Very positive review from "Cheatsheet.com"

That is the best review I have seen. Very organized and informative. It almost seems like paid advertising from Honda, but I think it is genuine. The points it makes are totally valid, as we all know as owners.

 

I agree whih the report. Any onwer of clarity may come out with same conclution.
I would like to add few more here.
1. This car is 500lb heavier than volt and 1000 lb heavier than Prius.
based on every added 1000lb drops 10 mpg, 42mpg HV clarity is way better than 37mpg HV volt.
That's way Prius can only put small bettery to have EV 25miles. If heavy bettery is added, the 50mpg HV is gone.
In addition, only Clarity added 6.6 kv AC to DC charge converter.The other two use 3.3KV.
One of the major reasons for this good perfoments is the design of the aerodynamics of front air curtain and real air curtain.
I saw a lot of reviewers dislike the real air curtain. If you understand the function, you will like it.

2. The car is very strong on the frame.
980 to 1500 MPa steel are used.

3. Because the car share many design concepts and parts with clarity fuel cell, the quilty and reliability should be very good.

 

FINALLY, someone with a true sense and understanding of STYLE.

AND

It was the BEST explanation of the utility of a nearly EV only vehicle around town and the great upside of being a PHEV on the highway. As a longtime Prius owner, merging onto the freeway in my Clarity is pure joy by comparison.

 

Thank you for posting that article. I have a question about highway driving. In the article it says this is mostly done in hybrid mode. I commute 20 miles each way to work and 18 of those miles are on the highway. I was hoping to drive almost all these miles in electric mode. Will this not be possible?

 

@Eric1978a If temperatures aren't too low and you keep speeds under 65-70mph most of the time, you should be able to handle that 40 mile round trip. EV range starts dropping dramatically above 65mph.

 

Kendalf thank you for that insight. At what temperatures would you say the range drops off? I live near Boston. What I am hoping to avoid is having to fill my gas tank every few days in the winter

 

You'll notice range start to drop in Oct/Nov, but it won't be too bad until it gets down to/below freezing. Do you have a place to charge at work? You may have to use some gas on the return trip, but not nearly enough to have to fill the tank every few days. Even if you only get 25 miles range, which is near a worst-case scenario (think Polar Vortex like we had in Dec/Jan), that's still only 15 you'll have to drive on gas, which works out to about a gallon every three commuting days.

 

Eric, Kendalf is right on. I’ve found that the a/c only slightly reduces my EV milage, say 5 miles out a a total range of 60ish in the heat. It’s the heater and defroster that severely reduce your range since they are resistance elements. Your best best to keep as much range in the winter for as many days as you can is to keep the car in a garage and precondition on a level 2 EVSE. This way you won’t have as cold a battery which means it will hold and deliver more charge, and your car won’t be freezing cold so you’ll use less heat and with no snow/ice build up you’ll use less defrost. This way you start with a 100% SOC and reduced non-motive drain on the battery.

Even if you can’t charge at work, the commute you mentioned is still most of the year quite doable on EV only. Even on the worst winter days, you should be mostly EV with just a little HV. This prediction is based on a garaged Clarity with Level 2 preconditioning but that’s really only needed in the dead of winter.

 

Has any reviewer addressed the ICE issue?

 

I have a 21 mile mountain commute, and the other day did it 3 times, ran out of battery a mile from home (I.e 62 miles!)

day

 

You'll probably be in the every few weeks or maybe even less often than that.

geo