiple cars anyway, then this may be less of an issue; you're already on the hook for that additional cost anyway.

 

[David Towle]

Oh and as for the highway comfort -- maybe the Touring is fine, but the base is brutal. I've taken half a dozen NC to FL trips this year visiting sick parents and it's just not good.

I'm 6'2' and 65 years old and am very comfortable in my base Clarity. What exactly did you find wrong with it?
The cruise control I think is the worst feature of the car, its just bizarre that its so bad when virtually every other car on the road has a better system. I did find a way to make it livable though: I moved to Florida. On flat roads its deficiencies are livable.

 

[Bruce J Deeter]

Surprised your HV mode gas mileage is in the 30s. Here are a couple of my experiences on road trips. I recently did a round trip: Bakersfield to Las Vegas and back in my 2019 Clarity. Over the Tehachapi pass, SR 58 and I-15, about 210 miles each way. Got 55.3 mpg going, 50.9 returning. Then back in April, a 900+ mile round trip to Reno and back, going along the back side of the Sierra's along US 395, includes 4 significant summits: Sherwin at 6,427ft, Devil's Gate at 7,519ft, Deadman at 8,047ft and Conway at 8,143ft. Avg 46.5 mpg on that trip. Around town I drive EV pretty much all the time, best of both worlds for me.

 

[Landshark]

It's compromised in the sense that it's not as good on the highway as full ICE (when compared to something like an Accord, it's heavier and gets worse real-world fuel economy at 75mph on an all-day drive, EPA rating is similar, to say nothing of the engine drone) and it's not as long-range in town as a similarly priced EV, such as a Bolt. It also lacks any kind of fast charging provision, so once the EV range is done it's done.

It gets better fuel economy than any car we’ve owned other than a 2004 Prius. And, if you want uncomfortable seats, get that Prius. Using MPG as a metric when comparing different vehicles is futile. Have you ever owned an underpowered s#itbox that was built in the 70’s? Comparing the range of a PHEV with a BEV is ridiculous. What is the ICE range of the BEV. Did you know that the Clarity battery can be charged by the ICE while driving? If you happen to inadvertently deplete the battery the charge can be restored at the push of a button.

I liked the Clarity, I just prefer things that are dedicated to doing one job as well as possible.

i prefer versatile vehicles. A PHEV can run on gas or electricity. The Jeep is great on long trips, can tow a trailer, can be towed behind our motorhome and can carry a bunch of stuff. The pickup truck is pleasant on long drives can haul heavy loads and tow a trailer as well. The motorhome is incredibly comfortable on the road as well as when parked, with or without hookups. It has a propane furnace and A/C units with heat pumps, a propane/electric refrigerator, solar panels and lithium house batteries.

My likes/dislikes of the car were Clarity-specific, not PHEV-specific. You're welcome to not agree with my take.

They were Clarity specific and I agree with many of the deficiencies that you mention. But, you initially said that a PHEV was compromised in all situations, and it is that statement with which I disagree.

 

[mustermutti]

Good observations overall, although some also don't match my experience. I think seat comfort is actually great (having done up to 1000 mile non-stop trips), gas mileage very good (don't recall ever averaging any less than 40mpg, usually get more), and drive assists (ACC and LKAS) are simple but useful and predictable. Didn't like the factory speakers much but fixed that with aftermarket speakers.

To me it's been an amazing all-around car, but sure if you don't mind owning multiple cars I don't doubt that you can find better ones for specific purposes. I preferred only one and actually sold our 2nd car (Bolt) since Clarity could fully replace its use case for me (and could do more).

 

[Tek_Freek]

For ACC and LKAS I added a comma2. Night and day except it is still sluggish when accelerating after a slow down. Mine has a "gas" pedal that easily eliminates the problem. Or Sport mode. I'm not sure why using that mode on the highway is a problem. It's one button push, and a second one to turn it off if it's not wanted. That gas mileage seems odd. We drove 2600 miles across country in October and averaged about 40-42 for the trip and I did some high speed driving keeping up with b to b traffic at 85-90mph. (Texas mostly) There are some crazy drivers out there. Drive from Williamsburg, VA to Fredericksburg some time. Danger!

I did learn to not turn the car off while traveling when getting gas. That does two things: Maintains the HV setting and the SOC level. The engine isn't running so the danger of igniting gas is very low. My wife would do her thing while I fueled and I'd do mine when she came back to the car. On average about 5 minutes with a couple of longer ones. We did use HV Charge some to maintain that ~60% charge level after turning the car off overnight.

What I find interesting is that someone is going have to own two vehicles to replace one. An expensive, "I don't like this car" fix.

 

[AHolbro1]

My driving experience with ACC is limited (2004 Infinity Q56, 2014 Toyota Avalon V6, 2018 F150 King Ranch, 2019 Honda Clarity, 2020 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid) but despite several of those vehicles having decidedly better acceleration capability than the Honda, none exhibit what I'd call "acceptable" recovery acceleration when driven in ACC mode and the obstacle causing the deceleration has cleared. To be fair, I don't notice a significant difference in recovery acceleration in the Clarity between Normal and Sport mode, either. But Tek Freek is exactly correct, there's a pedal for that. I've yet to garner a motorway trip at the controls of either of my sons' 2020 GMC AT4 or 2022 Honda Insight, but I suspect their ACC Recovery acceleration will disappoint as well.

A greater complaint with ACC is its behavior when another vehicle is entering or exiting the freeway in front of you. Particularly the "leisurely" mergers that try to set the world's record for distance required to merge or transition one lane to another each time they attempt it! As humans, we can easily determine the situation and what is about to happen and either lift if someone is joining our lane, or continue at-speed if someone is exiting, but the computer sees nothing until a lane-joiner is established in the lane fully, then slams on the brakes, or either regards an exiter as an obstacle and continues to decelerate with them until they are well clear of the lane.

 

[su_A_ve]

42K purchased in July 2018 here - Done a couple of few hundred mile trips and always avg MPG was in the mid 40s if not higher. One interesting aspect mentioned by open was the 'drone' noise.

One of the drawbacks of the Clarity letting it run out of battery on a highway is that ICE will take a few minutes to warm up - in the meantime, the EV will keep on going lower. By the time ICE kicks in, EV needs to be recharged quickly and hence the angry bees come out.

While going to work in the past, I would try to push the electrons until I would get to work where I had free charging. Sometimes the guess-o-meter would be wrong and I would run out of EV range right when entering the highway, which I needed to take for just three miles. Sure enough, the angry bees will kick in at the last mile when the ICE would warm up and kick in.

Love the car and what I paid for. Already concerned as to what I would replace it with in the next 3 years. Ideally an EV sedan for a similar price. Yeah right..

 

[MNSteve]

After a long absence here, I actually stopped by to see if anyone had hints on HondaLink and Climate. As time passes, my ability to turn on climate continues to degrade. It's down now to about 10%. I usually get the "Unable to get reply from vehicle" error, but today it was "Error in application." The feature of being able to skip the shock of starting a trip in a cold car was one of the unexpected perks of the Clarity, and I miss it.

Overall, I agree with most of what is in this thread about the car in general. It fits my driving habits in the sense that most of my miles are errands around town, within the EV range. I do think it makes a fine road car, which was a pleasant surprise. I do not like the angry bees, or the fact that I cannot predict when they will appear. It continues to mystify me that I can drive exactly the same road, at the same speed, with the same weather conditions and battery charge level ... and one day I see the gear icon but the next day I do not. High speed engine noise in HV mode with a high battery charge level is another mystery.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment has been the cruise control. We also own a CRV; one of the reasons we picked the Clarity was the consistent cockpit and instrumentation layout between the two. The cruise control in the CRV works very well. For the Clarity, if I pass someone and pull back into the lane, then take my foot off the gas, it actually applies brakes then undershoots the speed significantly and kicks in acceleration to return to the speed that it just braked through. None of this behavior exists with the CRV. It's like they are two completely different designs of system, which may be more true than not.

 

[Dan Albrich]

RE Climate. Weird factors with Clarity (winter pre-heating):
- The exterior temperature must be 50F or less (10C)
- The interior temperature must be 59F (15C) or less
- You need strong enough ATT cellular signal to get the data push. I know network is ATT 100%, what is unclear if the data is normal data channel to the app, or if it uses SMS. I suspect it uses SMS which might be part of the delays and lack of reliability.
- One other weird one if you geek, I suspect I've had problems if my phone and car are on different wireless SSIDs (network names/VLANs). i.e. if you have a IOT and admin network at home.

In addition to the above, I think HondaLink back-end isn't engineered or implemented properly. Even when everything is set correctly, it still sometimes fails. I can't take credit for the HondaLink Climate Control PDF, another member posted it in these forums awhile back. Including for easier access.

I've noticed here in Western Oregon, even when its quite cold, say 34 degrees outside maybe warming to 45F by day, my car inside my unheated garage sometimes maintains a temperature at or above 50F. So while 50F to me may feel cold, I may not be inside the parameters.

The key-fob command always works for me, but I don't use it. To me the convenience is lost if I cannot set it on a schedule and have it be totally automatic, which it certainly is not (or is not in my case).

 

[MNSteve]

No problem with temps being sufficiently cold in MN this time of year.

My problem since the beginning with the app is its inconsistency. Sometimes it works; sometimes it does not. In the beginning (2018) it worked most of the time, but not always. These days it works about one time in ten. I don't think it is cellular signal or network issues, as nothing has changed in those areas. It's just a poorly designed smartphone app that is interfacing with a poorly designed/implemented communications system to the car.

The keyfob has never worked for me to turn on conditioning.

And if you wonder why I even try with a success rate of 10% . . . so do I.

 

[Landshark]

For the Clarity, if I pass someone and pull back into the lane, then take my foot off the gas, it actually applies brakes then undershoots the speed significantly and kicks in acceleration to return to the speed that it just braked through.

What following distance are you using with ACC? Is there ever a vehicle in front of you when you pull back in to the lane? If so, the ACC and/or CMBS could be slowing the car because it recognizes that you are either within the set following distance or are approaching a slower vehicle at a rapid pace. The following “distance” varies with speed, as the car attempts to maintain a time gap between itself and the lead vehicle.

One technique that may avoid the brakes being applied would be to ease off the accelerator pedal gently after passing. I don’t recall if I have ever overridden ACC in the Clarity by accelerating to pass. If I have, the brakes were not applied as you describe. I do typically operate with LKAS and CMBS deactivated as I find both features to be somewhere between annoying and potentially dangerous.

In general, I’ve found ACC to perform adequately. The only drawback is the gutless acceleration to close a gap. That said, even in both of our Jeep Grand Cherokees, when the following gap is/was set to the minimum level, there is/was always a never ending line of jack-holes who will stuff their car in the gap.

 

[MNSteve]

It doesn't matter whether there is another car in front. If I have it set to, say, 73 ... and accelerate to 80 to pass someone, then pull back in front of them when well clear ... when I release the accelerator to re-engage the ACC, I can see the power meter go well below the line and feel the car braking. Then when it gets down to about 70, suddenly it realizes it's going too slow and accelerates to get back to 73. Well, to 72, because that's what I'll see on the speedometer if the ACC is sent to 73.

Yes, if I ease off on the acceleration and let it drift back to 73 before letting the ACC take over, things are better, but it still allows the speed to drop to about 70 then kicks back in. But I don't have to do this with the ACC on the CRV. After I pass, I just take my foot off the accelerator and the speed drifts down to what is set on the ACC and holds there. The difference is striking between the operation of ACC for two cars from the same vendor of the same vintage.

 

[Danks]

It doesn't matter whether there is another car in front. If I have it set to, say, 73 ... and accelerate to 80 to pass someone, then pull back in front of them when well clear ... when I release the accelerator to re-engage the ACC, I can see the power meter go well below the line and feel the car braking. Then when it gets down to about 70, suddenly it realizes it's going too slow and accelerates to get back to 73. Well, to 72, because that's what I'll see on the speedometer if the ACC is sent to 73.

Yes, if I ease off on the acceleration and let it drift back to 73 before letting the ACC take over, things are better, but it still allows the speed to drop to about 70 then kicks back in. But I don't have to do this with the ACC on the CRV. After I pass, I just take my foot off the accelerator and the speed drifts down to what is set on the ACC and holds there. The difference is striking between the operation of ACC for two cars from the same vendor of the same vintage.

Our 2019 Base does the same thing. I've also tried easing off on the acceleration and drifting back to set speed with some, but limited success.

 

[David Towle]

The difference is striking between the operation of ACC for two cars from the same vendor of the same vintage.

And similar things happens on hills. Going 70 on the flat, come to a hill and speed drops to 68 before the car even starts responding, drops down to 66 and the revs come way up, furiously trying to get back to 70, then overshoots 70 and power goes back to zero. Like a cheap amusement park ride. Totally unacceptable but we have to live with it.

 

[MrFixit]

But I don't have to do this with the ACC on the CRV. After I pass, I just take my foot off the accelerator and the speed drifts down to what is set on the ACC and holds there. The difference is striking between the operation of ACC for two cars from the same vendor of the same vintage.

Perhaps this difference is caused mostly by the fact that the CRV does not have regeneration, and thus there is minimal engine braking when the ACC wants to drop the speed back to the setpoint. I don't disagree that the ACC could be improved upon. I too am troubled by the lag when it needs to increase the speed, but seems to take forever to do so (while dropping below the setpoint). The 'resume' function to re-engage at the same speed as before seems especially sluggish and I usually don't have the patience to wait for it without helping with the gas pedal. Sport mode seems to help with the lag, but I don't often use it.

I think there are quite a few things that could readily be improved with 'minor' software updates, but Honda just doesn't seem inclined to do ANY. Maybe there is no such thing as a 'minor' software update !

 

[AHolbro1]

MNSteve speaks facts! I've had much trouble starting the climate control with app from work, where, 15 years ago my AT&T cell service worked just fine. I ditched them about then in favor of Verizon because AT&T didn't work worth a flip at home, in the sticks. Verizon generally has provided good cell service both places and in-between.

Those attempts were generally July(car purchase) - Sep, when I fancied cooling the interior below the 136F it routinely got to in the afternoon. Sometimes after multiple successive attempts, it would work, some days never. Very RARELY on the first try. Although we've had a warming trend this week....I also rearranged some tools and rolling stock and got my tractors moved to a different bay from the one the Level 2 charger serves, so I can park the car in there and activate the climate control in the morning before I leave. Batting 100% on first tries so far!

Also despondent over the undershooting of the ACC set-speed after you execute a manual acceleration overtaking maneuver. The "work-around" is much more labor intensive than just hitting the cancel button and resetting the speed when re-established in the lane. But if you want....you can press and hold "Res" and the set-speed will increase in 5 mph increments, but you will maintain present position. Then when you pull out to overtake, the excessively gentle acceleration will begin, which you will over-ride with the pedal. Then when want to re-establish previous speed, click it down 1 mph at a time with the set button. If you press and hold to make it go down in 5 mph increments, it'll activate the binders and under-run same as before. EX: cruise set at 71 to get 70. Press and hold to inc to 80. Pull out and overtake. Merge back in the lane, beep it down 79, 78, 77....71. Can't do it too quickly, either...no beeps til it actions the previous one.

Like I said, much easier to just cancel ACC, execute the maneuver, then re-establish desired condition. As noted by MrFixit, just hitting resume frequently doesn't work so well to avoid the problem, either.