Yeah - kind of what I expected after all the feedback and experimentation by this esteemed community. There’s always a chance that a future update may give you a fix. geo
Yikes! I wouldn’t want to try that test but who knows. Did you ever find a way to test your drive with a slightly depleted battery to see if that could break the ICE cycle? ( Sorry if you did and I missed the post - as you know this forum gets pretty active at times) geo
Monday, I drove from my house to the Burbank airport and back. About 30 miles. ICE did not come on. Charged the battery to full. Drove about 3 miles, so battery must have been partially depleted, and the ICE came on, twice. Each time it shut itself off after a couple of minutes.
How common is this "problem"? It sounds like many of you are okay with it and it's not that bothersome. Was it a surprise after you bought the car? Or something you experienced during the test drive?
I never had it happen until I forced it to happen as in this thread: https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/ice-re-generation-and-the-big-hill-a-novella-in-three-acts.2243/ geo
Look at this ad: It implies that after the battery runs out you can still drive on gas. My experience is that the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) comes online randomly. It did not happen on a test drive. Coming from a pure EV (Nissan Leaf) this is a disappointing and unexpected behavior.
I'm not sure you understand how the Clarity works. The ICE is connected directly to a generator and a clutch. The clutch only engages at speeds over 45 mph to connect the ICE directly to the wheels at a fixed gear ratio because there is no transmission that has multiple gear ratios. Under 45 mph, the ICE can only generate power to charge the battery or drive the car.
There are some options with this vehicle. The Clarity EV and the FC always use electric motor propulsion (the FC uses hydrogen to make electricity)… Put it into HV mode or go past the detent in the go pedal and it will. In my Prius PHEV that was the major annoyance. The ICE was set to come on at 62.5 MPH, and it did it like a champion. There was no option to prevent it from turning on. The Prime has raised that speed somewhat, but there's still a limit.
Another time when Clarity ICE seems to come on unbidden (for me anyway) is going uphill at freeway speed. Even if I try to keep my rate of acceleration down, ICE will still pop on at some point. I have a feeling that engine load (even with ICE off) may be a factor … On flat surfaces, though, I can accelerate smoothly up to high speed - 85MPH or so - without ICE popping on. But that's a gradual acceleration.
Another scenario: Engineering set a limit on how much current can flow from the battery. When the driver requests an amount of power that will cause the electrical system to draw more current that allowed, the ICE will engage to supply the motivational need. Don't think anyone on this forum will be able to provide a satisfactory explanation for the conditions under which @bobcubsfan is witnessing ICE engagement. He has several options including emptying the tank, disconnecting the spark plugs, or buying a different car.
The ICE comes on our car in a seemingly random way as well. I was a little surprised/puzzled at first, but it uses so little fuel on each cycle that it doesn't bother me at all. I had assumed the ICE was just getting a little "workout" here and there. Each cycle will show a couple of miles subtracted from the HV range. We bought the car in early December and now has ~6700 miles. I have put gas in the car twice up this point to cover a couple of longer trips, but I'm estimating it would get a year or more if I never let the charge get down to 10% at which point the ICE always kicks in. That said it would be nice if Honda engineering explained this in a bit more detail to alleviate the startle effect.
Bob’s problem is that, outside of HV driving on trips longer than the EV range, his ICE seems to come on much more often than the rest of us. So assuming we are all running the same software/algorithm, then it must be something different in the build of his particular Clarity, but not so different that it throws error codes. I would be extremely frustrated it that were happening to me. Bob can you tell us how often this has happened over how many months and how many miles, and how much gas it’s used(outside of expected use in HV or battery depleted scenarios)? Just trying to wrap my head around what’s happening to you. For example mine has only had the ICE come on 3 times for a few minutes in 4 months for and 2,300 miles, which I don’t mind. I’m assuming that System Checks and/or the ICE when fully charged no regen braking scenario are the reasons. That’s with moderate driving, no hills and speeds under 70 mph.
We got our Clarity March 7, so about 3 months ago. About 2400 miles on it. ICE gas usage is about 133 miles worth or about perhaps 3 gallons. ICE issue has happened about 19 days. At least 1 happening each day, sometimes more. Today, for example, did about a 25-mile drive on and off the freeway. Got up to about 60 mph (rare in Los Angeles) and no ICE issues. Somebody in this forum wrote that ICE "locks in" at 45 mph. I don't think that is accurate.
Thanks for the numbers. We'll keep track of ours to see how it compares. Looks like your ICE is coming on for a short time about 1/5 of the days you've owned the Clarity and is running about 5.5% of the time you're using the car. (Of course, if you keep up that usage pattern, by the time your car has 100,000 miles on it, the ICE will only have 5500 miles on it, hardly enough for an oil change! )
Wow! I didn't think of that! No visits to Jiffy Lube! Honestly, I really like the Clarity. As a side issue, we rented a Nissan Altima on a trip last week. It was kind of cool to have right and left warning lights in the pillars. If we tried to change lanes when a car was there, it would beep. Has a backup camera and beeping, and forward sensing. Otherwise, the car sucks compared to the Clarity.
Based on these numbers I would have to agree with you that your Clarity is not acting normally like the majority of ours and that you have a legitimate grievance. Definitely not in the middle of the bell curve. Hope you can use all our posts to show Honda that your ICE is coming on way more often than everyone else's here.
Bob- Let me suggest something....this might be a stupid idea but its worth a shot. Try charging your 12V battery that sits in the engine. When I received my clarity the 12V battery was very low so I put it on a "trickle charge" for about 12 hours. It seemed to help things and I also read that Honda was having problems with these batteries being bad. The engine might be kicking on to help the alternator charge this battery back to full or your 12V battery might be bad from the factory. Never underestimate the simple stuff.
Not that the battery charging idea isn't worth a shot - but I thought the Clarity had no alternator. geo
