A few questions that the dealer couldn't answer

Discussion in 'Clarity' started by Emanuel Green, Apr 27, 2018.

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  1. Emanuel Green

    Emanuel Green Member

    So I took my car to the dealer last night to have them walk through the car and answer all my questions. I had a bunch of them, and of course the people at the dealership didn't know all that much about Clarities. So I'm hoping that you all can help me out! :)

    1. Is there a way to view the battery percentage remaining, as opposed to the rated range? I find on my wife's Leaf that the percent number is more useful, since the range estimate doesn't account for different driving conditions on different parts of your trip. (And it's useful to say, "I arrived with <60% charge; I should find a place to plug in before I head home."
    2. Is there a way to show instantaneous power usage or average miles/kWh for the trip? Since I bought the car, the average fuel economy has been pegged at 199.9, which is pretty useless. I can't seem to find a way to display the EV efficiency. (Ideally, Honda would use the same display regardless of mode, and convert everything to MPGe so we could compare apples to apples.)
    3. I have noticed a weird thing where if I turn off the car and go to put something in the trunk, the car emits a fast series of beeps and then doesn't auto-lock when I walk away. We think we discovered that the car somehow thinks the keys are in the trunk and is trying to prevent locking me out. (In reality, the keys are in my pocket and I'm standing just behind the car.) Is this normal, or is there something wrong here? Maybe a miscalibrated sensor somewhere?
    4. I know that the regen paddles remember their setting in Sport mode but not in Econ (which is where I really want to maximize regen braking!). Is there any way to change it so that the car will not reset the deceleration level after each stop?

    Thanks, everyone!
     
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  3. insightman

    insightman Well-Known Member Subscriber

    I believe the answer to 1. and 2. is no. All you get is the gas-gauge-like display on the instrument panel and the battery bars box on the Energy Flow Screen. For 3., yes, the car thinks you're still inside because you were too close. On 4., there is no way to change the way the Deceleration Selection goes away in ECON and NORMAL Modes.

    Did you notice that the first pull on the left paddle displays two "V" symbols? I now believe that one "V" and no "V" symbols both represent the same default regen selection because I can't feel any difference between one "V" and no "V" symbols. Therefore, there are only 3 additional regen levels available. BTW, the brake lights come on when 4 "V" symbols are displayed.
     
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  4. loomis2

    loomis2 Well-Known Member

    As to #4, if it is that important to you just keep it in Sport Mode. It still takes some effort to get the engine to come on in that mode so if that is a concern you should be fine. I tried that for a few drives but found Econ Mode to fit my style better. I use the paddles sometimes, but this car was designed to just be driven without thinking too much about details like Modes.

    As to #1, I really like the battery percentage on the Leaf, as well, but the Leaf doesn't have a gas tank as a backup so needing to know how much charge is left isn't nearly as important on the Clarity. It is a hard habit to break if you are used to driving a straight EV like the Leaf.
     
  5. Kendalf

    Kendalf Active Member

    For #1, you can set up the Honda Link app on a phone and it will give you a percentage SOC. Unfortunately, the Clarity is a bit deficient compared to other EVs in regards to energy consumption and efficiency data.
     
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  6. M.M.

    M.M. Active Member

    As Kendalf says, the only way to get this is the HondaLink app. Note also that it's showing usable battery capacity (similar to the "fuel" gauge on the left of the instrument cluster), so 100% isn't 17kWh but 100% of whatever usable amount is available (which is good and makes more sense). I actually am not sure if it shows 0% at the 2-bar level the car considers empty for EV purposes or not (have only emptied the battery once and didn't check). Maybe someone else can chime in.

    You could also of course just look at the battery fuel gauge on the dash to estimate. There are 20 bars, so each bar should represent 5% of usable capacity. If you want to be precise and count the 2 bar reserve separately, technically each bar is 5.6% of usable EV capacity. (I'm actually curious if this gauge is linear, though--I've noticed a couple times that it seems to drop more slowly toward the top of the gauge, but it could be psychological.)

    No. I sure wish there was, though, and really miss the instantaneous kW, plus kWh total and kWh/mile readout from the Volt.

    This isn't practical from a daily use standpoint, but one might be able to extract some of that information from the service port, though I haven't read about anybody trying it yet.

    This is normal. Stupid, but normal.

    What it's actually doing is, I believe, telling you "You've left something open and therefore I will not lock the car automatically." It will do the same thing if, say, the passenger door is ajar when you get out of the car and take the remote with you. If the car beeps once after you get out, it's telling you "The remote is not in the car anymore and all the doors are closed, so I will lock automatically once you walk away." It does a single beep a second time when it actually locks.

    The "you left a door open!" thing is flagrantly annoying, because if you don't notice it, the car ends up remaining unlocked even if you subsequently close all doors and walk away. The logic is supposed to be "Car locks when remote is X feet away, if nothing is open", but in practice the programming and sensor sensitivity on this is erratic at best, so if you hear the rapid beeps you need to lock it manually.

    Fun tip if you didn't notice already: The auto-unlock (if you have it enabled) is triggered by some sort of inductive proximity sensor in the driver and passenger front door handles, so it will unlock if your hand is very close to the handle for about 1 second. At first I thought it was just distance based until I realized it didn't unlock until I got impatient and started to reach for the door every time. This is pretty cool, and actually works consistently. No sensors in the back door handles, though.

    I actually had it do something even weirder when the car locked itself when I walked up to it. It obviously had failed to lock earlier, but I have no idea why it suddenly decided to lock when I got in range.

    Nope, Sport mode is sadly your only option. I really miss a one-pedal driving mode (they could have put an "L" gear on the transmission or something).

    You're correct, although technically there are four regen modes. One is just always on, even if you don't use the paddles (take your foot off the accelerator and don't touch the paddles, and you'll notice it regens slightly, presumably to simulate the feel of high-gear engine braking when you take your foot off the gas in a conventional car). If you want no regen at all, you need to shift into neutral (and the car will coast noticeably better if you do so).
     
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  8. M.M.

    M.M. Active Member

    Addendum to the battery gauge thing on the dashboard versus app for determining actual state of charge:

    The dashboard gauge definitely isn't linear. I drove a few miles and had less than 90% battery state of charge according to the app, but the dashboard indicator was still showing full. It apparently doesn't start decreasing visibly until somewhere between 80 and 90% state of charge.

    Since the car does know its actual state of charge, I wonder if this is purely psychological or if Honda had some other reason for doing this (I have guesses, but they're purely speculative).
     
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