Hi all, I picked up a Clarity this past weekend (Touring model manufactured in July 2019). Dealer charged it up for me, I also tried charger that comes with it (110v) no issues, charges right away, tried Volta charger nearby, charges right away. But my whole plan was to charge at work, and those are Chargepoint stations. There are other cars charging at them all the time, including other Claritys. When I plug my Clarity in nothing happens (charger says "Waiting for Vehicle"), the green charging light on the clarity never lights up, its as if nothing was ever plugged in. I have tried 4 different plugs at this location, same result on all of them. I drove to 2 other locations with Chargepoint chargers, one of them worked, another didnt. So 2 out of 3 Chargepoint locations do not work, Clarity is unresponsive when plugged in. So to sum it up. 2 of 3 Chargepoint locations I tried do not work with Clarity, 1 of 1 Volta locations work, Home works, dealer's plug works. I talked to Chargepoint on the phone and confirmed I am doing everything correctly, plus the one location that worked tells me that my account/app etc are all set up correctly. And just to make sure I was doing it correctly, they walked me through the entire process, including initiating a charge on their side (remotely), we couldnt get it to charge, just "waiting for vehicle". Its like the Clarity doesnt know there is anything plugged in. Also just to note, I do not have any charge schedule set (verified both in Honda Link and in the car itself). And I tried holding down the lightning bolt button on the remote to force start the charge... no go. I saw there is 18-097 bulletin, but it only lists 2018 PHEV (possibly because it was written before 2019 models existed)? Does anyone know if it applies to 2019 models, and has anyone experienced what I have described? This is really putting a wrench in my plan to charge at work, without that ability I wont be able to charge it at all and would have to drive in HV mode only as charging at home is more expensive than gas (currently $3.30 per gallon, while electricity at home is 24c kwh). Bulletin: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2019/MC-10154940-0002.pdf
Currently no definitive answer has been posted on this. I would not be totally surprised if Honda forgot to update the 2019 Claritys or the Service Bulletin verbiage. Perhaps the best course of action is to take the charging complaint to the dealer and ask them to install the 18-097 update. I feel sure that when they hook it up to the i-HDS that it won’t let them install anything that would be harmful to the car. So worst case scenario you made a wasted trip and best case you get the needed update. And maybe it’s thrown a diagnostic code that can be used to trouble shoot. Please let us know what happens.
The other day I was at the local hospital and saw the one parking space with a charging station was not occupied. I plugged in--it was the first time I'd ever plugged in at an EVSE other than the one in my garage. Hondalink indicated my Clarity was plugged in. But when I checked Hondalink later, the SOC hadn't increased a bit. I went back outside and discovered the EVSE was manufactured by ChargePoint. I gave up, unplugged and moved my Clarity. I wonder if update 18-097 would have enabled me to use that EVSE successfully?
ChargePoint locations: - Do you have the app installed on your phone? ...and registered? NFC communications turned on? When I go to a ChargePoint location, I start the app, tell it that I want to charge, put my phone up next to the device, it releases and activates it for use with my account (free, or not...) I use one from a "bank" of ChargePoints at my local airport when waiting for family member to get off plane, get luggage, etc. They are free, but I still have to fire up the app to activate the actual ChargePoint unit. It works the same for me at other ChargePoint locations (at malls, for example.)
yes, have the app and as I explained I used a different location Chargepoint sucessful, but the one at my work and another one I tried fail to charge clarity. so 2 out of 3 I tried do no work. One does. So the app and account and all that with Chargepoint work fine (since I was able to charge at that one).
No as a first-timer, I expected there would be a sign explaining if it was the case that the free ChargePoint charging station at the hospital could not be used by anyone without a cellphone. I'll wait to add all the various and sundry apps for the different charging station vendors when I get my BEV next year.
I charge at work no problem; the charging station is not Chargepoint. I have only one experience charging at a Chargepoint station, it was fine. I had to install the app and turn on NFC on my phone and activate it for the plug to be released. My 2019 Clarity Touring PHEV was manufactured in Dec. 2018.
You can sign up for chargepoint online and they will send you a free tap card (link). You need to link a credit card, but it will only be used to add funds to refill the card $10 at a time if your balance is negative after a paid charge. If you only use free chargers everything is free.
I had this happened twice within 7 months period. Station is also Chargepoint. Strangely, the affected port became functional again the next time I used it.
Are you using the same location all the time or did you try different locations? As I said one out of 3 chargepoint stations worked for me, but the other 2 didnt. I think my situation is different, Ive tried it on 3 different days, and different stations at the same location... no go
Please excuse my ignorance but what is NFC? Do you happen to know where to find that on an iPhone? Sorry, my neuron bank for acronyms is pretty full...
NFC stands for Near-Field Communication, a shorter-than-Bluetooth communications technology that is not usually found in economy-level cellphones. Apple added NFC starting with the iPhone 6. It's most popular application is for point-of-sale payments using a cellphone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-field_communication
I thought I had an issue with charging in my 19 touring, I called the local Honda tech. They said that the 19 wasn't on the list for the upgrade but to bring it in. I didn't bring it in because I found out it was the charger not the car. Anyways I use charge point all the time, no issues.
An update for anyone that encounters this. The car spent the whole day yesterday at the dealer, they have checked everything, including punching in Service Bulletins manually, and there was nothing that applied to 2019 model. They also indicated that there were actual hardware changes in 2019 charging mechanism to address this issue, therefore forcing 2018 bulletin (their system wont even let them, but if it was possible) would probably break it as it would not match the correct offset in the flash. I had them turn the screen and show me how they manually search for the Bulletins, and then they also have a thing where they can pull up everything applicable to every Clarity, and we went through the whole list. Anyhow, they charged it all the way up at their charger (the same charger that was used when I bought the car, that always worked), and then took it to another one, which also worked. They opened up the case with Honda headquarters (who by the way have been extremely diligent on following up with me and making sure there is a plan of action). Next step would be for their tech to take 2 vehicles to the non working chargers and diagnose the problem on the spot to potentially submit for a software update. Today I tried the charger that didnt work before at my work, and lo and behold it works. Drove to the other chargers that didnt work. They all work now. So I dunno what fixed it, perhaps hooking up to Honda diagnostics equipment reset the system somehow or pushed a background update, or maybe it needed a full charge (where it charges and then stops on its own because it detects that its full).... dont know. But it works now. And just to be clear, I still think it was something up with the car and not the chargers. I had another Clarity user pull out of their spot that they were charging in so that I could pull in, use their account (just to make sure a known working account was used), and my car still refused to charge, in the spot where their Clarity was charging just a minute ago. Also these trials were done over course of 3 days (total close to 20 attempts across 3 charger locations), it didnt work even once. Now after getting the car from the dealer it works everywhere. I contacted Honda headquarters and the dealer to update them on the situation and to tell them they can close my case. Summary/TLDR: If you have this issue, take it to the dealer and have them run diagnostics, and charge the car to 100%. Even though there are no updates to push to the car that seems to have fixed it for me. Perhaps hooking up to Honda diagnostics system did the trick by resetting something.
