A viable alternative to Clarity

I saw a propaganda video stating the solar panel is just for charging the 12V battery. I don't see too much sense of that, except as a "futuristic" gimmick.

 

The car looks are really nice, but I doubt my rigid back would allow me to get into it, as it happens with mi wife's '13 Civic...

 

Well, considering all of the dead 12v battery issues that keep popping up for Clarity owners, I'd say it's not entirely a gimmick to keep the 12v charged. Another potential use - it could possibly also have some use in hot climates to help keep the car cooler. The car's fan running (no AC) in the summer sun could potentially keep the car's interior what? - 20 to 30 degrees or more cooler if it's baking in the sun?

 

Provided that the solar charging circuitry remains active when the vehicle is powered down and the car is parked where there is adequate exposure to the sun. However, would occasional solar charging prevent the premature battery failure that a few Clarity owners have experienced? Also, would a fan that circulates hot air really keep a car 20-30 degrees cooler?

 

Easily! Depending on the car, the color, the location, etc, the interior can easily surpass 150 Deg F on a day where the ambient is in the 90's. The default, failsafe for mobile HVAC systems is for the fresh/recirc door or flap to go to fresh air. So, unless, for some unintelligible reason, the manufacturer would activate the fresh air/recirc door to "recirc" for parking fan activation, pulling in 90-95 deg ambient air to push 150 deg cabin air out the relief vents in the back would easily result in a 20-30 deg F reduction in cabin temp, if active for say, 60 min or more. Better if constantly active whilst parked.

 

AHolbro1 sort of covered the potential fan benefits - that's exactly what I was thinking of. As far as the battery - I was thinking of the issue where the car sits and the battery just ends up drained. There is a constant drain on the Clarity when it is just sitting there. This is why every few days (when on vacation or even just sitting in the driveway) people recommend turning on the climate control (which charges the battery while climate is on). So yes, I think a solar panel charging the 12v when the car is just sitting might also be useful. I don't know if the new Prius Prime would have the same issue with battery drain, but these two use cases are what I immediately thought of with that solar panel.

 

I fit a 5W VDC Battery Minder solar system in the rear window of my daughter's Jaguar X202 a number of years ago when she was a freshman at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and only driving the car very short trips across campus at night, and encountered a flat battery condition. The X202's are somewhat notorious for battery drain issues, anyway, and not being sure if I was facing that, or just the amalgamation of numerous occasional night-time (she felt comfortable to walk it during the day) very short drives, alongside only a long weekend to diagnose and effect a solution, I opted for a solar charger. Solved the problem. Now, the battery will still fail, eventually, but it solved the issue of having a flat battery due to residual current drain from not driving the car or only driving it sporadically for very short durations.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s-type-s-type-r-supercharged-v8-x200-15/vdc-5w-solar-batteryminder-hardwired-2003-s-type-64372/#post435951

 

FWIW: I’ve left the Clarity to sit for 4-6 weeks, unplugged, on at least 2 occasions and the 12V battery was not depleted upon my return. The only time the 12V was dead was when it once sat for 6 months. On that occasion, I powered up the car with a lithium pack, let the 12V charge for 20-30 minutes and haven’t had a battery issue since.

 

I’d need to see some actual results from a field study. The dash fan doesn’t stand a chance against the solar heat from the windshield alone. And if it’s sucking in air off 125F tarmac, it won’t do squat.

 

Funny thing about properly designed mobile HVAC systems; They almost universally locate the blower motor's fresh air intake up on the cowl, just below the windscreen, rather than trying to suck debris and flotsam off the tarmac! In any event, you shouldn't often have concerns of 125F in Oregon. That's more a problem for those of us in Texas and Arizona.

 

See the chart below. Many parts of Oregon will see high temperatures in the 90’s-100’s during the months of June-Sept. Two thirds of the state, east of the Cascades, is a desert. Along the coast, road surface temperatures of 125F or higher would be unlikely at any time of year. A large percentage of the population live along, or near, the I-5 corridor, which lies in areas that are not influenced by the coastal climate.

I’ve opted for a window tint and a windshield shade as effective methods to help keep the interior cooler when parked outside on hot days. Preventing the cabin from heating up is very efficient and it requires no power or moving parts.

If you ever come across test results of 2 identical vehicles parked side by side, one with the dash fan on and one without, I’d enjoy seeing the results.

 

Even opening the windows only a third of the way will be significantly more effective for cooling the car than any normal fan can be.

 

How about plug-in hybrid CR-V that has a fuel-cell instead of an ICE? Many questions yet to be answered regarding this 2024 vehicle to be built in Marysville, Ohio, not Japan. I'm sure it will be available only in California, where a hydrogen infrastructure already exists. I'm sure it will be lease-only, like the Clarity Fuel-Cell.

Two paragraphs from this CNET article:

Honda this week announced that it will build a hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle at its Performance Manufacturing Center in Marysville, Ohio, in 2024. While the vehicle does not yet have a public name, Honda did say that this new FCEV will be based on the CR-V SUV, one of the automaker's most popular offerings.

There's an interesting twist in here, too. While every other fuel-cell vehicle turns compressed hydrogen gas into electricity, which is used to propel the electric motors powering the vehicle, Honda's FCEV will ease the transition to hydrogen by offering a charging plug. This will, in Honda's words, "[enable] the driver to charge the onboard battery to deliver EV driving around town with the flexibility of fast hydrogen refueling for longer trips." So, in a sense, it's like a plug-in hybrid, but instead of gasoline, it uses compressed hydrogen.

 

The owner of this website (www.jaguarforums.com) has banned the autonomous system number (ASN) your IP address is in (14618) from accessing this website

 

Hmmm...very strange, JaguarForums has been historically visitor-friendly; maybe because I linked the exact post instead of the web page?
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s-type-s-type-r-supercharged-v8-x200-15/vdc-5w-solar-batteryminder-hardwired-2003-s-type-64372/
There's a pdf there, that resides on my old computer/backup drive, which you'd not be able to access as a visitor, but there are replies to the post and answers to the replies with pics of the 2.0 version of the bracket that pretty much render the original pdf redundant.

 

If we compare it to a Mirai, is it viable at $60K? Is it viable without a 3 year, $15K hydrogen fuel credit? Is it viable if a half-assed fuel supply system exists in only one state? Is it viable for any state in the west or southwest to start using their ever diminishing water supply as a source of fuel for transportation?

 

Now there’s a reason. The Oregon ACC2 Rule, which mirrors the CA and WA rules, requires a PHEV to have at least 50 miles of EV range beginning in 2026 in order to qualify as a non-ICE vehicle.

Clutch your purse for a few more years and there should be a selection of 50 EV mile plus PHEV’s available. I’d wager that most will be sedans.

 

I've often thought that many could be fine (and happy) with PHEV. I hope that with proliferation there will be lower prices, and better selection. It just makes a ton of sense to me to have my daily commute all electric. And gas option/PHEV, well, having the option in one car is practical at the current time.

 

I wonder why Honda's CR-V PHEV is available in China only? Do they not see the popularity of the RAV4 Prime in the US? GM's not rushing to bring out another PHEV in the US, either.

 

You also sort of have the truck as status symbol folks, where bigger, is always better. These are the giant trucks but are so prestine and shiny with chrome they've likely never been used for any form of work. And there's the dealers who prefer to sell traditional gas rigs.

I mention in that I think the reluctance of both dealers to sell and consumers to purchase PHEV/BEV vehicles is in there. I feel like Honda said, 'well if you crazy people just want gas vehicles, we'll do that.' And as we and you know, especially sad in that Honda created the first hybrid generally available in the US.

Anyway, if its true that Honda is not doing much in the PHEV or BEV US market, that's a short-sighted view.