Ken7, congratulations on your new purchase. Wishing you many trouble free miles ahead. As a parting gift to us Clarity owners, can you share your thoughts comparing the ES300 to the Clarity? Would love to hear how these vehicles compare.
I'll do my best based on only 2 days of driving.
* The ES300 has an amazingly supple ride, more so than the Clarity. Ride quality, IMO, was never an issue with the Clarity, but the ES definitely raises that bar, soaking up bumps as if they weren't there.
* The ES is unquestionably quieter than the Clarity, in fact it's probably quieter than my Model S. What's particularly impressive is that it uses the Atkinson cycle engine which is inherently noisy. Yet it remains very quiet except when under heavy load. I've driven other cars with a similar engine and I've never heard one so quiet.
* The ES handles a bit better than the Clarity, but sports car handling is not either car's forte. That's not to say either car handles poorly, they don't, but they're just not sporty cars and were not designed as such. The ES makes no bones that it's a luxury car and the typical buyer isn't expecting sports car handling or acceleration. Although it's early, it's my impression the ES corners a bit flatter than the Clarity.
* The ES interior is far more upscale than the Clarity, with materials that are much more impressive. The ES we bought has a 12.5" screen for audio & navigation. It uses a touch pad for navigating the screen, but my wife, although loving the size & sharpness of the ES screen, prefers a touch screen to the track pad. I'd have to say the interior is probably the biggest disparity between the two...but then again one should expect that for the price difference.
* I have to mention the voice recognition. Up until the ES, my Model S had set the bar for voice recognition accuracy. It rarely misses any address, no matter how complex, when using the navigation. OTOH, the Clarity would drive my wife & I nuts with how poorly it responded to voice commands. More often than not it wasn't even close to what I was asking for. There were times we'd both get hysterical when seeing what it came up with. So far the ES is at least on par with the Model S. It hasn't missed yet in my testing. It immediately responds to requests for radio stations no matter whether it's AM, FM or Sirius XM. Likewise complex addresses are not an issue. Very impressive. We had an ES many years ago when voice commands were relatively new, and it was as bad as the Clarity.
* Both cars are very roomy. I haven't measured the rear seat space in the ES, but it's in the same ballpark (maybe a bit bigger?) as the Clarity. The ES is somewhat longer than the Clarity which means I have to be a bit more careful pulling into the garage with the shelving units we have.
* I'll just touch on styling since it's so subjective. I never agreed with the reviews that claimed the Clarity was ugly, I always thought it was fine. With that said I find that ES a more attractive car.
* The sound system on the ES (I don't have the Mark Levinson upgrade) blows away the Clarity's audio system. There's just no comparison.
* I will miss the all-electric side of the Clarity. Although you can run on all-electric with the ES, the speed at which you can do that is limited. Some reviews I read said that the ES only runs in an all-electric mode only at parking lot speeds. That's not true. Tonight I was at about 43mph and was still seeing the EV light on. However once the car is under somewhat heavier loads, the gas engine kicks on. In all honesty, until just recently, this would have been a bigger factor for me. The reason it's not, is that as I've mentioned on this forum, I've been running the Clarity only on gas since the weather turned colder. With gas at $2.45 here and my electric cost at about .20/kwh, it's more expensive for me to run on electric. So for the remainder of the winter I'd be running on gas only with the Clarity.
* I'll probably miss the uniqueness of the Clarity. Right to the end, I would still get people coming up and asking, "What car is that?". That won't happen with the ES...too common.
* I would have to say the Clarity is probably a better value. Although we got about $5,000 off of the $51,000 sticker (we got the 'Luxury' trim which is about $5,000 more than the standard ES), we will receive no federal or state rebates. You can get a base ES hybrid for about $42,000 from aggressive dealers which is also a great value for the fit & finish and materials quality in the car. It just depends on what you're looking for.
These are very different vehicles, but both are, IMO, great cars in their own right.
