37 miles full range in warm weather? Is it charging all the way? Also charging issues on level 2

I believe you mean 3.17 miles/kWh. 5.5 is impressive. 4.0 would be quite good. Expect about 3.5 miles/kWh from the Clarity in mixed driving, in warm temperatures.

Useable/available capacity from a new battery is ~14kWh’s. We know the targeted charge voltage is 4.09x per cell, which represents a 90% SOC. There’s about 10% on the bottom as well. So, lop 20% off 17kWh’s (3.4) and we’re left with 13.6kWh’s.

Some owners tinker with the maximum charge limit, via Hondalink, and otherwise mollycoddle the battery in hopes of extending the service life to 30-40 years on a vehicle they’ll probably only keep for 3-5 years. Different strokes. I just plug it in and let the BMS run the show.

The range estimate isn’t the best measure of battery capacity. The amount of kWh’s per full charge is a reasonable estimate. If possible, drain the battery to 2 bars and measure the amount of energy required to fully charge the battery.

 

You went from a sub-3000lb car to one that weighs more than 4000lbs. It takes more energy to move around.

I just figure 3.5 miles x 14kWh’s = 49 miles. As Yogi Berra might have said: “You’re gonna get what you’re gonna get.” Honda’s MPG calculator is optimistic by about 10-12%, so a miles per kWH calculation would have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I’ve learned to just drive it and not obsess over the details.

 

One thing that can make a big difference is if you set the temperature at say 72 degrees. When you first get in the car, the heater will probably come on and use a lot of energy from the battery. At around 25 mph with the heater on, you will use more power to run the heater than the motor takes to drive the car. I always set my heat to minimum and if I only need a little heat I use the seat heaters unless it is really cold and I need the heater knowing that the mileage will suffer.
I have a 2018 that I purchased in Dec 2017. I probably only drive freeways 5% of the time and my mileage usually runs in the low to mid 50s with an occasional 6x.

 

Be aware that the OBD isn't actually testing the battery--it's reading the computer's data on the battery capacity (same as the dealer's computer). If you pull the battery, that may reset and it may be some time before you can read it again (there were some cases of older cars reading the full 54 because of this, IIRC).

 

Disconnecting the 12V battery does not reset the HV battery capacity reading.
Yes, there are some vehicles which have implausibly high HV capacity reaings, but we have not come up with an explanation that holds water yet. Disconnecting the 12V was a theory, but it has been demonstrated that this does not reset the capacity reading.

 

Let us know what you get on the freeway. I usually get about 40-42 miles or so on the freeway with no heater doing about 75 or so.

 

Just to add in, if you live on a hill that effects your EV range. My Clarity (and I do live on a hill) has 39 miles estimate EV range. Pretty typical for me when we have fair weather. In the winter, mine will drop to 28 even with full charge in an unheated garage.

 

Sounds like you're probably getting a little over 40 miles on the freeway with no elevation change. That's about what I'm getting. I haven't checked my battery capacity, but i also figured there's no reason to.

My Clarity gets put through the wringer. Battery gets drained twice everyday at least. Gets charged at 7kw. Driven about 35k miles every year, 56k miles now. I can't ask too much from it, deep discharge and charge cycles aren't going to help, esp in the summer heat. But i have no complaints.

 

Today I when came home and paid attention to my EV mileage. Weather was about 72F, no heater, did have the AC on. Speed was between 55 and 75 (mostly between 60 and 65) on freeways most of the time, there was some surface streets involved too. I got about 42 EV miles.

Generally I drive in HV part of the way before hitting the mountain base then switch to EV (I didn't today), otherwise the angry bees get so bad driving up the mountain that it sounds like the engine is going to blow.

Generally I don't pay too much attention to what I'm getting in EV miles. The car was $22K net when I bought new after tax incentives, so I can't ask for miracles here. I stated above, this thing will be going through the wringer considering how much we drive. It has 56K on it now, about 23 months ago we bought it new. Rarely drove it the first few months until we got chargers at home and work. Also a good portion of that time was working from home half the time due to covid, so basically this thing is going to get driven even more. The battery gets fully depleted at least twice a day including weekends.

 

Your capacity will be 47.48 regardless of the current SOC voltage. Use the nominal voltage of 3.7 x 84 cells to get 310.8. Multiply 310.8 x 47.48 to get 14.75kWh’s. So, capacity has degraded by ~13.5% using 55Ah as a base. Not bad for a 3 year old battery.

 

It’s a typical and reasonable rate of degradation for any lithium battery manufacturer. Honda doesn’t actually make the batteries.

Maybe you should have bought one of those vehicles that has batteries which suffer less degradation over time. It sounds like Teslaganda may be at play here.