I think this is slightly misleading by Honda. Considering when needed; say on a mountain pass or merging, the car can only provide 181hp and possibly less than 200lb-ft torque once battery is drained. Given the electric version is rated 221lb-ft torque for ~4050 pounds car, it is definitely way quicker.
Wow...more comments on my question concern then I had hoped. So folks say the gear symbol won't be displayed much while in HV engine mode especially up hill? My simple mind says that's when the gear symboil should come up...so maybe I started thread for nothing since icon won't come on during up hill runs. I did notice the gear symbol come on running backroads when car switched to engine mode after electric miles zeroed. Thanks to everybody for thier time. Much information on here now. Edd
insightman Great read. I embedded a link in a post on clarityforum.com to this thread and your explanation in particular. I gave you props up front in the thread https://www.clarityforum.com/forum/1485-post1.html I didn't think you would mind since proper credit is given. Thanks
I'm not looking for props, just the dissemination of good information (and hope people will correct me when I'm wrong), but I thank you for your compliment and am happy of others find what I write interesting and beneficial.
You can take the @insightman out of the technical writing business, but you can’t take the technical writing ability out of the @insightman! I think it’s firmly coded into your epigenetics by now. Thanks, we’re all benefiting from it.
Thanks for all the input. After watching the computer screen closely when I put Clarity into HV engine mode I do see the gear icon come on but not as often as used to or so I think. People on here say high revs uphill is okay so I will not take to the service man since the Clarity runs great according to me. Thanks. Edd
After reading this thread yesterday, I drove 200+ miles in heavy rain and wind between San Antonio and Houston. In previous trips along this route, I seem to remember that engine drive mode, gear icon, engaging most of the time while in HV mode. Yesterday, while paying close attention, I only saw the gear icon 5-10% of the time. I'm surmising that the rain and wind created enough added resistance to push the i-MMD calculations outside the ideal range for engine drive mode even though I was travelling at 60-75 mph. I'll pay close attention tomorrow when I return tomorrow when there is no rain predicted. I've always noticed that when in HV mode, the gear icon appears when I'm above 50-55 mph. I was surprised yesterday when it engaged so little during my drive. I did notice the high revs from the engine which was somewhat disturbing so I ended up driving slower (65-70) than I my normal 75 mph to keep the "Angry Bees" at bay. I started the trip with a full battery and only engaged it when I was within EV range of my destination.
I did a highway drive yesterday, 30 miles hills then 30 miles mostly flat, then the reverse home. Battery at about 60% average. Each time I started the hill area it would go into gear mode for about a mile, then give up and I never saw the gear icon again until on the flat. And it took about 5 miles of flat driving after the hills before the car would engage gear mode (the car seems to have a memory). On the return trip, starting out on the flat, it went into gear mode right away and stayed in it continuously until a mile into the hills. It was light traffic and I could go a steady speed (well as steady a speed as this primitive cruise control can do) throughout.
I've decided the right way to drive this car, especially in the winter, is simply EV in town and HV on the highway. I can stand the lack of heat so far for short trips and that keeps my EV range near 50 local miles. An EV range of near 30 on the highway, even without heat, just makes no sense (both economic and heat wise) to utilize. I normally drive around 72-75 on the highway, if I went 60 the decision might be different.
Maybe the car's definition of "flat" is very literal. My experience is that anything other than completely flat pops it out of gear mode. When I drive through what I would categorize as "rolling hills" I seldom see the gear icon. Maybe I underestimate the effort to propel the car up these tiny rises, but I'm surprised that it's not more efficient to leave the direct drive engaged and supplement as needed with a nudge from the EV, then replenish part of it on the corresponding downhill. This would slowly discharge the battery but I'd rather have that than the high revs I sometimes hear. I like options. I would love to have more control over the tradeoffs of robbing from the battery to reduce engine noise. I suspect that the engineers could have done that, but that the marketing folks were afraid that it would make the car look complicated and scare away potential buyers. Maybe I am giving too much credit to the marketing folks; they seem to be almost non existent for this car.
The engineers might have worried that giving you more control could have threatened battery longevity.
Perhaps. But given the number of times that the flow reverses to/from the battery with the current design, that seems unlikely. But we're actually speculating on something that we don't really understand. I think the engineers (in consultation with the product-design team) did a good job. I'm just a geek who would like more levers that I can move.
This is a great description of Clarity driving modes! Thanks. I've been looking for the gear icon indicating engine drive mode for the last month or so (since reading about it here) but I have yet to see it. I use HV mode fairly often on the highway (when going farther than EV range to next charge) and, for me, HV mode seems to keep the battery charge level constant. I wonder if both of these features of my experience differ from yours because of lack of hills/climbs on my usual highway routes... I need to go for a ride in the mountains to find out.
For me on flat/gently sloping highways the gear icon is on 90% of the time. In the hills I never see the gear icon. That you are not seeing it on flat highways seems strange. My battery level also stays relatively constant in HV.
I assumed so but good question not sure how to translate the invoice. Was in on Oct 19 and the software they did was campaign 18-090 PGM-FI software update. Is that the right one?
Yes, that is the update that may be causing the reduction in the gear icon being displayed for some. However, the Clarity also appears to learn from the driving history to adapt the behavior of the pcm (powertrain control module). We have not driven much on a faster highway in HV mode since the update. After a while, we may see the previous, before update, behavior return. The update did seem to reset all the pcm parameters to the default. As a side note. The SB (at least the ones printed out by my Honda dealer and the ones posted in this forum) that speaks to the evtc/3-way valve update is 18-089. SB 18-090 speaks to the replacement of the climate control unit. Our repair/update invoice also has the SB numbers interchanged and describes 18-090 as the so called pgm-fi update. This is just another little Honda mystery. LeoP
My big want for the Clarity (which will never happen) I drive the same commute every day, and it's longer than 47 miles so I need both electric and gas. I don't pay for my charge, so I'd love to have a commute that minimizes the distance on gas. Since it's every day, I'd love to be able to automate it instead of having to remember when to switch modes. Even better, I'd love to have a learning mode where I could just do the drive and the car would learn my routine and optimize for me. Ideally, you'd give it your KWH and Price/Gallon, and it could adjust to minimize total cost. Seems like an optimization problem that wouldn't be particularly hard with the right data. Perhaps use traffic data to modify it on the fly, and know when climbs are coming up (keep some battery) or descents (keep some free space on the battery). Eventually we'll all be EV I guess, but for PHEV to appeal to a mass audience, I think removing the requirement that we manage modes manually would be a step in increasing mass appeal.
I'm going to have to pay closer attention to the display to get better data on if and when I get engine drive mode. But I have watched for it on flat highway that I drive fairly often and haven't seen it. Maybe need to really punch the "gas pedal" and see what that does. I have not had any SB updates - taking it in for first service later this week (after 9 months and 7k miles with the car).
Honda salespeople are already over their heads trying to describe what the Clarity PHEV can do. Trying to comprehend and describe features like maximum charge limitation and programmed mode switching would blow their minds. If only Honda wasn't worried about giving away corporate secrets and potential damage to the battery, it would be great if they would release a software development kit (SDK) for the Clarity PHEV. Then 3rd-party developers could create apps that do what everyone wants. The app I long for would implement a maximum-data screen. It would not only show what's going on in the Clarity's brain, it would also have optional (and clever) audio alerts for things like ICE operation, brake-caliper activation Engine Drive (gear-icon) operation, and the curious full-battery engine start-up phenomenon (premature enginulation).