New car, whirring sound when accelerating from low speed

When this happens is the car in HV regular (quick press) or HV charge mode (long press)?

 

Hi John, the first three times this occurred( a sudden high rpm rev and sluggish acceleration as gas pedal is applied)the battery was depleated which causes vehicle to go into a sort of auto HV mode. ICE runs to charge battery. I had not pushed any buttons. Just started car, batteries had a charge and drove in EV mode. It was during the winter months so cold temps. After bringing it to dealer, no issue or codes according to their findings, sales guy suggested putting in hv charge mode before batteries loose charge completely in case it is a quirky thing it does so for the past two months I have been doing this and seemed to prevent glitch from happening until last week. Driving on the highway, 68 mph, in hv charge mode, six bars on battery charge, 50 ish degrees, suddenly, as if you were in a normal vehicle and threw Tranny into neutral, ICE revved so high I had to release gas pedal, gave it gas again with little to no acceleration response and ICE revved again so high of an rpm I thought the pistons were going to shoot out of the hood, cars were beeping behind me so I pulled into right lane, pressed sport mode since this seemed to help sluggish acceleration when this happens at slower speeds but did not help so I pushed hv button which takes vehicle out of hv charge mode and puts it into ev mode. This caused engine to shut down, as it should,and luckily the six bars of charge got me to the hotel. Over the next two days car ran and reacted normally even when I tried to replicate situation.

 

Hi bfd, thanks for the reply. Just sitting here on Sunday morning playing with my two year old and five year old and just wanted to clarify, a case file has been opened with Honda and they have all the information I have mentioned here. The dealer also understands what is happening. Not sure what else I can do at this point, please let me know if there is something else I can do. In my case it is NOT a predictable circumstance, randomly happened four times with only 1800 miles and very difficult to recreate. With all do respect, I feel, whether it is happening for a short period of time or not, at slow speeds but especially at highway speeds, it is a safety issue and VERY dangerous. Not willing to chance my children’s lives on a random glitch that doesn’t allow me to operate a vehicle properly. I refuse to be a statistic and this needs to be fixed, it’s that serious and I hope folks understand this and the ONLY reason I am posting thanks!!

 

I feel this video needs to be posted again for the new owners. There may be some changes between this video and what is in the Clarity, but the general system should be the same. I am linking to the middle of the video which seems to be most relevant to this issue. This may put some minds at ease a bit:

 

Did this happen when your car was in a sustained uphill drive, such as driving up a mountain? If the Clarity's gas engine isn't powerful enough to sustain high speed after the battery is depleted in a sustained uphill climb, then common sense says that just like the BMW i3 REx, it may drop to a speed which is dangerously low -- sometimes reported to be as low as 25 MPH for the i3 REx -- resulting in cars behind you honking to get out of their way.

Contrariwise, if this happens when driving in level terrain, then it does indeed seem like a problem which needs fixed by a service department, even if they can't find the problem.

See, for example, discussion here: "US i3 Rex dangerous when climbing hills"

 

DC2, that’s not a bad WAG. If true then there might be a correlation between VIN/time of mfg and whether or not the angry bees and/or excessive reving takes place.
My VIN ends in 1660 and I’m not getting the high revs. Anybody else willing to post theirs?

 

Ah, thank you very much! That's a wonderfully clear explanation of a rather complex topic, and I've tried to find it again to no avail. This time I bookmarked the video.

Thanks again, loomis2!
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I'd be more interested to see reports of what kind of terrain y'all do your driving in. Is it flat, hilly, or mountainous?
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Flat terrain, moderate accel in Econ (11:00, never past 12:00 on power meter), speeds under 70, temps low of 32F O/N and 35-70 daytime. No angry bees ever in 1400 miles of 75/25 city/ hwy. Only 2 gal gas used so mostly EV with 2 instances of assumed System Check ICE operation. VIN ends in 1660

 

Hello, just an update on my clarity and high revving and sluggish acceleration glitch. Dealer still has the car, which I appreciate and they are trying to duplicate the glitch which is smart but I feel it is such a random occurance they may not be able to unless they drive it continuously for a few weeks. Hoping they can duplicate and remedy the issue. I really enjoy the car and my family does as well. Will keep you all posted. My two cents on this, is we ARE seeing and hearing of SIMILAR issues, high revving motor and sluggish acceleration. This high speed occurance that I have had is the only difference but similar issue. The service department mentioned Honda thought it could be happening do to my charging habits which I don’t agree. I drive the car, deplete the battery, either let it auto switch to hv mode or put in hv charge mode, drive home and charge over night. The dealer had the car out doors, in the cold with no charge on battery for months and when I received the car new, they didn’t charge the battery and it was down to two bars. Wondering if those who have had this high rpm revving and sluggish acceleration have had similar charging and or driving habits or dealer charging or lack of charging before and upon delivery?!? Let’s hope they figure it out, I will repeat, I love the car and technology otherwise!!!

 

When I did my test drive in mid Jan, the temp was about -10C and I was on the highway at about 110km/h with the battery range of about 6km. The engine came on but I did not hear this angry bee noise that anyone was talking about. I find the engine is quieter than my Elantra at the same speed on the same highway

 

I was in EV at the beginning but as I go on the highway (highway is less than 1km from the dealer), I triggered the engine to come on and after a minute or so, I long press the HV button to trigger HV charge mode as I want to try EV driving. At no point during my test drive with the engine on at the highway and later on city street did I find the engine nosiy. The only thing I was not happy is I can't turn off the engine until I turn off the car and restart it as I want to try EV driving. The range at that point was about 10km. I now understand the engine will stay on until it warm up and my 10 minute or so test driving is not enough I guess. I drove the car in EV mode for about 3km, love the silence

Note that my test drive both highway and city are on fairly level road so it might be much noisier when going up hill but 95% of my drive is fairly flat so I am ok with how the Clarity works

 

I drove a loaner Clarity before mine arrived at the dealership. It had 0 (2 bars) charge on the battery when I initially test drove it and when I drove it home. Never heard the high rev on it. When I picked up my new car, it also had 0 charge on the battery and I immediately noticed the high rev. I had the salesman ride with me in both cars when they were at 0 charge and he noticed the difference. If the loaner had been any color but black, I would have taken that instead. I took mine home, charged it and the revving went away. However, when the charge is gone, the revving returns. It's so loud that I think the neighbors should be able to hear it when I pull into the driveway. Since I have never had loss of power with it and I rarely run out of charge, I can deal with the revving. I notice it when I'm driving on the highway, but the road noise drowns out most of it. In town, it's very loud. I don't notice it as much if I am in HV charge mode before the charge drops to 0.
I had an appointment for the dealer to look at it, but decided to cancel it. Am just not ready to have them experimenting on my only mode of transportation.

 

I totally agree that some cars rev and some do not, since I've witnessed it first hand. I wonder if there is some computer setting that is managing the motor speed and is set differently in the revving cars. Since we know there are computer issues as illustrated by the ridiculous range number, wouldn't it be possible that might be the source?

 

Last four of VIN 0721. I've never heard the angry bees sound.

For reference both my wife and I drive exclusively in EV mode Econ On, and we drive like the old folks we are. Also if the battery drops to 2 bars, which is almost never for us, we run in Charge mode to add at least a few bars.

 

It would be great if someone would record the angry bees sound. I hadn't been able to hear the engine at all, even when I knew it was running. Now after more than 6,600 miles on the car I know it well enough to be able to discern the sound of the engine. Still it's very quiet when it rarely does come on.