i was driving around city and ran out of my EV range, so i decided to just drive it as regular hybrid. speed: 35-70, 30% highway, 70% city traffic. temp outside: 80, a/c @ 74 on 1 bar power. drove about 30 miles with ethanol free gas in tank: mpg 57 on the way back, i decided to change to HV CHARGE: very similar driving environment. MPG: 28, EV 20 mi. my last leg of the trip, i was able to get home on pure EV for 16MI. i put about 90-100 mi that day. IMO: its not worth using the HV Charge in the city. while in stop and go traffic, the engine never turn off, it was constantly charging the battery. it was a bit weird sitting at stop light and hearing it going.
Agreed. The manual advises to use HV Charge while driving at sustained high speeds. It takes only 25-30hp to keep a sedan like ours chugging along at 60mph or so. That steady, low power demand allows for a more efficient use of the electricity being generated.
HV charge at a moderate, consistent speed gives me the best results in that state. Though I find I get the best range with a direct-drive ICE; and not in generate mode.
The only time that I ever use HV charge mode is on long trips to provide for: 1. A range cushion so that I can run the tiny 7 gallon tank to almost empty before filling the tank. 2. A power reserve for extended upgrades. I've driven my 2018 Clarity Touring twice on really long (2,000 mile) trips. It is a very nice road car, but the tank needs to be filled every 250 miles or so.
If Engine Drive mode (or Gear Mode as some call it) didn't provide the greatest possible efficiency, Honda would not have added that additional mechanical complication and weight to the car. Chevy came to the same conclusion with the Volt but it was a while after the Volt's introduction before Chevy admitted that the Volt would have a gearbox to connect the engine to the wheels to achieve maximum efficiency for expressway driving.
I usually only use hv charge at highway speed to prepare for significant grades or to gain some charge for upcoming city driving. It takes about 25 to 30 minutes to gain the 58 percent soc in ideal conditions wich yields 26 miles ev range.
I rarely, if ever, used HV CHARGE through my first couple of years of ownership. My rationale was the loss of efficiency converting gas to EV range, as opposed to just hanging onto EV range by going to HV earlier. Recently, I’ve made a game out of seeing just how many miles I can coax out of a full charge before EV range goes to zero, compared to the EV range guesstimate at the beginning of the drive. Once done, I’ll hit HV charge to bring EV range back to 5 miles or so to have a reserve in the local Appalachian foothills. Note: EV range will stay on zero for quite a few miles, before jumping up to about 2.4 miles and the incrementing up from there. Worst case, the inherent inefficiency of HV CHARGE is costing me a few pennies in gas. So it goes. As an aside, after 2 1/2 years and 52,000 miles and almost daily recharge cycles, it’s pretty clear our EV range has dropped. Where it was originally 45 to 52 miles, even with warmer spring weather it seems to be hovering around 40 to 45 miles. Love to quantify the drop in battery capacity. Does anyone near Knoxville, TN or Blue Ridge, GA have and OBD setup capable of measuring that that I could use?
Here is a description of the different drive modes for the Clarity. I downloaded it from another person's post on insideevsforum. Unfortunately, I've forgotten who originally posted it.
Thanks for posting that. I read every post, but somehow missed that submission. That PDF file explains the driving modes very well.
