Had no choice today but to turn HV on the highway and about 6 miles left. But EV range and bars kept going down until it reached zero. The thing was that the last mile (off the highway) kept switching between EV and HV. I thought HV mode was supposed to maintain the battery but somehow the car kept on using it? I added 14.89 kWh for a full charge..
Sounds about right. HV mode makes some attempt to keep a charge, but it keeps some EV range available and switches to EV whenever possible. If you watch it while you are driving, the blue bar slowly shrinks. Engine comes on for a while, charges the battery a bit and then back to EV. It will do this even if the battery near full when in HV. It seems to make an attempt to put in roughly what it takes out but often times is not enough. This is likely also what leads to the angry bees sound as the car pulls the battery to the hard cut off.
As @Zor said, this sounds like normal behavior. I bet when the EV went to 0, you still had 2 bars showing on the battery gauge. And as it tries to maintain your SOC (and it’s related EV range) it’s not perfect. I lose some EV range on a long HV trip; usually around 5 to 7 miles and kW or two by the end of the trip. Try it again with a little more charge and I’ll bet it will hold the SOC and EV range better.
HV hold seems to drop to zero if you are close to zero, I have noticed that too. As Ken says, engage a little earlier, like 15 miles, or use HV Charge for a little to replenish some if you really want EV miles for later.
This weekend we have a 130 mile same day trip and doesn't look there's any charging option halfway through, so will have to depend on HV.
My wife and I are going on a 300-mile trip this weekend--the first trip longer than 25 miles in the 10 months we've owned the car. It's a traumatic thought. After biting the bullet and visiting the gas station for the first time, I'm ready to press that HV button and watch the Clarity do its thing. Only in HV mode can you experience the hardware and software engineering that enables the car to maximize efficiency by making minute-to-minute decisions on which mode of propulsion to employ (see, I'm rationalizing the burning of gas). Because the car forgets HV mode when you turn it off, a cardboard flap covering the Drive button will remind my wife and me to re-engage HV mode every time we start the car on our trip. It will be interesting to switch over from guarding the bars on the right side of the instrument panel to guarding the bars on the left side.
What is HV mode? Hybrid. By definition, hybrid includes both ICE and EV, so no surprise that it shuts off the ICE when not needed (downhills, stoplights, coasting, etc). This helps keep gas mileage at 40+ mpg.
Doing 150 miles this weekend, now that I know a little more about the drive modes I will be throwing it in HV for the majority of the trip. I think we have about 50 miles on the highway, been debating if I should fill the gas, I am at 145 HV miles, but we have yet to put gas in the car... sad day haha.
Have you had the HV range fix done yet? If not, don't rely on the numerical HV estimate. Go by the gas gauge on the right of the instrument cluster.
Not 100% sure. I need to revisit the few threads on here about that subject to see how I can tell (if I can tell). When I purchased the car last week I asked the dealer to run that update but they did not confirm if they did and at the moment I forgot to ask if they did. On a hunch, I would like to say they did it because the numbers have never been super high or obnoxious. The right-hand HV gas range seems to be a little under 1/2 at this point.
On a brand new one, the factory settings are likely still in there and may be accurate. But, the first time you fill up, especially if you've done mostly EV driving for several hundred miles, your HV range estimate will go up to ridiculous numbers (like 900-1000 miles).
Yeah, I guess I will find out when I go to put gas in the car for the first time. I am still using the fill up from the dealer. I have about 630 miles on the car to this point and probably 350 or so on EV.
I find it funny that we all dread the day we have to fill up the car for the first time. At some point the novelty should wear off and we will have more experience driving in hv. Hold down hv right?
Just a press. HV will show on the left. I usually wait for one or two bars to disappear before enabling.
Im not sure when we get max Regen but probably around 60 percent battery so I recommend using HV only when you can get max Regen as that is a necessity to reduce angry bees and most likely the reason HV charge won't charge beyond 60%