37 miles full range in warm weather? Is it charging all the way? Also charging issues on level 2

[Landshark]

I'll assume it delivered a total of around 8.5kwh. That means at 27 miles added, my efficiency is around 3.17 kwh per mile which is rather poor especially w/ how gentle I drive it and it being 75 degrees in my area. I was expecting at least 4kwh p/m, my last GM was getting as high as 5.5 kwh per mile a week ago before I sold it.

From what I've read, the usable battery pack is around 12-13 kwh of the 17 total, which is a bit bonkers that they would put such a big buffer.

I believe you mean 3.17 miles/kWh. 5.5 is impressive. 4.0 would be quite good. Expect about 3.5 miles/kWh from the Clarity in mixed driving, in warm temperatures.

Useable/available capacity from a new battery is ~14kWh’s. We know the targeted charge voltage is 4.09x per cell, which represents a 90% SOC. There’s about 10% on the bottom as well. So, lop 20% off 17kWh’s (3.4) and we’re left with 13.6kWh’s.

Some owners tinker with the maximum charge limit, via Hondalink, and otherwise mollycoddle the battery in hopes of extending the service life to 30-40 years on a vehicle they’ll probably only keep for 3-5 years. Different strokes. I just plug it in and let the BMS run the show.

The range estimate isn’t the best measure of battery capacity. The amount of kWh’s per full charge is a reasonable estimate. If possible, drain the battery to 2 bars and measure the amount of energy required to fully charge the battery.

 

[Naughtysauce]

Go to a local Honda dealer and have them test the battery. It should still be under warranty.

My 2018 claritys (had 2) consistently showed 52 miles on EV. Reality I would get around 45 miles on 70/30 (highway). My 2020 stays at around 50 miles on EV but Im getting 43-44 per charge..

Your 37 is terribly low. I've never seen any of my Clarity under 45 miles EV on the screen

The Clarity can charge from empty to full in 2hrs. The onboard 6.6kw receptor has taken 7kw from a charge point.. there's most public chargers pushes out 5-6kwh.

Yeah 37 is just embarrassing for this size pack. I'm hoping it's just a quirk.

 

[Naughtysauce]

Just drive it in EV mode until you get two bars, see how many miles you drove from the odometer. Then just switch to charge mode if you want to drive with half battery.

Driving in HV just keeps the battery within a range once you press the button.

I live in the mountains and commute to the city. My commute is 60 miles each way. I drain the battery at least twice a day. I drive it in HV mode part of the way home so I don't get the angry bees which is annoying at best.

I have already put 58k miles in 22 months. It gets 105 where I'm at. About the same EV mileage as when first purchased. I really don't worry about the battery. Honda has a rock solid battery strategy imo.

Thanks for the advice, I'll do that even on my high speed commute today.

 

[Naughtysauce]

I believe you mean 3.17 miles/kWh. 5.5 is impressive. 4.0 would be quite good. Expect about 3.5 miles/kWh from the Clarity in mixed driving, in warm temperatures.

Useable/available capacity from a new battery is ~14kWh’s. We know the targeted charge voltage is 4.09x per cell, which represents a 90% SOC. There’s about 10% on the bottom as well. So, lop 20% off 17kWh’s (3.4) and we’re left with 13.6kWh’s.

Some owners tinker with the maximum charge limit, via Hondalink, and otherwise mollycoddle the battery in hopes of extending the service life to 30-40 years on a vehicle they’ll probably only keep for 3-5 years. Different strokes. I just plug it in and let the BMS run the show.

The range estimate isn’t the best measure of battery capacity. The amount of kWh’s per full charge is a reasonable estimate. If possible, drain the battery to 2 bars and measure the amount of energy required to fully charge the battery.

Yeah my little Spark EV was a beast, the lowest I've ever got when I drove it hard which was very easy to do was around 4.2 m/kwh. Miss it, but just don't miss the lack of space. Our 1st gen Volt was consistently getting around 4-4.5, never dipped below 4. I wish the Clarity PHEV read m/kwh like the electric version.

 

[Landshark]

Yeah my little Spark EV was a beast, the lowest I've ever got when I drove it hard which was very easy to do was around 4.2 m/kwh. Miss it, but just don't miss the lack of space. Our 1st gen Volt was consistently getting around 4-4.5, never dipped below 4. I wish the Clarity PHEV read m/kwh like the electric version.

You went from a sub-3000lb car to one that weighs more than 4000lbs. It takes more energy to move around.

I just figure 3.5 miles x 14kWh’s = 49 miles. As Yogi Berra might have said: “You’re gonna get what you’re gonna get.” Honda’s MPG calculator is optimistic by about 10-12%, so a miles per kWH calculation would have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I’ve learned to just drive it and not obsess over the details.

 

[bpratt]

One thing that can make a big difference is if you set the temperature at say 72 degrees. When you first get in the car, the heater will probably come on and use a lot of energy from the battery. At around 25 mph with the heater on, you will use more power to run the heater than the motor takes to drive the car. I always set my heat to minimum and if I only need a little heat I use the seat heaters unless it is really cold and I need the heater knowing that the mileage will suffer.
I have a 2018 that I purchased in Dec 2017. I probably only drive freeways 5% of the time and my mileage usually runs in the low to mid 50s with an occasional 6x.

 

[JustAnotherPoorDriver]

I've unplugged the 12 volt and will leave it like that overnight to see if maybe it just needs a reboot. I also bought a OBD2 tool and will get a true capacity which I hope will help

Be aware that the OBD isn't actually testing the battery--it's reading the computer's data on the battery capacity (same as the dealer's computer). If you pull the battery, that may reset and it may be some time before you can read it again (there were some cases of older cars reading the full 54 because of this, IIRC).

 

[MrFixit]

If you pull the battery, that may reset and it may be some time before you can read it again

Disconnecting the 12V battery does not reset the HV battery capacity reading.
Yes, there are some vehicles which have implausibly high HV capacity reaings, but we have not come up with an explanation that holds water yet. Disconnecting the 12V was a theory, but it has been demonstrated that this does not reset the capacity reading.

 

[Phil_Meyers]

Let us know what you get on the freeway. I usually get about 40-42 miles or so on the freeway with no heater doing about 75 or so.

 

[Dan Albrich]

Just to add in, if you live on a hill that effects your EV range. My Clarity (and I do live on a hill) has 39 miles estimate EV range. Pretty typical for me when we have fair weather. In the winter, mine will drop to 28 even with full charge in an unheated garage.

 

[Naughtysauce]

Just a quick update. From a completely full charge yesterday showing 37 miles range, I got 35.9 out of those 37 before I hit the last 2 bars and the ICE kicked in. Granted, around 30% of this trip was on the freeway going between 65-75mph with temps at 72 degrees with no climate control and there was a pretty steep 1.5 mile grade that killed the range. So I'm going to take this one w/ a grain of salt as this is not a normal trip for me since the nearest XPEL XR Plus tint installer was in the next town over. I'm guessing I would have def hit at least 37 or maybe 40 miles if I would have been doing my normal commute, but that's still a bit disappointing considering most people are getting 45-50 miles in similar driving situations without even trying.

I also got my OBD2 reader and downloaded the car scanner app. It shows that my battery capacity is at 47.48 AH with 296.6 volts, typing that in to a conversion site, it equals out to 14.083 KWH remaining(I'm not too familiar w/ reading capacities so correct me if I'm wrong). So the battery has loss around 2.917kwh capacity so it has degraded around 17% since 2018 and 36k miles or around .97 kwh per year which is more than what I was expecting. Last owner must have been doing a lot of level 2 charging from 0-100% and rarely used the ICE. I just wish Honda had a readout of EV miles and ICE miles like some plugins do because that data is very important.

That being said, I still like the car, range is disappointing but I'm still giving it a chance and I'm taking it to the dealer this weekend to address some issues and hopefully see if there are any SW updates. This will probably be a 2-3 year car for me till the BOLT EUV leases hit the used market and all this car market craziness has passed.

 

[Naughtysauce]

Just to add in, if you live on a hill that effects your EV range. My Clarity (and I do live on a hill) has 39 miles estimate EV range. Pretty typical for me when we have fair weather. In the winter, mine will drop to 28 even with full charge in an unheated garage.

No hills in my area, unless I have to go to the next town over, then there's a big hill we have to climb, but that's a rare trip. I live in socal so we don't really get a winter here, coldest I've seen was around 45-50 degrees.

 

[Naughtysauce]

Let us know what you get on the freeway. I usually get about 40-42 miles or so on the freeway with no heater doing about 75 or so.

See my last post, but take my range w/ a grain of salt since I did have to climb a steep grade for about 1.5 miles.

 

[Naughtysauce]

One thing that can make a big difference is if you set the temperature at say 72 degrees. When you first get in the car, the heater will probably come on and use a lot of energy from the battery. At around 25 mph with the heater on, you will use more power to run the heater than the motor takes to drive the car. I always set my heat to minimum and if I only need a little heat I use the seat heaters unless it is really cold and I need the heater knowing that the mileage will suffer.
I have a 2018 that I purchased in Dec 2017. I probably only drive freeways 5% of the time and my mileage usually runs in the low to mid 50s with an occasional 6x.

I live in Socal and I never had to turn the heater on in my entire time living here, maybe the occasional seat heaters if its a bit chilly but never the heater. I live in a beach community so the AC rarely gets used as well. Only when I go to the valley or LA is when I'll use climate control, but this car hasn't seen those trips yet.

Are you still getting these miles in 2021? That's pretty amazing, have you checked your battery capacity? On my recent post here, I stated my battery capacity.

 

[Phil_Meyers]

See my last post, but take my range w/ a grain of salt since I did have to climb a steep grade for about 1.5 miles.

Sounds like you're probably getting a little over 40 miles on the freeway with no elevation change. That's about what I'm getting. I haven't checked my battery capacity, but i also figured there's no reason to.

My Clarity gets put through the wringer. Battery gets drained twice everyday at least. Gets charged at 7kw. Driven about 35k miles every year, 56k miles now. I can't ask too much from it, deep discharge and charge cycles aren't going to help, esp in the summer heat. But i have no complaints.

 

[Naughtysauce]

Sounds like you're probably getting a little over 40 miles on the freeway with no elevation change. That's about what I'm getting. I haven't checked my battery capacity, but i also figured there's no reason to.

My Clarity gets put through the wringer. Battery gets drained twice everyday at least. Gets charged at 7kw. Driven about 35k miles every year, 56k miles now. I can't ask too much from it, deep discharge and charge cycles aren't going to help, esp in the summer heat. But i have no complaints.

That's a lot of miles, I'll be lucky if I hit 10k miles a year. I'm going to do a few more charges in my normal commute to see how it behaves.

 

[Phil_Meyers]

Today I when came home and paid attention to my EV mileage. Weather was about 72F, no heater, did have the AC on. Speed was between 55 and 75 (mostly between 60 and 65) on freeways most of the time, there was some surface streets involved too. I got about 42 EV miles.

Generally I drive in HV part of the way before hitting the mountain base then switch to EV (I didn't today), otherwise the angry bees get so bad driving up the mountain that it sounds like the engine is going to blow.

Generally I don't pay too much attention to what I'm getting in EV miles. The car was $22K net when I bought new after tax incentives, so I can't ask for miracles here. I stated above, this thing will be going through the wringer considering how much we drive. It has 56K on it now, about 23 months ago we bought it new. Rarely drove it the first few months until we got chargers at home and work. Also a good portion of that time was working from home half the time due to covid, so basically this thing is going to get driven even more. The battery gets fully depleted at least twice a day including weekends.

 

[Landshark]

It shows that my battery capacity is at 47.48 AH with 296.6 volts, typing that in to a conversion site, it equals out to 14.083 KWH remaining(I'm not too familiar w/ reading capacities so correct me if I'm wrong). So the battery has loss around 2.917kwh capacity so it has degraded around 17% since 2018 and 36k miles or around .97 kwh per year which is more than what I was expecting.

Your capacity will be 47.48 regardless of the current SOC voltage. Use the nominal voltage of 3.7 x 84 cells to get 310.8. Multiply 310.8 x 47.48 to get 14.75kWh’s. So, capacity has degraded by ~13.5% using 55Ah as a base. Not bad for a 3 year old battery.

 

[Naughtysauce]

Your capacity will be 47.48 regardless of the current SOC voltage. Use the nominal voltage of 3.7 x 84 cells to get 310.8. Multiply 310.8 x 47.48 to get 14.75kWh’s. So, capacity has degraded by ~13.5% using 55Ah as a base. Not bad for a 3 year old battery.

Thank you for the crash course! I'm glad it's not as bad as I thought it was. I just have to get used to Honda's approach to electrification when coming from a near perfect implementation from GM

That being said, it's a good rate of degradation if you live in a Honda bubble, but in a world where other PHEV's/BEV's occupy the market, it's pretty sub par. There are BEV's out there with more extreme charging situations(Level2/constant DCFC) that have sub 10% degradation at over 100k miles.

 

[Landshark]

That being said, it's a good rate of degradation if you live in a Honda bubble, but in a world where other PHEV's/BEV's occupy the market, it's pretty sub par. There are BEV's out there with more extreme charging situations(Level2/constant DCFC) that have sub 10% degradation at over 100k miles.

It’s a typical and reasonable rate of degradation for any lithium battery manufacturer. Honda doesn’t actually make the batteries.

Maybe you should have bought one of those vehicles that has batteries which suffer less degradation over time. It sounds like Teslaganda may be at play here.