Using Sport mode, disadvantages?

The only downside to sport mode, is liking it and having to turn it on every time you start the car

Why can't they have it remember which mode and keeping LKAS on? My only real pet peeves with the car.

 

I think because the ICE turns on, and then starts to charge the battery so you get "bonus" EV miles out of the trip. I did notice in your vid you lost ~4 miles of HV range but the ice was turning off super fast... mine stays on for a while and will sit there and charge the battery if I am going slow / stopped.

I think the range went up so much because you didn't use any energy but still went a few miles, so its like WOW our estimation is wrong, lets bump it up!

 

If you enjoy a more responsive drive (for the same pedal travel, which is what any rational person would use when comparing differences in car response under normal driving conditions), then Sport mode is for you. Econ offers few advantages if you are a competent driver that is able to control their pedal movement.

 

I, only a somewhat competent driver, irrationally love the function of the Clarity PHEV's pedal click and am delighted to have someone verify my belief that the car can accelerate as quickly in ECON Mode as in SPORT Mode. If the pedal click worked in SPORT Mode, I might change my tune.

 

so the biggest difference is when you don't floor it, and use it in regular driving where it makes it much more enjoyable

 

I usually just drive in normal mode. I have never felt the pedal click. Is the click feeling not there when in a mode other than ECON?

 

Don’t know. What I do know is that I was surprised yesterday how far in the pedal travel the click is. I’ve probably only felt it once or twice in 6 months of ownership, though to be fair I’ve been almost exclusively in SPORT mode after the first month or so. In any case, that click is not something a driver would normally encounter except in extreme acceleration cases.

 

All but for me. I drive it right up against the detent pretty much all the time. In Sport mode, I think I'd be constantly starting the ICE. In ECON mode, I can use all the battery available for acceleration most of the time without starting the ICE. I do control the pedal movement and I'd still call myself relatively competent, but it is right up against the detent a lot of the time. Even if I could control not starting the ICE in Sport Mode, I don't see a value in city traffic for me. On the highway, with ACC on, I can see the benefit of Sport. I just don't drive that much on the highway in day to day driving.

 

The click is a set mechanical event and is always at the same point of pedal travel no matter what mode you are in.
Sport just remaps the pedal in the software to give you more acceleration with shorter pedal travel and sets the engine to come on before the click.

If you’ve never felt the click then you haven’t pressed down far or hard enough. At first I didn’t, until I pushed past what I thought was the end of pedal travel.

 

So Econ is great since you can just push harder and get the same response, but Sport is bad because you can push less and get the same response? If you can learn to push harder to get it to respond faster in Econ, you can do the reverse in Sport.

At first I didn't like Sport. It was the first time I actually caused to the ICE to start due to accelerating. I thought that was the devil's handiwork. I didn't like the fact that it kept the chevrons the same since it was pretty jarring coming from Econ and the way they reset. I probably would have happily stayed in Econ, but I took a couple long trips and realized how much better Sport made the ACC respond. I had to force myself to try to figure out how to manage both of those. All it takes for both is a softer touch. You can accelerate slowly with a gentle touch and you can coast down without the full 4 chevron force if you just feather the brake.

With Sport mode I'm still getting 63-65 EV in the moderate weather we've been having. No CC at all, but some hilly terrain. In the winter I got around 45-47, but I was one of those who suffered with just seat heaters and very limited CC use. With the cheap electricity around here, I doubt I'll do the same next year.

 

As I said earlier, I think I spent at least a month primarily in ECON. I think many new owners may do something similar - the thinking is I bought a Clarity largely for economy, so why would I use any other mode? If I wanted a sporty car, I would have bought one!

But a day or two with SPORT and I was converted. If there were hit to the EV range, I'd gladly go back to ECON, but to date I really haven't seen one.

 

For me, it's all about the click. If only the click worked in SPORT Mode, SPORT Mode would be great.

 

It is interesting that they omitted it in "Normal" and Sport mode. Considering it is so far down the range of motion in Econ mode, you'd think it would make sense in "Normal" mode at the very least. Perhaps it happens early enough in the range of motion in Sport mode, they figured it wasn't worth including?

Either way, it didn't take me long to learn how hard to press to avoid starting the ICE. I turned it on this morning while I was merging, but prior to that it had probably been at least a month since I had done so. It ended up using 4 miles of HV range before it shut off again. I can live with that once a month considering how much more enjoyable I find Sport mode.

 

I assume Honda didn't want to make the accelerator even more complicated for both cost and safety reasons. A mechanism that would move the click to different points in the travel of the accelerator might fail with disastrous results.

 

It’s almost a good thing that the physical click in the petal doesn’t do much in “normal mode”. I’d wager a large portion of Clarity owners out there who aren’t engaged in the forums don’t even know it exists.

If anyone else is driving my car for an extended period I always make sure they try it for themselves first (with the car off, of course).

 

That's what Brick says:
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/5190d613-f71d-4b6e-a343-dbb99efa302f

 

The biggest thing I see with ECON on is the climate control runs more efficiently/less aggressively. The remapped accelerator petal response is easy to adjust to.

For folks wondering about the 'click' people are talking about just get in your car, before you start it press down on the pedal, at about 75% it will feel like it stops, keep pressing and you will push thru it and it will go to the floor. Pushing thru the 'click' in ECON mode will start the engine immediately at pretty good revs(seems loud but that because EV mode is so quiet). Kind of like the kick-down switch under the accelerator pedal in my previous car(BMW) that triggers an aggressive multi-gear downshift in the auto transmission

 

That makes better sense for me - my past BMWs have had that feature - never really tried to on the Clarity but will experiment this weekend...
Thanks everyone for some very insightful info!

 

in city traffic the sport mode makes the care much more responsive- closer to driving a BMW, give it a try