About to buy a Clarity... any gotchas?

E

Emanuel Green

Member
Hey, all!

I'm planning to buy a Honda Clarity this Thursday (4/20/2018), and I am wondering if you all have any tips/advice/stuff to watch out for.

I'm in the US midwest. The price (base trim) is $32,392 after fees but before taxes.

Thanks for your help!
 
No gotchas. Ours an exceptional car.

We bought the touring for the power seats including the memory feature, and are quite pleased we did. With our difference in height of about 5 inches it's nice to have the seat automatically moved back so I can actually fit in the car.
 
Nothing major. I am in Marion, IA. The engine will run a lot in winter when temps are less than about 10 F and your range will be less with electric heater. I imagine your EV range might be as low as 25 mi in winter and as high as 60+ in warm weather without climate control.

My only real complaint in the midwest is the washer fluid tank is very small (like 1 L) and needs to be filled all the time in winter with the salt spray you get from the treated roads.

Preferably drive it with both a charged and discharged battery. It drives differently when the battery is discharged, but most of the time it is driven on battery for us with road trips on gas. The electric heater is very effective at heating the car within 1 minute of leaving the house. Much faster than any gas car I have driven, much faster than my Volt was too.

PS, the car is much more pleasant to drive if you install a 240V charging station in your garage. This allows preconditioning the car to get it hot or cold. Coming from an attached garage it isn't needed too much, but many people like the car at temperature before they drive.
 
Last edited:
Not gotchas but some things we didn't know and might have liked to.
  • We bought our in January (i.e., cold weather) and after the initial full charge the EV estimate was 32 miles. That being said this morning the estimate was 56.1 miles. But I think the dealer should have been upfront with this. I think it actually helps Honda as the other cars we were looking at had EPA estimates in the 20's and would likely have cold weather range in the teens.
  • You may have read this all over this site but the HV range calculation just does not work. This is more of an annoyance but could be fixed. I think they made the mistake of trying too hard to estimate the HV range based on past driving and did not consider what lots of EV driving would do to their algorithms.
Hmm... I feel there ought to be more. We really love the car. Those were the only things that really trouble me. The EV estimate in the cold seems fine now that I understand it. And I am hopeful that Honda will fix the HV estimate with something that is simpler but at least useful.
 
Emanuel Green said:
Hey, all!

I'm planning to buy a Honda Clarity this Thursday (4/20/2018), and I am wondering if you all have any tips/advice/stuff to watch out for.

I'm in the US midwest. The price (base trim) is $32,392 after fees but before taxes.

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
That's a great price. Depending on where you are, be prepared for an EV range of only about 25 miles in the dead of winter. Of course, I'm in Duluth, MN with winter temps in the sub-zero range. Range is up to high 30s in 40-degree temps. Hope to see it in the 40s once we get a warm spell.

Very nice car with minor annoyances others have pointed out such as SiriusXm stopping after a pre-condition, lousy windshield wipers, somewhat dimmer than expected high-beams, mediocre sound system.
 
Thanks, all! Our other car is a Nissan Leaf, so we are well aware of the effects cold weather has on range, and we already have a charging station installed at home. (And I can charge at work as well, yay!) So most of my driving should be able to be done in EV mode, except when the gas engine turns on for heat.

I did get to drive it both charged and discharged, though that was really a slip-up on the dealer's part. The battery was dead when I arrived (even though I specifically called ahead and asked them to charge it before my test drive)! So I drove it around once with HV charge mode engaged, and then immediately took it on a second test drive on the same route with the car in Eco mode.

Does anyone know if preconditioning while still plugged in works to heat the car when it's very cold outside without switching on the engine? If so, that might be a good way to help reduce gas usage in the winter.

Thanks for the tip about washer fluid. I might want to buy a bottle and keep it in the trunk for when it runs out!
 
Rajiv Vaidyanathan said:
minor annoyances others have pointed out such as SiriusXm stopping after a pre-condition
Click to expand...
Is it just the satellite radio that wigs out after a precondition? Or does the rest of the audio system also have trouble?

I expect that most of the time I'll be listening to podcasts via Android Auto while driving.
 
AGarg said:
I would recommend checking out the following thread where some folks are getting system warnings:

http://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/multiple-system-warnings.1031/
Click to expand...

Just be aware that I started that thread and after a couple of weeks and a couple of thousand miles the issue has never reoccurred for us. We've got over 4,000 miles and are pleased with the vehicle.

My only recommendation is to get a better price than we did - we assumed that the cars were going to be hard to get and we didn't haggle much and only got $500 off sticker on the base model.

geo
 
KentuckyKen said:
And it only works with a Level 2 EVSE not the 12amp 120v charger supplied w car.
Click to expand...

Hey Ken - I've used the preconditioning with the supplied EVSE but I think the battery has to be at 100% before it starts. So - technically I think it is not using the supplied EVSE, but the supplied EVSE can be attached.

geo
 
K8QM said:
Hey Ken - I've used the preconditioning with the supplied EVSE but I think the battery has to be at 100% before it starts. So - technically I think it is not using the supplied EVSE, but the supplied EVSE can be attached.
K8QM, I think what happens is the charging stops and the preconditioning is then done by battery power so you lose range. Is that your experience?
Click to expand...
 
When I tried it a couple of times the batteries were already at 100% - so in either event you're right - you're not going to charge and precondition simultaneously with the supplied EVSE.

geo
 
Viking79 said:
Nothing major. I am in Marion, IA. The engine will run a lot in winter when temps are less than about 10 F and your range will be less with electric heater. I imagine your EV range might be as low as 25 mi in winter and as high as 60+ in warm weather without climate control.

My only real complaint in the midwest is the washer fluid tank is very small (like 1 L) and needs to be filled all the time in winter with the salt spray you get from the treated roads.

Preferably drive it with both a charged and discharged battery. It drives differently when the battery is discharged, but most of the time it is driven on battery for us with road trips on gas. The electric heater is very effective at heating the car within 1 minute of leaving the house. Much faster than any gas car I have driven, much faster than my Volt was too.

PS, the car is much more pleasant to drive if you install a 240V charging station in your garage. This allows preconditioning the car to get it hot or cold. Coming from an attached garage it isn't needed too much, but many people like the car at temperature before they drive.
Click to expand...
You don't need 240v to precondition, 120 works fine from the app as long as the car is finished charging but still plugged in (like most mornings when you most likely want to precondition)
 
LAF said:
no true- 120V works fine if fully charged and still plugged in (it automatically recharges while preconditioning as well)
Click to expand...
My 120v 12 amp charger supplied w car will not precondition until charging is stopped at full charge. Then it preconditions off car battery. How did you get yours to precondition and give you a full charge to start your drive? I’d love to have mine do this next winter.
 
A bit late to weigh in but be aware that there's no spare tire. This is not unusual for PHEVs (and many high end ICE luxury cars) so it's something you have to accept if going that route.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top