Some want Honda to add more EV range to the Clarity PHEV. I just put an additional 5kWh’s in the trunk. They’re actually going in the motorhome. I just drove them down the driveway to the RV barn. They have the same useable capacity as the 6, 6V golf cart batteries that were removed a few days ago. Took out 360lbs of lead and water for 92lbs of lithium.
I got all excited about this and then did enjoy the humor. It’s too bad the Clairity EVs are being destroyed. I would like to pull the battery packs and electrical hardware out of their trunk and see if you could modify the PHEV to take extra battery. I’m no EE, so I’m not going to figure out how myself, but I can follow a parts diagram if I have the manufactured parts. Weight might be an issue.
I believe it would be fairly complicated. You’d need 7, 48V modules wired in series to create “Battery C”. That would need to be wired in parallel with A and B. Then the cooling loop would need to be added. The onboard charger would charge the bank in about 4 hours at L2 and 18 hours in L1. It would fill half the trunk. The 5376 watts in the photo weigh 92lbs. Two more, which I may add later, would bring the total to 138lbs and provide 8000 watts. AZlithium has a couple of modules for about $250 each. That’s a great price for 1.2kWh’s of lithium. Less than half what I paid for the Lion Energy batteries. Ten or so modules wired in parallel would make a decent back up power supply for a home. That would be 12k, a Powerwall is 13.5K and costs $7500 plus a $2000 Gateway and installation. You’d need a charger or solar and a charge controller and an inverter to make 120VAC. Repurposing them for home energy storage or an off-grid application would be an easier task than adding them to our PHEV.
