"Angry Bees"

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I normally drive 55 - 100 mph on the I-95 110 miles round trip 4 times a week.
Just hit 9k miles since November 4, 2018.
That's 4 months exactly.
I would have more miles, but I was using up the miles left on my 2016 TT Roadster lease. The TT roadster was a very fun car to drive, but it too has angry bees under heavy acceleration.
Now as for the 2018 Clarity, as long as there is 30%-85% battery life, I don't hear the "angry bees" in HV mode.
Even at the maximum speed of 100 mph.

I Do hear them at heavy acceleration once in a while, at low speeds, but it is not much different then any other naturally aspirated 4 cylinder.

There is nothing wrong with the Honda Clarity and the angry bees.

Just needs a lot more sound and heat insulation. Which would add more weight and cost just like my 2013 MB S550.
FYI, the Clarity has less road and wind noise than a 6 year old S-Class.

Loving my Clarity.
I just have to get used to the fact that I'll never be able to go 125 mph.
 
ClarityBill said:
I did another 100+ mile drive last week, and logged the trip. I brought earplugs, because I was expecting the car to be loud. I wore the earplugs for the first half of the trip, while the engine was around 4000 rpm. The road continued to be hilly, but I ran on EV for a little while and let the battery get down around 30%. For the second half of the trip, the car was comfortably quiet, and I was able to take the earplugs out. Seems like the engine has to rev higher to keep the battery at 70% (possibly because of higher voltage in battery).

The flat sections on the RPM curve are gear drive mode. I saw the gear during the flat sections. I wrote down 2643 RPM at 73 mph, This morning I saw the gear and recorded 2256 RPM at 63 mph. These two points give a fairly consistent 36.3 RPM per mph ratio. At 45 mph the calculation would be 1633 rpm, which seems like a reasonable low-end target.

Also interesting that 73 mph at 2643 would appear to be the high-end of Honda's cruising RPM (I am under the impression Honda does not engage the gear drive at much higher speeds). This would be in contrast to recommendation of running 4K regularly.

The first half of the trip includes the same section of road (travelling same direction) that I had logged previously as 'angry bees 2'. 'Angry bees 2' shows driving the same section of road at reasonable noise level: I had not previously noticed that AB2 had the battery at less than 40% capacity. ( I have included AB2 again for this discussion)

Note: I previously did not think the flat sections of the RPM curve were gear drive, but I specifically looked at the energy diagram during 'Bee Control', and confirmed they were in gear drive. I did not see the gear drive during the first half of 'Bee Control'.

Note 2: My complaint with 4K RPM's has been the noise in the cabin. This weekend, I rode in a Honda CRV, and turned on the sound analyzer... It is as loud as the Clarity with angry bees (75-80 dBa): I guess my own desire for a quiet cabin may be unrealistic.
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ClarityBill

Nice data and good write-up. I just downloaded the data from the February testing and put together this data for your info.

I have uploaded a file which depicts ~2.25 hours of 60 + mph and associated RPM data to include in this discussion. Obviously HV mode with no sport or ECON engaged.

The data was filtered for 60 mph+ and a minimum RPM of 1500. Events below 1500 are insignificant events at these speeds when HV mode engaged.

As noted before, the Clarity I drive has never responded differently based on SoC. On these data days...SoC was at 80% or greater so pointless to graph.

I plan to provide more extensive data in another thread at a later date.

Hope this helps.
 

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KClark said:
I agree about the speed. Which is why I don't consider the Clarity an ideal highway cruiser for the western US where there are miles and miles of wide open road with high speed limits. Parts of I-15 in UT have an 80mph speed limit, most other non urban parts of I-15 have a 75mph speed limit. Most of that is two lanes and even the semis are pushing that speed limit. Drive much slower than 75 and deal with angry drivers behind you. I tried setting ACC at 80 and it seemed like a little too much, 75 was OK but noisy. When I get out onto the open highway I want to relax, it wasn't a very relaxing ride.
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I normally drive 55 - 100 mph on the I-95 with moderate traffic.
Feels pretty comfortable to me.
And I drove a 2013 MB S550 before my Clarity. Usually 55 - 125 mph.
 
David Towle said:
Bingo!! The engine in this car is primarily a generator. It does NOT propel the car in most circumstances. As anyone who owns a generator can attest, they FREQUENTLY run at full throttle. So the fact that this car runs it’s engine periodically at higher speeds is fully expected, and very efficient. The fact that people feel the need to somehow trick the car into slowing down the engine just baffles me...do NOT hit the EV button just to shut the engine down!

Yes its like a home generator, but usually generators are placed outdoors away from where you can hear their whining. Honda should have given us an easy way to avoid the whining by giving the option to lock the car in gear mode and use whatever battery is needed to supplement. Having to regularly switch from HV to EV to reset and prevent the whining is ridiculous.
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I disagree with a couple implications:

"So the fact that this car runs it’s engine periodically at higher speeds is fully expected, and very efficient."
The ICE may be efficient at high RPM's, but I have found gear mode to give me much better gas mileage.

"do NOT hit the EV button just to shut the engine down!"
You also imply that I hit the EV button to shut down the engine: I hit the HV button to keep the system in gear mode, not shut down the engine. You then go on to say Honda should have given us a way to do what I am doing... Just need an easier way to do it.

I do agree it is ridiculous to have to do these things, and Honda coulda/shoulda made a different system, but ya gotta dance with the partner you have. I am glad that I have found a way to keep the car in gear mode, when it is appropriate.

I am also not convinced the car needs to sacrifice quieter ride for efficiency: I have taken this same highway in gear mode, and in 'let the car do what it thinks best' mode. My gas mileage is significantly better in gear mode, and much quieter.
 
The ICE may run at high RPM, not specifically for efficiency, but to restore battery charge in HV mode.
HV Mode was supposed to be "High Voltage Battery Keep Charge" or in other words, "hold the charge where it is right now".
Once you get down out of that charge range the computer is trying to hold for you, the powertrain will attempt to recover the charge the only way it can.
Its not more efficient at high RPM, just doing what it's being told to do as efficiently as it can.
 
Atkinson:

I agree with your description "hold the charge where it is right now". The coulda/shoulda would be to allow the charge to vary more, while staying in gear mode.

I have found the HV mode will switch to 'high-rev charge mode' just before I crest a hill (and still over 50% SOC). The ICE will then shut down on the next decline: If the computer had allowed a little more flexibility, it would have stayed in gear mode.

The 'feature' seems worse at lower temperatures and high SOC. I got my Clarity in October, and have seen very little drive time over 32F, but over 12K miles driven. I look forward to spring, and seeing if gear mode is less elusive with warmer temperatures.

I have seen a couple comments of high rev's when going up hills, and I would love to hear if a quick switch to EV solves this for others. I am not suggesting it every time, but just when it is found to be annoying. I may never do it again, but it is nice to have in the bag of tricks.
 
I think a quick switch to EV resets the HV charge range (now to a lower band) and thats what allows you to get back in "gear mode".
You should be able to do the same thing on more or less level terrain for a few minutes with a light foot on the accelerator, but the quick switch to EV is faster.
 
Atkinson:

I agree with your first statement - resets the HV charge range.

I don't understand the second statement - Are you implying the charge range will reset on level terrain with a light foot? Seems to me the charge range stays the same, but the ICE is able to get the SOC back into the charge range, then goes into gear mode: These seem very different routes to gear mode.
 
By charging the battery (driving with a light foot), you get back into the original charge level range when HV mode was engaged and the powertrain computer allows engine mode (clutch lock).
 
Complete report to follow, but on our current cross country trip, we’ve seen the EV range gradually increment down from 44 to 29. HV mode the entire time and lots of “gear icon” mode. That’s over roughly 1,000 miles of driving so far.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Complete report to follow, but on our current cross country trip, we’ve seen the EV range gradually increment down from 44 to 29. HV mode the entire time and lots of “gear icon” mode. That’s over roughly 1,000 miles of driving so far.
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How do you remind yourself to punch HV every time you set out again after a stop?
 
Fast Eddie:

On this trip, do you know how many times you had to 'restart' HV mode? (Everytime the car is shut off, etc.)

(I believe you lose 1 to 3 miles of charge every time HV is restarted.)
 
ClarityBill said:
Fast Eddie:

On this trip, do you know how many times you had to 'restart' HV mode? (Everytime the car is shut off, etc.)

(I believe you lose 1 to 3 miles of charge every time HV is restarted.)
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LOL. I loose 3 to 5 miles of EV because I can’t remwber to push the %*@! HV button at every fuel up. I’m usually back on the Interstate when I look down and see I’m in EV and go DUH! Or maybe a little worse on a bad day.
Guess I need an HV label like @insightman uses
 
4 fillups would be 5 starts on HV - 44-29=15 /5 = 3 miles lost per start. This does not seem unusual to me.

When I use HV, I normally see a loss of EV range at startup, then maintains the level (with up and down fluctuations) for hours of driving. The ICE will actually shut down before it gets back to the original charge level.

My explanation for this is the controller in the Clarity needs an offset to get the charging going. This is normal in a controller that only uses proportional control. (I use this offset to eliminate high-revs on long inclines, by restarting HV.)

I keep thinking Honda could have installed a 'better' control system on this...

Just my observations, YMMV...
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Complete report to follow, but on our current cross country trip, we’ve seen the EV range gradually increment down from 44 to 29. HV mode the entire time and lots of “gear icon” mode. That’s over roughly 1,000 miles of driving so far.
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Interesting. The EV range reduction likely mostly due to the higher Interstate speeds causing aero drag and the car is recalculating range to account for that. It takes a lot more power to push a car through the air at 60 than it does at 30 mph
 
Also, what are the outside temperature changes along your route. There were times on my Christmas trip where i woke up the next day enroute without charginging overnight with slightly more estmated miles on EV than I had the night before because the temperature was unseasonably warm.

Maybe your temperature is going in the other direction?
 
Temps have ranged from a rainy 50° leaving home to about 88° in S FL.

But regardless of temps and speeds, I’d think the algorithm to maintain EV range could be tuned to do a better job. From watching the energy display, it sure seems like there are numerous times when extra green electrons could be recruited to bump the EV level back up. It would be nice if it was like a cruise control, where you could just select, let’s say, 30 miles EV range remaining and would hold that amount exactly.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
Temps have ranged from a rainy 50° leaving home to about 88° in S FL.

But regardless of temps and speeds, I’d think the algorithm to maintain EV range could be tuned to do a better job. From watching the energy display, it sure seems like there are numerous times when extra green electrons could be recruited to bump the EV level back up. It would be nice if it was like a cruise control, where you could just select, let’s say, 30 miles EV range remaining and would hold that amount exactly.
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I agree 100%. The question is whether the Clarity in HV should wait for regen opportunties and, if so, how long should it wait before stealing power from the engine (as in HV CHARGE mode) to return the battery to the SoC when HV was pressed.

It's interesting that some people (@KentuckyKen) don't experience any loss of SoC in HV. All Clarity PHEVs are definitely NOT created equal.
 
"All Clarity PHEVs are definitely NOT created equal."

Nor are all drivers. Terrain differs too. Do people get this worked up when their car, SUV or truck does not get exactly what the EPA estimates that it will get? Also does the range estimator on any car perfect?
 
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