Key stats and hints after couple of months with the Clarity

Just wanted to share some key stats and learnings six months after driving my Clarity. Sorry for my US friends who will need to convert to imperial.

I have driven a total of 11 750 km, typical mix of going to work everyday, week-end short trips and a few longer trips.
My everyday distance to go to work is 30 km each way. I can recharge at the office (which was nice but not necessary especially in the summer given the great EV range).

Overall, 75% of my drive has been 100% EV.
My overall fuel consumption is 1.37 l/100, or if take into account electricity consumption my equivalent consumption is 2.2 l/100. (I live in Quebec, so the low cost of electricity at home, 0.10 cens/kwh helps here). But bottom line, I have experiences exactly as advertised, if not even better.

Here is an interesting comparison to most of my friends and colleagues who come to work solo in a SUV everyday (let’s say 9 l/100 consumption)... appel to apple comparison, if I would have driven such a car in the last six months, it represents a saving of 1105$ in energy costs, and 898 l less fuel used... imagine the impact if more people would drive these cars!!!!

Now as we approach winter, it will be interesting to see the battery performance in a ‘real’ Canadian winter. I have only seen part of it March - I expect 40% reduction of usual EV range during winter months (so around 45-50 km vs 80-90 km in the summer).

A few tips and observations:

Driving modes
- I drive in EV mode most of the time. I switch to Sport when I am going up a hill at high speed or to regular when I have 5 passengers in the car. I find EV Mode most appropriate for regular driving. (Unlike my previous car at Lexus ES300h where Eco was only appropriate when cruising on the highway).
- Of course on longer trips, I switch to HV. I found out it is more fuel efficient to switch to HV when battery is still @ 50% (rather than letting it depleat), as when you still have a lot of charge, HV mode will use the battery more. So it seems the best practice is to switch to HV when the battery is at 50%, and then calculate to turn back to regular at the end of the road, to maximize EV drive.

Angry bee
- I have only experienced the angry bee noise when driving at a high speed and needing more energy when the battery was depleted (ex in mountains) - I then realized that when driving in mountains it is best to keep battery charge to go up hill (so swith earlier to HV mode to keep battery charge) - so then you always have access to the full 212 hp going up hill and the engine will not need to go crazy to keep the battery alive. So this is also where the EV charge mode comes useful - use it to recharge the battery when you are up the hill to prepare for the next climb. I found that driving this way is at least as fuel efficient as not using EV charge in this situation and provides a much better experience.

ICE engine kicking in
- Indeed sometimes the ICE engine kicks-in and you don’t know why. Don’t panic. According to user manual, it is when the computer decides it needs to run some test or have the ICE running to keep it in good condition. In all cases, the ICE will switch off within 5-10 minutes.

HV range fix
- Had the dealer install the fix on HV range calculation - now it works well.

Issue with charging
- Never had a problem to charge at a public station - it seems other folks have experienced that issue - maybe I am lucky? It is true here in Quebec most of our station are not chargepoint, maybe there is a link?

My only complains
- I love the driving experience and comfort. My only complain is with the high beams - as others have pointed. The low beam is totally fine, but the high beam is almost a joke. It just slightly increases the height but not the distance of lighting.
I rarely drive at night on rural roads - but I can see it could be a real issue in this case. Asked my dealer if this can be adjusted and they said it is designed like that, similar to other Hondas like the Odyssey.
- A smaller irritant is the absence of power seats on the Canadian touring version - the memory would really be nice when many people are driving the car. I don’t really know why there is such difference on the Canadian version; an only possible explanation is that it is a trade-off as the Canadian version has a battery heater. (I have seen a question on the forum, re how to start the battery heater - answer is that the battery heater starts and stops as needed when the vehicle is plugged in, so you have no control over it. The only way to see it is in use is by looking at the green charging light which will start to blink when the batter is full and the battery heater turns on. Also, it does not consume a lot of electricity. So the only thing to know is to keep the car plugged in as much as possible during winter months, even when the battery is full).






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