Honda Clarity, the Volt Challenger

I measure 84 inches mirror edge to mirror edge.

We have a standard garage with a 16' door. I too was a bit concerned about the width, having parked the 2015 Prius there, but it just hasn't been an issue.

 

Per:

Clarification: Pretty sure the engine only kicks in during Sport Mode if you accelerate very hard or run out of adequate charge. I drive in this mode (with max regen) all the time and have never hear the engine start up or seen the gas gauge budge. Hope this is helpful.

 

yes, it got corrected in a later post, but good to note it again so new folks see it. I am still struggling to decide how to drive the Clarity (3+ years of Volt Gen 1 and Gen 2). Not only does the engine not come on in most of my sport driving, but I was always getting five leaves at the end of every drive. I think it important that folks understand that you can still drive gentle in sport. On the other hand, especially with performance bars (left and right drivers console) turning red and staying red, while ranging from green to white in other modes, I can only imagine that Honda engineers did not see sport as a preferred mode.

I was almost decided on one-pedal driving in Sport regen 4, but today I tried normal and running the selector paddles regen 1-4 approaching local stops. I guess that was kind of fun. There is a little regen always, and cranking in levels 2-4 approaching a stop is not as burdensome as I imagined.

I am finding the Clarity a fun car to drive.

 

jdonalds, thanks for the terrific overview & feature ratings!

Curiosity, has anyone observed that during Low Speed Follow (LSF), the Clarity will ONLY adjust its speed for vehicles that are/were MOVING in front of it, not for stationary cars at an approaching intersection (that the Clarity has never seen move)?

It's not a big limitation, but not what I recall happening when test driving other vehicles with LFS-like capabilities. Overall, I find that the Clarity’s driver assistance electronics perform quite well.

 

Tiralc: Sorry, I should have read ahead.

Thanks for the informative posts -- and glad you're enjoying the car!

 

Thanks very much!!! I was dumb when we built our house and we have 3 separate garage doors. I have 92" clear, and I have to be very careful with my Infinity which is 80" wide. I guess I will have to be 4" more careful if I replace it with this one. Thanks again!

 

Just cut out some notches in the door frame of the garage for the mirrors and you'll be all set.

 

One question -- do the charge timers support different start/stop times for weekday vs weekend?

 

Using the HondaLink app I only see one start and one stop time.

Your charge station may have the extra schedule features you desire. We bought the JuiceBox Pro 40 which does have weekday and weekend schedules.

 

Thanks for the reply jdonalds. When using 120v that wouldn't be possible unless an external timer is hooked up in series. Something like this:

http://a.co/82yPyLx

 

The volt charging schedule is much better but you can overwrite the charging schedule by pushing the key fob charge button.

 

That looks like a great option for the 120V charge cable to control what time charging is allowed. Inexpensive too. Good find.

Our electricity provider charges $0.15KWH 24 hours a day so there is no advantage to charging overnight for us. Of course that could change.

The JuiceBox Pro 40 apparently can work at 120V or 240V programmable. I'm not sure there are any benefits to selecting 120V though. The JuiceBox can also limit the current which may become useful. During the summer when our solar system is burdened with powering the air conditioner it may make sens to charge with less amperage.

What would be ideal is if the solar system controller would stop charging the car when the house is already pulling power from the grid due to the heavy air conditioning load. Then when the A/C cycles off, for the normal daily on/off cycle of about 25% duty cycle, and there is extra solar power available it would then send that power to the car.

 

I also finally found how to program the charge timer on/off from within the car rather than the HondaLink app. I knew I'd seen it but strangely they didn't put it on the 8" screen, rather it is on the driver display.
Page 467 in the owners manual describes it.
You choose System from the range of display options using the button on the steering wheel.
Unfortunately there is only one start time/stop time as is true with the HondaLink app.

I do think the single timer will be sufficient for most people who's electricity supplier offers less expensive overnight charging. Can you tell us your use case for wanting different times weekdays vs weekends?

 

Depending upon the rate plan, the lowest rates with PG&E in our area start at different times on weekdays and weekends.

 

Interesting. Thanks.

 

BTW, when I was test driving the car, it seemed that the steering wheel buttons felt a bit cheap compared to other cars, even compared the 2018 Accord. The click motion doesn't feel very refined or durable. Anyone else agree?

 

I like the volume button on the steering wheel. The one in our 2015 Prius was soft and mushy to me. The Clarity feels crisp.

 

How well does the auto-dimming mirror work? I've used some previously that didn't dim bright lights enough.

 

I agree. We now have auto dimming in both of our cars and neither darkens sufficiently.

 

All of the steering controls work fine for me so far, no quality issues. It is a bit of a bummer that we did not get some of the advanced gadgets of the 2018 Accord. I kinda hate to admit this, but I think I might have liked the knobs on the radio.