HariN, just wait until you gas up for the first time and then you will join us in the Clarity Society of Unlimited and Eternal HV Milage! (would that be Kilometerige for our Canadian members?) Go fill up and you’ll be on your way to earning the password and secret handshake. Please post back after you do.
I didn't know where to ask this question but, does charging your phones/tablets affect the EV range? Because I wanted to buy a DC to AC converter to be able to charge my laptop while driving.
Hard to tell. We charge our phones in the car every day. The power requirements are so low I doubt if it has much of an effect on EV range.
No need to buy a converter, unless you need an 110 ac connection. There’s 2 usb connections located in the front between passenger and driver in the “cubby”. Also a 12v plug if you’d like to use that. Regardless, the draw is extremely minimal (as jdonalds said) and wouldn’t effect range enough to notice. -Skip Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks Loomis2. That's not bad at all. I wish my phone and lap top batteries did as well. My understanding is that the first generation Leaf does not have a liquid cooled battery while the Clarity does. That should help the Clarity maintain decent battery health. Yes, high speeds are hard on battery range but the biggest killer is have the heater on in cold weather. I once got 55 actual miles from all EV but that was in town driving, in Econ mode, on a mild day and no HVAC on. I hope to beat that once the weather improves. On a recent online review, the author wrote that he drove almost 65 miles before the ICE kicked in.
Not in a meaningful way. The power to move the vehicle at speed is on the order of 10 to 30 kW. The power to charge a laptop is on the order of 0.1 kW (if you are running it at max), a cell phone about 0.005 kW. So a laptop at max power of around 100 watts would take roughly 0.35 miles range per hour (based on 3.5 mi/kwh) and a cell phone about 0.0175 miles (92 feet) per hour, again, maxed out running navigation with screen at full brightness. Realistically, your laptop will average much less than 100 watts, probably more like 20 watts or less, I was just looking at my laptop power supply rated at 100 watts.
I just reviewed our total gas cost for the Clarity since we bought it Dec 5. We've spent a total of $81.33 for 6,138 miles. That was mostly due to two trips, one of about 350 miles and one closer to 500 miles. Total gallons was 27.9 at an average price per gallon of $2.92. There was a little gas usage other than the two major trips, our grandchildren live just outside our electric range round trip. There's no way to really turn that into actual MPG but just for fun 6,138 / 27.9 = 220 mpg. Since all of our battery charging has been accomplished at home on solar the total cost of power has been the $81.33. One might argue that we had to pay (a lot) for the solar system so the power really isn't free. However we installed the solar with the city dictating the size of the system based on our house usage only, not counting the car. We didn't buy the car until after the solar contract was established. In fact we are adding two panels and a larger inverter to improve our solar production but the fact is we are already, for the past month, at zero balance between what we pump into the grid during the day and what we suck from the grid at night. So I figure the cost of charging the car has really been $0. We have to use some grid power + solar during the time the car is charging but that usually only takes an hour or so. The rest of the day we are usually pumping power back to the grid.
It should use less power than running the car AC. Most laptop power bricks are rated about 100 W, unless you have a high end model. Q
I see, thank you! speaking of the AC, does it consume a lot of power? because in Canada our winter lasts about 4-6 months so I'm going to be using the heat a lot.
Just as rough order of magnitude: Car: 10-30 kW (less in ideal conditions, more in worse conditions, the gas engine in the BMW i3 is close to 25 kw, that car can maintain about 65 or 70 on gas engine alone) Heater: 7 kW AC: 3 kW All computers and electronics in car: Sum to maybe 1 kW or less. Things like seat heaters will be like a laptop. They will make a small difference, but not a lot compared to the Heater and AC.
IMG_20180424_072038 by Rajiv Vaidyanathan posted Apr 24, 2018 at 8:43 AM Sorry for the dust, but I was too excited to clean it. My range finally hit 40 yesterday, and today, was at 49.7! Note that the ambient temp reads at 48, but we have highs in the high-60s the last few days.
Congratulations. Rajiv, even more impressive is your HV range that is still in the believable range with 1600+ miles. When was the last time you filled up w gas and how much HV mode have you been in? Seeing a believable HV range brought a tear to my eye. Ahh, I remember those days before my first fill up.
Ken, I have ALWAYS been in the believable range. My HV range has remained at 107-119 miles since my last fill up in early February (I have filled the tank only two or three times - all on a single trip for ice fishing in February). The drop in HV mileage has been completely consistent with my HV usage. So, of the 1650+ miles, I've done about 375 miles in HV mode. I've never used HV charge mode (yet) and have always stayed in ECO mode. Maybe it will jump when I do my next fill-up (maybe in a week or two, just for fun).
Anyone notice not only is the hv range in the shot in the manual crazy high but so is the ev range: 280 ev miles plus a range extender would be amazing lol
Rajiv, I think you’re beating the system by doing a lot of contiguous HV trips just before filling up. Some of us are thinking that the sky high HV ranges are due to not separating out the EV miles. And the algorithm seems to use the last several trips/miles to calculate. If that is the case (big if!), then when you start mixing more EV with your HV miles, your HV range will start to go up when you add gas and skyrocket the more EV vs HV miles you intersperse. Or you could have the only Clarity on the planet that actually computes HV range accurately. Let us know what happens. You won’t see the high HV range until you add gas after mixing EV and HV driving.
Has the hv range ever shown over 1000 for anyone here? It seems like it stops at an even 1000 every time, which is weird. If you are going to go with 4 digits and not keep going then just stop at 999.
LegoZ, I never noticed that while looking at the HV range. Much egg on my face. The engineer that let that get past them must have graduated from that trade school in Atlanta (GaTech)! Sorry, I’m an old UGA grad so I had to say that. And I’ll have to stop bashing Ga Tech because I hear that they turn out quite respectable air conditioner repairmen. I will now try to graciously suffer the flames of any Ga Tech alums on the forum. How ‘bout dem Dogs!
