EV mode question

That seems odd. I've always had greatly reduced regen when starting a drive with a full charge. Do you precondition the car before you start driving? Or is the AC running for a few minutes before you start to move? My only guess is that the climate control is eating enough of the charge so that you're not experiencing this behavior.

How long have you owned the car? I'm just wondering if the newest builds may have tweaked settings such that a "100%" charge leaves just a bit more room in the battery for regen when you first start driving, to prevent this ICE turn-on behavior that has been my primary issue with the car.

 

I know I have done that but cannot feel the "indent."

 

I do not precondition the car and I drive away as soon as I start the car so AC isn't running before I start moving. I picked up my car in mid-June, but it is a lower serial number (228) than others being sold in Canada these days (600-700 range). Not sure what the build date would have been. I have definitely not had any unexpected ICE turn-on behaviour and the regen paddles seem to work right off the bat for me.

 

Many on this forum have been too timid to press their accelerator pedal hard enough to go beyond the "click" or detent point. You can check it out even when the car is off because it's purely mechanical. Unfortunately, it's not variable, so the click only has meaning in ECON Mode. The engine starts up before the click in NORMAL and SPORT Modes. Here's the graph from the Owners Manual that illustrates when the engine starts up in each mode relative to the click point in the accelerator travel.

 

I too couldn’t find the detent until I pushed rather firmly wirh the car off and then I felt it. Originally I thought that was the end of pedal travel and went back and forth trying to feel it. LOL!

Also, I’m consistently having the same experience as Kendalf and others with the limited regen immediately after a full charge (62 EV showing). Just yesterday, the regen would not go far at all into the green and brake pedal hardly added to it all for the first 3 miles. I also noticed that when calling on 4 chevrons with the paddle, they would flash and revert to 3 chevrons.

 

I am also seeing limited regen will a nearly full battery.

I believe that this is due to charge rate tapering. As the battery gets closer to full, usually the charge rate slows down. I've heard the fill-a-bucket analogy to describe this. (if you're filling a bucket with water but don't want it to overflow, you slow down as you near the top).

This would explain the behavior where we are getting some regen, but the max rate of charge could be limited by the nearly full battery.

 

Here’s a thought about losing the EV symbol with a full to large charge on the battery.
This happened to me, so I pulled over, played with buttons and restart and even popped the hood. I found the ICE was running at a very low idle speed that couldn’t be heard in the cabin. The hour meter I had installed also showed a short run of the ICE on one other “EV” drive . Of course there was no motive reason for it to come on IMHO.

I theorize that this was a “System Check” that occurs periodically. It doesn’t happen often and lasts for only a short time and as soon as the engine warms up it will turn off. I think it’s making sure the engine is ready to be started when needed and keeping it properly lubricated. I’m not concerned over it since (except for bobcubsfan) it’s rare and short enough not to be bothersome or use hardly any gas.

I went 4 months and 3,500 miles with no HV, and only had it happen 3 times ans some of those may have been the limited rege on full charge battery protect scenario.

So don’t worry about it. The Clarity is a PHEV not a BEV although we can drive it like it’s virtually a BEV with practically no ICE usage, we will never be able to force it into a Pure BEV Mode; just a 99.99% BEV Mode. That’s good enough for me, especially coupled with the unlimited range of HV driving when I need it for long trips. While the Tesla crowd waits at their chargers on long trips, I just wave as I go by!

 

It has been over 100 degrees here for many days. Isn't the engine warm enough? Happened again yesterday. Wait! Maybe that's it! Only happens on days that end in "y"!

 

Bob, you’re a hoot! Glad you can keep keep your “cool” with your frustrating high frequency of engine starts.

The engine will run until it reaches its operating temp before it turns off which will be quicker in summer and in HV mode where it has previously warmed up.

 

Mpeters42, that’s inspired. Never thought of it and it makes a lot of sense. You just got nominated as the newest member of the Clarity Brain Trust. Keep those insights coming!

 

Limited regen is pretty typical on a full battery. Regen is one of those things that can easily generate 30 kW or more, I think Bolt EV goes up to 70 kW. It like like DC fast charging your battery.

Even though the Clarity doesn't have strong regen braking when you lift the go pedal, or even at 4 chevrons on the paddles, it still uses much stronger regen when you press the brake pedal. The Clarity blends regen with friction braking. You can see this by how much the green needle dips into charge when you press the pedal. If the car is fully charged you will see the needle stay at zero, but as the charge dips the regen will get stronger and the needle will dip more into the green. If you use the paddles, the car won't let you go to 4 chevron regen unless you drive a little ways.

My i3 has one pedal driving, but if the battery is fully charged I find I have to use the friction brakes last minute as the regen is much weaker. Almost blasted through some stop signs. The Volt seems to let you regen about 0.5 to 1 kWh beyond "full" before it limits regen performance. Being a PHEV I am sort of surprised that the Clarity doesn't allow this, they have a lot more battery capacity in reserve than the i3 does or something, but maybe they wanted to maximize usable range and just charge a little higher.

 

Why did it come on yesterday but not today? Same conditions.