I left my car at the airport and I will be gone for six days. When I checked my Honda Link it indicates zero charge in the battery. I am certain when I parked there were approximately 33 miles of electric power. I have plenty of gas. What can expect to happen when I return? Will I be able to start the car and recharge the battery?
I don't know the answer to your question with confidence (haven't tested it), but would expect the 12v battery to allow you to start the car. I left my Clarity at the airport for almost a week in November (lows below freezing) and it maintained its charge (EV range ~10 miles unchanged on return). It's not hard to accidentally leave the car "on" in some way, it's so quiet, but it usually beeps a warning (problem is that it's not unusual to hear the "I'm not sure where the keys are" beeps and then just press the lock button on the key fob, so it's easy to get desensitized to other beeps). Sent using Inside EVs mobile app
Thanks for the good thoughts. I too was thinking the 12volt battery should start the car in hybrid mode and then I could charge the battery while driving. I suspect I left the car “on” by mistake as I was rushing. I do not know what would drain the battery as then heat/air conditioning system was turned. I will be curious to find out what happens and I will post the results for other Clarity plug-in owners.
Please do. I'm surprised that there isn't some sort of timeout protection that keeps this from happening. You're seeing the charge on the HV battery, but if it has gone to zero, it must have been by attempting to charge the 12 volt battery.
Good luck with your car when you get back from your trip. Hope it starts with no drama or inconvenience to you. There is something weird about the rushing/stress aspect of parking at the airport, especially with the shuttle driver waiting for us. Seems we always have some kind of fiasco - forgot to lock it, lost the ticket for bailing the car out when we return, etc., but we have not had any problems with significant EV miles loss, so far. We left ours at the airport for nine days late in November recently, with weather mostly in the 40s and 50s, and the indicated EV miles dropped just from 30.1 mi to 29.6 mi when we returned.
I have occasionally had my car report at 0% battery on Honda link when it wasn’t in fact the case. I remember one time I ran down to the garage to see what was going on, but the car was fine and in fact had plenty of battery. Who knows what’s going on in your particular case, but hopefully this will turn out all right. Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
Thanks for your response and empathy. I am reviewing memories of my last actions before leaving the car and soon I will just let go of trying to accurately recall them. The car has worked perfectly and I suspect I am at fault for this problem. A contributing factor is the silence of EV driving. After fifty years of the sounds of a running motor reminding me to turn off the ignition, the absence of sounds after parking likely contributed to not being triggered to remember a forgotten step when rushing and less attentive. When friends ask about driving an EV, I suggest the following new skills are necessary: 1) paying attention to driving when you can actually hear all of the music previously muffled by engine noise, 2) how to map out driving routes with the most hills for regenerative braking in one direction and gentle slopes on the return route, 3) tapping the brake petal to let those driving behind you know that you’re stopping, and 4) the traditional math involved in constantly calculating how much gasoline and energy I use and save. Now, I will add double checking if the ignition is off when parked!
Some Clarity drivers, to solve this problem, habitually just power-off the car directly rather than put it in park first. (This automatically puts the car into park also). I tried it for a while, and liked it, but found that this habit doesn’t translate well when you get back into another car. Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
Try reinstalling the app or installing on a different device. I’ve had that happed several times as well and it’s just a fluke with with system. I’ll have my wife go in with her login and everything will be fine.
Just curious if you parked in covered parking. Also does the app show the location you last parked accurately. Probably a long shot though if the app is not properly connecting to the car you could get inaccurate data.
The leaf doesnt let you open the door unless you shut off the car. Some people dont like it but now you see why it is needed. An alert might be better or letting you shut off remotely.
Assuming that Jorgie393 left the clarity running at the airport, does anyone know what the car will actually do if it is running in EV while parked, and depletes down to the 0 miles EV level? While driving, I know that the ICE will start. That has worried me in the context of potentially leaving it running in a closed area, and the risk of carbon monoxide accumulation, let alone depletion of all of the gas in the tank.
Funny, I consider this the normal way to shut off a car. I've been driving a Prius with the little return-to-origin mode selector for 10.5 years, and all my other cars have been standard transmission. So this has been working fine. Come to think of it, I think I have been caught out sometimes on rental cars trying to leave the transmission out of Park. To be a little more on-topic, the thing which I have messed up on more than once when leaving the car is turning on a map light to gather all my things, and then forgetting to turn off that light. I only needed a jump start for leaving on that single light for three days.
I believe you couldn't get info on your battery charge if the 12v battery was dead. Unless it got the info out just before it went kaput.
I have had the Honda link indicate a dead battery two times, both times it was in Utica NY. In both cases the battery was at 50% charge. Perhaps it has something to do with how Honda Link works.
I have had Walt's experience exactly with my previous Priuses. I have flattened the battery exactly as he describes, by leaving on the map light. Since I have had the Clarity, I have touched the Park button maybe once or twice when I got the message that the charging door was open and I just put it in Park and hopped out to close the door or paused to pick up my carpool at the park and ride. Otherwise I just press the power button to the car off. I think it might take longer to drain the Clarity 12v with the map light because it seems to be an LED which the Prius's was not.
