Insideev Test Drive: Honda Clarity, 7/14/2019

In Europe they are basically replacing diesel cars. There are simply not enough batteries to make BEVs to satisfy new emission regulations. Also depending on which research you believe in, long range BEVs may not be actually environmentally friendly for low mileage passenger cars.

 

I wasnt speculating a timeline. I just never see PHEV getting to majority of the market or anywhere near that. Eventually, down the line, BEVs may at some point. Unless we discover some new form of energy first.

 

Cheaper and faster but you will still have to have a place to charge. Many people don't. Others have a "place" to charge but not an outlet to plug into, and getting level 2 installed is complicated and expensive for the average person. Someone who can't wait to own an EV sure those are just challenges that can be overcome. But the average consumer isn't looking for challenges.

I think hybrids and PHEV will be around for many years to come, and in my opinion increase in numbers, as will BEV also, the only reduction will be in completely non-electric cars. Hopefully that reduction will start sooner than later.

 

No kidding! (But I'd still rather be driving the Tesla - LOL)

 

Agreed. Just an opinion, but I think in five years there will be more new passenger vehicles rolling off assembly lines that are either BEV, FCEV, or with some type of hybrid technology, than gasoline only. Call me crazy, but the line wraps around the building.

 

IMO, PHEV's will only grow over the next decade; just look at all the announcements of the next editions of extreme sports cars and hypercars, all using PHEV or using a mix of electric and gas power tech. Trucks will be next. From a power, weight, range, and cost standpoint, battery tech is just not there yet.

 

It helps these all share technology, it means all of them contribute to the R&D progression. Almost all vehicles should already be hybrid at this point. But not happening while gas so highly subsidized and only ~$2/gal and government rolling back efficiency requirements. Also not great that most hybrids so far only average or weak performance.

Imo, with PHEV you get the best parts of electric and gas. However, with PHEVs you also get the worst parts of each (reduced range, increased overall complexity, high cost, slow charging times for battery).

IF batteries become cheaper and charging takes only takes a few minutes, then EV has no drawbacks at all anymore (better than ICE in every way) but PHEV will then be more expensive than gas or electric due to complexity and retains the negatives.

 

PHEVs will make sense as long as the bulk of the market is ICE. Once an automaker develops a PHEV drivetrain, they can drop it in several models and reduce their fleet emission at a very low cost. Even if batteries get cheaper, still it makes sense to drop a 15 kWh battery in a gas car and make it a PHEV. This is what European automakers are doing and it won't go away for another 10-15 years.

Bespoke PHEVs like Volt and Clarity (unless you consider it a derivative of the fuel cell model) are starting to become redundant with cheaper batteries. If you are spending the money to develop a new chassis and bodywork, it is just easier to make it a BEV.

 

I assume the next Accord will be designed with space for a larger battery pack than the Accord Hybrid has. By then a 50-mile battery pack will be smaller and require less space. The Accord PHEV (this time built in Marysville, Ohio) will again become Honda's only PHEV sedan, making our Clarity PHEVs into collector cars.

 

Ultimately it's a matter of weight. If a BEV can weigh close to the PHEV, then the PHEV advantage is not significant. A Tesla Model comes about 100 lbs more than a Chevy Volt, so the Volt offers less benefit. Right now there is no similar class vehicle to the Clarity, with larger BEV vehicles being hundreds of pounds heavier. That affects cost, performance, handling, tire wear, etc...

At this time a larger vehicle is much costlier, and likely not to lose much weight until new battery technology comes out.

 

Don't discount the benefit of a 5-minute gasoline fill-up for people who need to go places and don't have time to wait in line for a Supercharger.

 

OK, so I actually timed an empty Clarity fill up: 90 seconds to gain 300 miles of range.

I also time my empty OutBack (17 gallon tank) at a different and very busy station where the pumps seemed a little slow: 2 minutes 55 seconds.

My local stations have 3 settings on the pump triggers for flow speed and I use the middle one as the fastest one tends to stop early.