Will the Clarity work for long commuters like me?

If only gas stations were readily available in this country it wouldn’t be a problem.... </sarcasm>

 

And when you pull up to the gas pump at the same time as a Ford Expedition with an empty 33.5-gallon gas tank...

 

Thanks for the info. Will try to keep it simple and smooth. Will post how the drive went.

 

@ernda, There's 4 pages of good info here for you read. But to answer your direct question - i had a 27 mile commute one way, city driving to highway, change highways, city to work and the Clarity will work brilliantly for you.

If you charge it every evening at home, and just drive the car you will easily top 100+mpg. The beauty of this car is that you can play with buttons and drive modes to change the drive experience - or just ignore them entirely and get in and drive! The Clarity will figure it out for you!

-Skip

 

Had a wonderful 6 hr trip from Boston to Montreal and back. Very smooth and comfortable. Used all the gadgets, adaptive cruise control, even steering assist on relatively straight roads where both suppressed fatigue. Averaged around 42 mpg all in HV which included trips across White Mountains going and Green Mountains coming back. ICE was only noticeable going up steep inclines but plenty of power.

 

Thanks. Here is how it went from LA to Las Vegas -

Started off with a full tank of gas and full charge from the dealership. Put the car in HV mode with ECON off. AC on.
Kept the speed around 65-70 MPH with ACC all thru the trip. Battery + Engine (gear icon) fired up on multiple
occasions when climbing the mountain passes (max elevation 4100 ft). Car did not struggle going uphill at these speeds.
The battery would recharge when going downhill.

Was able to do the LA to Las Vegas trip of 290 miles with 6 gallons of gas (48.5 mpg).
At the end of the trip, battery was at 75%.
Now I have the HV off and driving in just ECON mode for my 15 mile one way commute (mostly freeways at 70 MPH).

Thanks for all the info posted here.

 

There's something about this I'm just not understanding correctly--or maybe my car isn't working correctly. My understanding is Sport mode provided a peppier and more responsive ride by engaging the gas engine. However, if I go to Sport mode while I'm driving in 'normal' EV mode, the blue power bar that indicates the click point doesn't move and I stay in all electric up to the same click point on the 'tachometer' as if I were in EV mode. And I still AM in EV mode, even with Sport on and the red lights on the sides--but just with quicker response to the throttle and more regen in coast and brake. The power display still shows all power coming from the battery and the ICE never turns on unless I floor it past the click point. It's a much enhanced EV mode, but it's still pure EV.

If I do it while in HV mode then it acts as I expect and the blue power bar disappears entirely, and if I go back to EV mode then I get the full blue bar all the way to the right. If I go to 'regular' (non-Sport) HV mode then I get the shrunken blue bar indicating the greatly diminished click point for HV.

So am I understanding this incorrectly and you can engage Sport mode either while in EV or HV mode, and if you do it in EV mode you stay in EV mode with the same click point but simply with enhanced responsiveness, at the cost of burning more electric?

Also, engaging the Econ button doesn't affect the blue power bar at all, and I sort of assumed it would. But maybe it just dampens electric responsiveness down without changing the click point.

Edit: Ok, here's one thing. I think maybe I'm confusing the click point, which is mechanical and never moves, with a changing ICE engagement point indicated by the blue bar which DOES move between EV, HV, and presumably Sport. however, even though everything I read says the engagement point is lower with sport on, and higher with Econ on, those buttons never affect the blue bar the way HV does.

 

There is no EV Mode available for you to select. All you can choose is ECON, NORMAL, or SPORT Modes. The HV mode changes how each of those 3 modes works. You're right that the click point doesn't move. So the click "works" only with the accelerator mapping for ECON Mode. In all 3 modes, when the Power/Charge gauge moves from the blue zone to the white zone, the engine starts. This transition occurs at the click point in ECON Mode, but before the click point for NORMAL and SPORT Modes. You can actually accelerate as quickly in ECON Mode as SPORT Mode when the accelerator is floored, but when the accelerator is pressed halfway down, you'll be accelerating faster in NORMAL than ECON, and faster in SPORT than NORMAL.

 

Your commute is similar to mine (23 miles each way) with only about 4 miles at less than interstate (70 mph) speeds. Never worry about power, comfort or ability to accelerate, merge or pass as the Clarity has enough oomph to do all of these.
As long as the temperature is above 60F I can almost always make the commute without having to use the ICE. The ICE will need to be used during the winter and usually for only the last 2 miles unless I pop it into HV mode when I turn onto the highway.
I don’t really notice any difference between modes as the transition is so smooth. There isn’t a noticeable difference when the ICE will automatically trigger on periodically even on a full charge (once or twice a month). I will notice this if I pull up to a stop and hear the “bees” instead of the usual silence.
The car that I considered purchasing was the 2018 Volt but it felt too small and didn’t feel like it had the acceleration of the Clarity. I was impressed with the layout of the Volt’s instrument panel, steering will and the single-peddle drive mode ... but in the end the $5,000 difference between the Volt and the Clarity along with the Clarity’s ride, comfort, roominess and large trunk won me over. Have not regretted the decision at all considering the low price of the Clarity.
My wife, who really didn’t like PHEV and was not ready for an EV, has been totally impressed with the car and likes it better than the MB 250 CLA that it replaced. She’s waiting for a PHEV SUV comparable to the 2015 Jeep Cherokee she now drives ... which feels like a clunker.
However, that 2015 Jeep Cherokee and the 2015 MB CLA both had more features than the Clarity (automatic rain sensing wipers, turn lane assistance, parking assistance, automatic bright lights, to name a few). But, the Clarity was cheaper than both of them so I’m not complaining too much.


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Most of that I've figured out. But I think what's confusing me is why the blue bar isn't moving to correspond to the changing transition point between ECON, NORMAL, and SPORT. But I think what's happening is they leave the blue bar in the same position, but the white tachometer reaches that point more quickly for X amount of pedal depression. So rather than adjusting the length of the bar as they do with HV, they adjust the speed of the indicator so that it moves progressively faster in those modes.

But the picture in the manual is a bit confusing--it shows a shortened bar for transitioning from ECON to NORMAL to SPORT and I thought they were depicting that the blue bar would progressively shorten the same way it adjusts when you go from EV to HV or back. But in reality I think it was an odd way of communicating that in terms of the display really the 'mouse speed' was changing, not the distance for the pointer to travel. What it's probably really depicting is a notional idea of the lessening degree of accelerator depression required to reach the transition point.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention that once a month we take it on a 2-300 mile trip to relative on I-35 or I-70 with a 75 mph posted and “real” speed limit of 80 mph. Set the cruise at 80 and enjoyed a relatively quiet trip. Have had it into triple digits on several occasions passing a long line of trucks without any of the downshifting lunges a traditional ICE vehicle has.


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Is that Jeep one of the ones that turns itself off at a stoplight? That's the worst idea I've ever seen.

 

Yes, but unlike you, that was one of the features I wanted in the Jeep. Why in the world do you want to pay for gas burning while sitting at a stoplight? It was that feature that convinced me to buy the Jeep. Otherwise, I would've purchased the MB GLA and for $10K more. I'm curious as to why you would think that's a bad idea when it is one of the many things in aggregate that help reduces carbon emissions, improve mileage while maintaining reasonable performance?

 

Because when I push the pedal, I need the car to go! We had it in a rental car, and I guess you can learn to manage it, but for me, when it's time to cross lanes or whatever I need the car to go--I can't have it sit for a second while traffic's barreling down the road. In fairness to the car, it's the sort of thing the rental company should have explained and maybe we wouldn't have gotten so spooked by it. We found out by accident after stalling the car a couple of times going straight from the brake to the accelerator. Luckily both times at a light just going straight, not trying to cut across traffic to turn left onto a road. I'm surprised nobody's been killed having it stutter or something trying to restart. I feel like I'd end up like those people who keep putting their foot on and off the brake, creeping up, then stopping, all that, trying to time the ignition cycle to get the motor going smoothly and the chance to move without stalling the engine.

It's the exact opposite of the Clarity; immediate, dependable torque there when you need it. Again, I'm sure there are all sorts of little tips and tricks for how to manage it and look ahead and get the engine running smoothly ahead of time, but for something as fundamental as the car moving when I depress the pedal I don't want to be using tips and tricks. That's ok for the GPS or infotainment system, but not for something fundamental like the car moving when you command it to move.

I'd never heard of such a thing, so when I finally figured out what was happening I went online and found about a thousand threads for people explaining how to permanently disable it. It feels like a compliance feature to me, something they toss in there to get their fleet averages down. But if you like it and it works for you, that's great; you won't have to worry about me outbidding for a jeep any time soon!

 

This has been a great thread--I wouldn't have expected such a thorough discussion of all the driving modes and options but it makes sense in the context of the OP's question.

So in terms of driving efficiency, suppose for you're toward the end of a long trip and for whatever reason are cruising in HV on two bars/zero EV miles. And at the very end of the trip you have about 30 minutes of the slower 'stop and go' type driving EV excels at. Are there any thoughts on whether you're better off to just blast in there in HV and complete the trip that way, or is it better to go into HV charge mode for a while so you can complete that 30 minutes in EV?

(I know the 'right' answer is start with a full charge and split your available EV miles between the beginning and the end, but for whatever reason that didn't happen.)

Basically I guess the question boils down to this--is it a better use of gas to expend the increment to generate electric power for EV optimized driving, or is a better use to simply use it to drive in HV for that last 30 minutes? Or is it macht nichts?

 

I am guessing from an efficiency point of view, continuing in HV mode is probably the better option because you are not transforming energy twice (Gas -> Battery -> Wheels). But the EV mode will give you a quieter smoother ride.
So in the end, it is form vs. function

 

No doubt you're going to lose some 'BTUs' in the extra conversion. OTOH, you're converting into a form that's more efficient than gas. So I think the question is, is the efficiency gain worth more than the conversion loss? If it's even close to even, then I'd do it just for the quieter, smoother ride. It could even be something as simple as an overnight stop on the interstate where you won't be able to plug in for the night. Would it be worthwhile building up that 25 miies or whatever for getting from the interstate to the hotel, then going out to eat, go grab a sixpack, and then get back on the interstate the next morning.

The reality is probably that whichever way it cuts it probably doesn't make much difference, so I think I'd probably do it just to have the EV and for the occasional exercise of the system that way.

I definitely, for example, would never attempt a long steep climb on no electric if I could avoid it. I'd rather burn a little gas beforehand to get some electric assist rather than push that little ICE to the maximum. Saving half a gallon of gas doesn't seem like a good trade-off there just from the perspective of keeping the gas engine out of the 'red zone' as much as possible.

 

Thanks for the explanation, Brad. We never experienced the delay you refer to in the Jeep. The minute the brake was released and the accelerator was pressed the vehicle kept into action. At no point in the 45,000 miles have we experienced a delay in the engine starting. In fact, there was a time the battery couldn’t hold the charge so the feature didn’t turn on and we took it in to replace the auxiliary battery ... at no charge since it was under warranty. Maybe you had a defective or very early version of this.

Can also vouch for the same feature in the Mercedes Benz CLA. Never once did I experience a delay that was worrisome. As a result both vehicles got pretty good mileage and blessed quietness when stopped at lights.

Of course, now that I’m in a PHEV, I’ll never go back to anything remotely similar to those vehicles as electricity is the way to go.


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