Brake Hold Uses Brake Lights

Ryan C said:
I read through this and I am a little confused. I just want to confirm that everyone's vehicle starts in EV mode by default. Mine definitely starts EV by default. I think of it simply as they could assume that we are leaving from home on surface streets where EV would be more efficient and then giving us the option to switch to HV upon reaching higher speed conditions with less stop and go. This may have been explained before but I wasn't catching it.
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You are correct everyone's always starts in EV mode as long as the EV range is greater than 0. However if you have 0 EV range when you start the car, you will be in HV mode even though the HV mode indicator does not appear on the display.

What was being discussed is the situation where you are on a trip somewhere and you want to preserve some of your EV range for later in the trip so you switch to HV mode, which is what it's there for. But then you stop at a rest stop, gas station, restaurant, etc. and when you start the car again to continue your journey, it defaults to EV and you have to remember to switch it back to HV. Seems simple but it's very easy to forget. Until you get forty miles down the highway and suddenly realize that you have used up all of your EV range. Cars in the other lanes then wonder why the person in the odd looking Honda is facepalming themselves.

What many people including myself would prefer is that if the car was in HV mode when you stop the car, that as long as you don't charge the car should still be in HV mode when you start the car again. It just seems like it would be rare that you didn't want it to do that.
 
There’s logic to both sides. Of course we’re a bit off the topic of brake lights now.

What if you arrive home in HV mode, plug in overnight, and then run a few local errands the next day only to realize you’ve been burning gas for the past 40 miles?

It’s a button, folks. For the love of all things precious, do a pre-flight check before you take your foot off the brake and pull out of the driveway. Take note of the green EV letters on the dash.
 
Trust me when you are loading and already hours late starting for a 1500 mile trip, HV is the last thing on your check list.
 
How am I ever going to be comfortable asking questions on this forum if some of you can’t even determine what mode you’re in while driving?

Do you ever look at the dash?
 
Don't get testy.

We know what mode we want to be in, but some time we don't pay attention to the mode we are in because our attention, 1as we leave for a several hundred mile drive, is consumed by trying to get the granddaughter to buckle herself in her booster seat instead of dinking around while trying to lift the suitcase weighed down with the "valuable" crystals she has collected from the driveway, and trying to get on the road for the plane before it is too late to get to the airport in time. Drink bottle, check, snack bars, check, back pack..... When you have someone taking stuff out as fast as you put it in while yammering, seting up the AA map, story podcasts and audio books, HV button pressing is not the most pressing problem. Getting the vehicle moving in any mode at all is a major triumph.

The contributers to this forum share what they have learned about their cars. Some have more experience with different aspects of ownership. They willingly share their knowledge, experiments, and speculation.

This is a mutual help community with an extremely welcoming and pleasant tone, where members treat each other with kindness and respect -- even when they disagree. Let's keep it that way.
 
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Not testy at all.

I only hope that you are able to operate your vehicle safely with your granddaughter in the car, while in such a rush.
 
Landshark said:
I only hope that you are able to operate your vehicle safely with your granddaughter in the car, while in such a rush.
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Me, too.

But seat belts, audiobooks and story podcasts are a game changer. Beat 99 bottles of beer on the wall any day. If things get desperate, we can always resort to the tablet and pop corn.
 
LOL. I’ve got none of those distractions and I can’t always remember to switch back to HV after stopping on a trip. I almost always get a few miles down the road before I notice the Power Meter is white instead of blue and then I do @2002’s face palm. (I used to add some bad language to the face palm but with my dash cam recording me all the time, I had to stop that.) I think I am my own worst distraction.
I’d pay good money to have a menu option to have my Clarity start up in HV whenever and only if I last turned it off in HV without charging before starting it again.
 
Olive said:
"Brad on cars" made the test for us on youtube to see if the brake lights comes on when slowing down with paddles only. And they don't.

Here's the link for the video. He made a bunch of videos with is Clarity!

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A user in the Facebook group mentioned that his brake lights came on when the battery was full and he used regen. Brad found that intriguing. Expect another video...
 
I do not believe there is a situation with the Clarity where paddles alone will activate the brakes or brake lights regardless of charge level.
 
Quote from Jerry Finfera in the FB group

"On the matter of, do the brake lights come on during regen. Driving in the dark early this morning with a fully charged battery, maximum regen, and in Sport mode, I could see behind me the reflection of my brake lights when I took my foot off the accelerator. As long as I was going 25MPH or faster the brake lights would come on every time I lifted my foot from the Accelerator. With two chevrons of regen the brake lights did not come on but when the regen was increased to three chevrons the brake lights would consistently come on when I took my foot off the accelerator.

I tested this multiple times at various speeds and various settings of the regen and the above statements held true consistently. After driving 9 miles and conducting my business I headed home. I now found that with the battery not fully charged the brake lights no longer came on under any circumstances other than when applying the brakes. The deceleration with regeneration set at maximum is noticeably greater when the battery is not fully charged. So why do the brake lights come on during regeneration when the battery is fully charged but not when the battery is partially charged. It appears to me that Honda has programmed this backwards. The brake lights should come on under regeneration when the battery is less than fully charged because of the increase deceleration that results. I have seen YouTube videos showing that the brake lights do not come on during regeneration but in those cases the battery was not fully charged. has anyone else experienced this?"
 
Landshark said:
It’s a button, folks. For the love of all things precious, do a pre-flight check before you take your foot off the brake and pull out of the driveway. Take note of the green EV letters on the dash.
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Lol this made me chuckle I couldn’t have said it better myself...

Much ado over nothing. Once you learn this car the dash is clear as can be.

Alas, opinions vary, and I’m good with those that differ from mine...
 
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2002 said:
What many people including myself would prefer is that if the car was in HV mode when you stop the car, that as long as you don't charge the car should still be in HV mode when you start the car again. It just seems like it would be rare that you didn't want it to do that.
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I agree with one exception. The HV mode is active but only activates when driving over 50 miles an hour unless you force it.
 
Landshark said:
There’s logic to both sides. Of course we’re a bit off the topic of brake lights now.

What if you arrive home in HV mode, plug in overnight, and then run a few local errands the next day only to realize you’ve been burning gas for the past 40 miles?

It’s a button, folks. For the love of all things precious, do a pre-flight check before you take your foot off the brake and pull out of the driveway. Take note of the green EV letters on the dash.
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You aren't reading posts before you respond. 2002 clearly stated

2002 said:
What many people including myself would prefer is that if the car was in HV mode when you stop the car, that as long as you don't charge the car should still be in HV mode when you start the car again. It just seems like it would be rare that you didn't want it to do that.
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Tek_Freek said:
I agree with one exception. The HV mode is active but only activates when driving over 50 miles an hour unless you force it.
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I think I know where you are going with that, the idea that you maybe pulled of the highway to drive a few miles on surface streets to a restaurant or whatever, and when you leave the restaurant you want it to be in EV mode until you get back on the highway. But if that is what you are referring to, in that scenario you would have likely put it in EV when you got off the highway, so then it would already be in EV when you start the car.

All I am saying is if someone put it in HV mode they did it for a reason, probably a variety of different reasons, but Honda decided that whatever the reason was, the next time you start the car you want it to be in EV even if you haven't charged. I would prefer that it remains in the mode that I put it in. If people think expressing that opinion is making a big deal about it, whatever. If they don't care how it works I wonder why they even bother commenting.
 
Interesting. So an HV lock mode as opposed to considering speed only as an activator. Or both depending on how someone wants to use it. I can see the reasoning.

For me it's Sport Mode. It's now a habit to start the car, back out of the garage, press D, Press Sport. Sport Lock Mode would be great for me. But I find remembering to press HV is not ingrained because I don't use it that often. I'm a candidate for activating HV above a certain speed because I only use it on the highways. I would want the option of turning it off, however.

I don't find your expressing your opinion is making a big deal out of it. In fact I like tossing these ideas around. Keep it up.
 
Tek_Freek said:
I'm a candidate for activating HV above a certain speed because I only use it on the highways. I would want the option of turning it off, however.
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Speed activated HV is an interesting idea, I would think there are people who would use that option if it were available because a lot of people pretty much follow a pattern of HV on the highway, EV on surface streets, that seems like a common way for people to use their Clarity, not everyone but I would say probably the majority. So having it always switch to HV mode at a certain speed would fit that driving style for many people. Of course others would prefer to always control HV manually, so that would be an option also.

However implementing it would be a little complex, as first of all besides being optional, people will want to customize in the settings what speed triggers HV as I don't think there is a one size fits all on that. Also you would want to be able to easily disable it, like on a day when you will be in EV all day and you don't want ICE to come on just because you get on a freeway for a couple of miles. So I guess realistically it would add a third HV mode which I guess they could call HV Auto or something. I don't foresee Honda or anyone doing anything like this anytime soon, but if PHEV's eventually start selling in larger numbers then we could probably see more driver preferences and customization options than we currently do.
 
Setting it would be like setting cruise. Get to the preferred speed and turn it on. It remembers that speed until you turn it off.
 
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