Charging anomaly

After my craptastic experiences with emotorwerks and their deucebox(es), I don't think I could trust anything they told me. Good luck with your issue. Our cars are pretty close to having come off the line at the same time, so I'm interested to hear what happens.
 
Here's an update. No doubt there is an issue with my Clarity, but proving it and getting Honda to do something about it has come to an end for now. I'm going to monitor it, keep better records, and do the one thing that is free and easy. I will take the advice to let the battery drain to zero two or three times to see if it will condition the battery. It can't hurt and is easy and free to do.

With warmer temperatures the past few days EV Range has risen to 43-44 miles. Add to that 2 or 3 miles for the non-LRR tires and it would be at 46-47 miles. No way I'm going to get Honda to believe that it should be in the 53-54 mile range.

The things that show there is a problem include:
- A sudden drop, about April 17, from 47-48 miles down to 36-41 or so, both in estimate and actual miles.
- A Battery Capacity reading of 49.6
- Irregular charts from the JuiceBox data

At this point I'm not willing to spend any money to gather further information, and Honda isn't cooperating. They've said there are no more tests they can do and that my situation is normal.

My plan is to record EV Range data every time the car is charged, along with the date. I'll also bring the car to Hond periodically to get a Battery Capacity reading. I hope I will be able to do that myself but haven't found a Torque plug-in for the Clarity that will show that and other data.
 
My plan is to record EV Range data every time the car is charged, along with the date. I'll also bring the car to Hond periodically to get a Battery Capacity reading. I hope I will be able to do that myself but haven't found a Torque plug-in for the Clarity that will show that and other data.
Quick free suggestion: When you record the EV range, also record the temperature, since that has such an effect on the range.
 
Quick free suggestion: When you record the EV range, also record the temperature, since that has such an effect on the range.
I will add temperature. Actually I was randomly recording temperature and range for a while. That excel file is partly what alerted me to the problem I have with my Clarity. The excel file showed twice the charge reached 48 miles; long before new tires or other indicators.
Unfortunately I wasn't recording the date.

Horizontal is ambient temperature. Vertical is EV Range.

upload_2019-5-28_14-21-31.webp
 
Results from Honda were exactly what my major concern was. They said there is no problem.
I had them give me the Battery Capacity number at the last minute before I took the car back after 3 days. It read 49.6. At 320V that would be 15.8KW I believe. Does anybody know if that is within spec?

I'm not happy.

Text of Honda service department
CUSTOMER STATES BATTERY CHARGING SYSTEM IS
STILL SHOWING AND ABNORMAL GRAPH. WAS IN ON
RO 6383665 ON 05/09/2019 TECH PERFORMED SOFTWARE
UP DATE PER BULLETIN 18-097
SEE ATTACHED SHEET
Caused by
CALLED TECH LINE ABOUT GRAPH CONCERN AND MPG
ON A FULL CHARGE, TECH-LINE ADVISE TO NOT GO OFF
OF GRAPH DUE TO TOO MANY VARIABLES, CHARGED
VEHICLE WITH SHOP CHARGER ON FULL CHARGE AND
EV RANGE SHOWED 39.9 ON A FULL CHARGE, TECH-LINE
SAID THAT IS NORMAL, VEHICLE CHARGED FINE NO
PROBLEMS, COULD BE DRIVING AND CHARGING HABBITS
NO PROBLEMS FOUND AT THIS TIME LO# 118092 .3HR

Our ambient temperature over the last couple of days has been in the mid 60's.

I have two plans in mind.
1) Contact Honda Customer Service to see if they can do anything about this.

2) Trade in our Clarity and buy a new one. We like the car. If I can get one for $5K under invoice, and get about $22K for my trade in I'll break even with Federal and State incentives.

Honda High-Voltage Battery Limited Warranty:
Gradual capacity loss of the high-voltage battery is expected and not covered under warranty. Greater-than-normal degradation is covered for 8 years or 100,000 miles, and can be determined by an authorized Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid dealer.

If I use 47 miles as the baseline then if 39.9 is within spec it is a 16% drop in 18 months. We Clarity owners should all be concerned if this is normal behavior.

By the way our Clarity didn't sit on a lot for months. We literally bought it off the truck on Dec 5, 2017.
Any other suggestions?

Jdonalds

I just ran across this article. Thought you might find it interesting. This fellas chart is long term and shows the dramatic drop as well.

https://electrek.co/2019/08/08/tesla-owner-range-slashed-software-update-class-action-lawsuit/amp/

Ironically...same basic response from Tesla...normal battery degradation. They must go to the same school.

Any update on your status?
 
Jdonalds

I just ran across this article. Thought you might find it interesting. This fellas chart is long term and shows the dramatic drop as well.

https://electrek.co/2019/08/08/tesla-owner-range-slashed-software-update-class-action-lawsuit/amp/

Ironically...same basic response from Tesla...normal battery degradation. They must go to the same school.

Any update on your status?
One big difference is Tesla specifically excluded battery degradation in their warranty. Honda warrants that the battery capacity will be at least 36.6 Ah (and his tested well above that).
 
One big difference is Tesla specifically excluded battery degradation in their warranty. Honda warrants that the battery capacity will be at least 36.6 Ah (and his tested well above that).

The other big difference is the updates were after battery fires. Which is going to derate much of the function beyond some operating range/temperature.
 
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