Honda EV committment/future?

Discussion in 'Clarity' started by jpkik96, Feb 10, 2021.

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  1. lessismore

    lessismore Member

    My Clarity lease will end this coming August. I am thinking of moving on to a BEV. In addition to the points already mentioned in the previous posts, I do want to point out that, with PHEV, owners have double the maintenance costs down the road. Unless you unload before heavy costs sink in, you are looking at double the trouble having PHEV around. We still have an ICE which requires all the seals and fluids to run it; then we have a small battery which will degrade faster than those of BEVs because we run them through much more frequent charge/depletion cycles. When these PHEVs are new, yeah we got double the convenience than ICEs and BEVs. When we sell them, our potential buyers are looking at those aspects, as well. I have a 2010 X5 which I still maintain on my own and drives well. I cannot imagine myself doing a battery replacement or any repairs without dealership's help since we are talking about high voltage components.
    Clarity is a great car, and with its residual being so low I may just buy it with cash. But I don't intend to keep this car as long as I did with my X5 for the mentioned reason.
     
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  3. Agzand

    Agzand Active Member

    The difference in maintenance is not significant. The main item is oil and filter change which is cheap. Other maintenance items (brake fluid, coolants, tires) are shared with BEVs. A proper PEHV should have a simple engine, like Clarity. It is a naturally aspirated port injected engine which should be indestructible. I don't like complex PHEVs like European models or Hyundai that have turbo engines and complex transmissions.

    Toyota hybrids have a 1-1.5 kWh battery that cycles multiple times every time that you drive the car. Yet they last 200k miles easily. So if a PHEV has abnormal battery degradation issue it is due to poor engineering, not inherent problem of the PHEV concept.
     
    Robert_Alabama likes this.
  4. Agzand

    Agzand Active Member

    Clarity range is OK, but it is a sedan. Since everyone wants an SUV these days, you need a 20kWh battery to get similar range. Also many people don't have overnight charging (particularly in Europe/Asia), so it is a big plus to be able to cover several days of commute on a single charge. If you don't have charging it is likely that you are in a big city and have short commute (15-20 miles), so a 60 mile range should cover most of the weekly commute on a single charge.
     
  5. Random proposal: What if we dropped the PHEV title and referred to our, previously know as PHEV Clarities as, BEV’s with range extenders? Would they gain wider acceptance?

    It isn’t that much different than the BMW i3 REx. Our range extender is a bit more powerful and has the ability to charge the battery on the fly, so we can avoid limping around with a depleted battery and weak range extender.

    It certainly wouldn’t be any more absurd than labeling cars ZEV or PZEV.
     
  6. Phil_Meyers

    Phil_Meyers Active Member

    I chose the Clarity because it's a Honda and had a decent size battery for a PHEV. Honda as most know has a great reputation on quality and the interior finish was high end. I wish it had a better looking exterior but oh well. We drive a lot and we're in the mountains, the battery gets drained twice a day. I could do without the angry bee's but I find that switching over to HV to with about 7 miles left while going uphills, the angry bees are tamed. The biggest reason I chose a PHEV instead of a BEV was because when we go on a road trip, I don't want to worry about where the next charge is. I also don't want my wife worrying how to get a charge either. We can go further up the mountain or on a road trip and I don't care if there's no charging available. I'm not some pure EV'ist either. We do about 70-80% travel on electricity overall which is good enough for me.
     
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  8. DucRider

    DucRider Well-Known Member

    Short term, yes.
    Long term you have things like spark plugs, timing chain, fuel filters, fuel pump, fuel injectors, distributor, catalytic converter, valve cover (and other) gaskets/seals, water pump, etc, etc. Yes, you may sell it before it becomes an issue for you, but that doesn't mean the technology doesn't have those costs associated with it.
    The more miles you drive, the more doing it on a BEV makes sense. Transit companies have universally found very significant maintenance savings on electric buses vs any of the other options out there.
    Many Clarity PHEV owners will never put significant ICE miles on. In fact a fair percentage rarely use gas at all and they need to consider whthere a 250 or 300 mile BEV would better suit their use case. If they only take a long trip once every year or two, is waiting for charging too inconvenient? Would a once a year rental of a luxury car be better? Or do they stop and stretch every 2-3 hours or so anyway?
    For us, the only PHEV out there that has sufficient range to cover our daily usage in EV is the i3 REx, a car that is just too "quirky" for my wife to live with. The 47 miles of the Clarity PHEV (less in the winter) is not enough, and as much as my wife loves the BEV version, the PHEV is completely out of the question. When our Clarity BEV lease is up, she will be driving something other than a Honda (the 170 mile Ioniq EV is incredibly cheap right now at $39 per month and $2K drive off - incl all taxes, fees, license and 4 years registration).
    PHEVs have their advantages, but there is an additional complexity and maintenance cost they carry as well. As EV powertrain component costs continue to fall (batteries, motors, etc), the added cost of the ICE drivetrain will result in them being significantly more expensive to both purchase and maintain than a long range BEV.
    Honda seems a bit lost as to what path they want to take. Reaffirming their commitment to "Electrification", but expanded the definition to include even mild hybrids shows their lack of commitment to anything with a plug, be it PHEV or BEV. My contacts have confirmed they have some projects "in the works", but nothing near term and nothing they can discuss.
     
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  9. turtleturtle

    turtleturtle Active Member

    Do you use L2 charging at home? Battery changes after draining 2x/day?
     
  10. insightman

    insightman Well-Known Member Subscriber

    Things are changing at Honda. Reuters reports that Honda CEO, Takahiro Hachigo, will be replaced by Toshihiro Mibe, its head of research and development on April 1st. It's unclear if Mr. Mibe will be more inclined to develop additional BEVs. The end of the Reuters article mentions that Honda is finally offering a mass-produced BEV, but reports the company expects plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell cars to be their bread-and-butter vehicles:

    Traditionally known for its fuel-efficient internal-combustion engines, Honda launched its first mass-produced all-battery vehicle last August.

    It has said it wants new-energy vehicles such as plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell cars to contribute two-thirds of sales by 2030.

    But analysts say Honda has a lot of catching up to do with competitors, in the arena of electrification.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2021
  11. Aren’t these BEV’s simple machines?
    How much catching up can there be?

    Battery, motor. Simple. Get some batteries from Panasonic, or GM, or ??? Make car go.
     
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  13. Pooky

    Pooky Active Member

    Like any machine, creating a functioning system is not the difficult part. The difficulty comes from optimisations in both performance and cost. In terms of an EV, this can be things like aerodynamics and weight. With the Clarity, it is clear that Honda knows how to optimise aerodynamics. However, if the BEV is anything to go by, they still have work to do in the weight department.
    Cost is a matter that I won't even begin to pretend I have any insight upon. I still have little reason to believe that the Clarity turns a profit at North American MSRP.

    I'm certain that their partnership with GM is poised to address both of these concerns.

    Cheers
     
  14. lessismore

    lessismore Member

    Those of us who had lived through the pains of doing maintenance work on ICE cars would understand what's involved. It's a bit unrealistic to expect upkeep ICE components of PHEV's involves only oil changes and a couple of other misc. items. Clarity is new, and entire PHEV family of vehicles are quite new. We don't have enough data points of how long those costly maintenance issues would surface in a car's life span. But it's a question of time, not whether it would happen. Ideally it would be very far down the depreciation cycle, and no one (even those who would buy from us) would need to worry.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2021
  15. It could be that some of the excess weight on the Clarity BEV, compared to a Model 3, for example, may be attributed to the measures taken to provide a more quiet, comfortable ride. Additionally, the BEV and PHEV are spawn of the FCV, so there may have been some compromises or weight penalties from the get go.
     
  16. lessismore

    lessismore Member

    It's more than that. Otherwise, everyone would be making Tesla-like cars. Battery design is a big deal. Battery management is another. On top of that you've got intelligent driving, extensive charging network and fast charging technology. It's a whole new era, and that's why Tesla stock price skyrocketed. Any car manufacturer holding on to ICE would relive the Kodak moment during emergence of digital photography. It's understandable that Honda had made many years of R&D perfecting their engine and drive trains. Like BMW, it's a bit hard to shift investments into something that is yet to take a significant bit out of the market share. But this is where leadership vision comes in. Kudos to VW and GM leaders for making the bets. It's definitely not an easy thing to do - choosing long term survival over short term revenue joy ride.
     
  17. Lest we forget VW’s Dieselgate scandal. Now they are the golden child.
     
  18. lessismore

    lessismore Member

    well, at least they kept trying ;-)
     
  19. Recoil45

    Recoil45 Active Member

    It's possibly they lose money or just break even on each car. The "profit" for many of the traditional automakers selling EVs, comes from not being forced to buy emissions credits from Tesla.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  20. Pooky

    Pooky Active Member

    Indeed, such is a part of the process of optimisation as Honda builds a new BEV platform from the ground-up.

    Cheers
     
  21. Agzand

    Agzand Active Member

    A typical user will never have to do those maintenance on a Clarity PHEV. Honda engines require those around 100k miles, for a Clarity that will be more than 500k miles (400k miles in EV + 100k in hybrid). BEVs have a water pump too.

    A 300 mile EV sounds good but what about the environmental impact of the big battery?

    I also have a BMW i3 REX. I think REX is a great engineering solution to range, but there are two problems, one is regulations that doesn’t let BMW to activate the range hold mode in US (but you can do it yourself). Second issue is potential for user error (e.g. you forget to activate range hold mode) resulting in a reduced power situation during a long trip.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  22. Good point, but why necessarily a “luxury car”?

    In 2013 we were headed home to N GA from a fly-in in Lock Haven, PA. Could not quite make it home to N GA due to inclement weather in the mountains and landed in Knoxville. Had to get home, so we rented a Fiat 500 for $25/day and it was a hoot in the mountains!

    [​IMG]

    Next day the weather cleared and we returned the 100 miles or so to get the plane home.

    Point is, if you need to rent on rare occasion, you have the flexibility to rent something “completely different” - a van, a Miata, a Jeep or whatever floats your boat. Luxury smuxery!
     
  23. Looks like GM is going for the joy ride. It’s probably a safe bet that the investment in EV’s is possible because of the sales of profitable vehicles such as trucks and SUV’s D513469D-B2FF-484C-B598-121D7633191C.jpeg
     

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