DrivingModes

No. Econ mode is remembered between starts and stops. You have to turn it on yourself, and remember to turn it back on if the service center turns it off or it gets reset by a software update or something. It's supposed to limit climate control power usage. HV (or "battery hold" if you prefer Chevy Volt terms) defaults to off every time you start the car, but obviously is forced on if the battery reaches minimum charge level.

 

I’ll try to answer your questions based on my experience.
The car starts by default in “EV mode” even if it was in HV or HV Charge mode when last run. If Econ was selected at last run it will turn on next in Econ; as in it remembers whether Econ was last on or not. This is not the case with Sport which is cancelled upon restart.
When the state of charge depletes to 0 EV range and 2 bars, it will automatically switch to HV mode but the HV indicator does not light up (at least on my Clarity). The Power Meter will change to showing much more white and indicating where the gas engine will turn on.
So you don’t need to select the mode every time you drive. It will always start in EV and will remember if you last selected Econ or not. If you want to start out in Sport, you will have to select that every time you start.
In HV mode, the computer algorithm will run the gas engine predominantly (but not totally) and switch between mechanically coupling to wheels, charging the battery, supplying electrical power to the motor, and combinations of these power flows along with regeneration in an attempt to give you the best efficiency, economy, and power. It will, for the most part, keep your state of charge at its level when entering HV mode. For example, on a 500 mile round trip, my gas engine ran 2/3s of the time and I only lost 1 bar of battery. It is worth noting that many of us have found that manually switching to HV before EV range gets to 0 and 2 bars gives a better driving experience (especially going up hills or at speeds over 60) as in more power, better economy, and less chance of the high reving “angry bees” sound.
The car will run on gas with virtually no usable charge left, but several have reported a poor driving experience and a few have experienced a dangerous lack of power in that scenario. From my experience, the one time I experimented and let the charge deplete, HV worked normally (no loss of power and no high revs) in city and highway driving (no hills, under 60 mph). I would not want to try that on hills or at high speeds.

So basically, you can let the car do the thinking for you and just drive it. The only time I manually over ride the computer is if I have a low state of charge and have steep hills ahead. That would be the only time I would use HV charge to replenish the battery charge so I could have plenty of power for the climb. Of course, it’s an even better strategy to anticipate the climb and switch to HV before EV driving depletes the battery charge.
Also some report better economy and driving experience by choosing HV for the highway drive and switching to EV when their destination is within their EV range.
Bottom line is that the Clarity is an excellent hybrid design that will almost always let you just get in and drive, but that can be made even better by using the tips shared above from several posts.

Welcome to the forum. I infer from your name and the syntax of your post that English is not your native or primary language. I hope that no one gives you a hard time about that. Personally, I think it proves that you are much smarter than most of us since you are at the very least bilingual. ( I barely mastered English!)
I hope you enjoy your Clarity as much as the rest of us are and look forward to you sharing your experiences and insights as you drive it more. I’ve learned a great deal from the many helpful members of this forum and am only sad that I’ll never meet them or you.

 

The Clarity automatically shuttles between these 3 modes: EV Drive, Hybrid Drive, and Engine Drive.
Here's the confusing part - the driver can choose between 4 driving modes: Sport, Normal, Econ, and HV (and HV recharge also).
The driver can't really choose EV mode, although with enough battery charge and moderate throttle, you can get approximately 50 miles of EV drive in Econ, Normal, or Sport modes.
You can choose to retain the current battery charge on a trip (more or less) by choosing HV mode.
HV mode is intended to mean High Voltage Battery Keep Charge, but I imagine it was a challenge to fit that label on the button.
You can leave it in Sport, Normal, or Econ and spend battery charge first, then gas......or you can choose HV to spend gas and reserve battery charge for later.......or you can choose HV recharge and spend gas to not only drive, but also charge the HV Battery for something like unanticipated mountain ascents.

 

I wish there were only two modes; EV and HV. That's pretty much the way we drive it. We have no interest in sport as it is too easy to kick in the ICE. Normal mode runs the battery down which I just don't think is a good mode.

If Honda only had two modes they could put in a shift stick which I would like. Push forward to go into Drive. Pull back to Reverse. Push left to select EV (which is labeled Econ), push right to go into HV. That's all I'd need. Re-label the paddles so + is on the left and - is on the right where they belong. Get rid of the useless wings on the shift panel so my knee doesn't push up against it all the time. Keep the Brake Hold (best feature). Don't reset the HV mode when the car is turned off. The whole shift panel is a mess to me.

In answer to the OPs questions:

If your trip is shorter than the EV range then leave the car in Econ mode for the whole trip. If the trip is longer than the EV range then switch to HV mode when the battery is about 1/2. Keeping your battery with a charge helps if you have to go up hills. The car just runs better if the battery has some charge.

If you drive until the battery charge is depleted it automatically switches to Normal mode which runs the gas engine.

When you switch the car off it forgets that you had it in HV mode and reverts to Normal mode which drains the battery.

If you have the ability to charge at home then when you are on the return trip home and the EV range estimate is higher than the number of miles/kilometers you have left to arrive home then switch to EV/Econ mode.

Free charge stations are great. Make use of them when you can. Charge stations where you have to pay are expensive. Most of the time it's cheaper to use the Clarity in HV mode and burn gas if your only option is to use charge stations that cost money. Of course this depends on your location.

 

There is a blue bar on the speedometer. As long as you stay in the blue range, that is EV. Going into white will start the ICE (internal combustion engine aka gas)



Everyone else covered the other modes so wanted to make sure you knew how it works on the dash and how you can easily see it change by swapping modes.

 

I realize it's an old post but here's my own 2 cents on the driving modes. I personally like the Sports mode a lot and stay on that mode almost exclusively. First of all, it is definitely a more "spirited" enjoyable ride with great responsiveness and acceleration. Second, it allows me to set the regen paddles to max and to use them that way without the paddles resetting every few seconds (which happens on all the other modes). Sports mode does start the ICE from time to time but that doesn't bother me in the least. Some people on this forum act as if the ICE was some kind of evil spirit that needs to be vigorously avoided. I've driven ICE cars my whole life and if ICE comes on for a few minutes here and there, it doesn't bother me in the least. My observation has been that Sports mode does not deplete the EV any faster possibly because the ICE helps out as needed. Also, since I use the regen paddles so often I think that they help to charge the EV which may also explain why I don't run out of EV.

 

I’ve been virtually living in SPORT mode. I rarely find the ICE kicking in. I like it for the persistent regen, but also it feels somewhat more responsive, even without the ICE kicking in. I’ve noticed no marked increase in electrical consumption in that mode.

Today we had an errand planned in excess of our EV range. I decided to try “brainless mode”, just running on EV to 0 miles and then letting the car figure out what to do. It wasn’t horrible, at least in the gently rolling hill of E TN. A bit buzzier as the ICE kicked on and off a bit more often, but again, not horrible. Good to know if you want to turn the car over to someone without an extensive orientation. Still, it seems manually switching to HV mode with battery remaining is the best way to go.

 

I agree about sport mode- makes driving around town so much more enjoyable- never really push it hard but still improves experience with little extra battery drain I can see

 

Although I agree with your description of its behavior, I believe HV Mode stands for "Hybrid Vehicle Mode," because, as with Honda's non-plug-in hybrids, HV Mode seeks to maintain a constant charge in the battery.

Frustratingly, the SAE paper, Development of Electric Powertrain for CLARITY PLUG-IN HYBRID, defines all its acronyms EXCEPT "HV," but it describes HV Driving Mode (which is called "Hybrid Drive" mode in a 2013 paper by Honda engineers) this way:
"...HV Driving Mode, in which both engine generated power and battery power are used..."

 

On the Volt, it's called Hold Mode.
Hold charge where it is, I guess.