clarity ECON/EV-only mode gets messed up

[victor_2019]

That is what I was gathering from what you were saying. I have never experienced anything like that, but probably like most people I don't switch from sport to econ while driving but I will try it next time I have a chance. You should also try triggering ICE in econ mode to see if it behaves the same way, as that would indicate whether the problem occurs for you anytime ICE is triggered in EV mode, or if it is just related to switching from sport to econ.

I did an experiment today and watched carefully what was happening.

I left the car in ECON mode from the beginning and as soon as I got in the car I pressed the accelerator hard to trigger the switch and turn on the ICE. After this initial hard accel I never pushed down to that switch again during the whole drive.
Ambient temperature was 15 degrees Celsius.

First part of journey I am trying to get to highway and stuck in a bit of residential traffic. ICE remains on for about 5 minutes then turns off just before I reach highway.

On the highway, as soon as I reach high speed on light acceleration the ICE turns on again. It remains on for the entire highway portion, another 5 minutes or so. when I'm off the highway it stops again.

Now I'm on a larger street with traffic lights.
I tried several different acceleration levels and I noticed that as soon as the power meter reaches the level indicated in the picture I attached the ICE turns on again.
This is a picture I took during my drive this morning of the instrument cluster while this ICE turn on was happening.
that is a power level so it can be reached with different accelerations at different speeds.

first I did a hard acceleration without touching the switch, power level reached this line below 50 km/h and ICE turned on, and it only stayed on for 5-10 seconds.

at next traffic light I accelerated again, not as hard, power meter line was reached above 50 km/h, ICE turned on for about 10-15 seconds then turned off again.

next light I did a hard accel again and ICE turned on very briefly. as soon as I reached the line and ICE turned on I had to stop accelerating due to traffic, and by the time the power indicator needle had dropped down to 0 power (about 2 seconds) the ICE was turned off again.

After I was on small streets with traffic for 5 minutes and I couldn't accelerate enough to turn ICE on. when I was approaching my work I had a stretch of free road and I did a moderate acceleration. Power meter red line was reached around 60 km/h and ICE turned on. It remained on for about 30 seconds and turned off again.


I read the other message about the ICE turning on in stages until a temperature is reached but I doubt this is what is happening. once the ICE starts turning on for only a few seconds it's no longer doing stages to warm up, and it shouldn't keep turning on like that.

 

[victor_2019]

I should have said I have never experience that in EV mode but I do experience that in HV mode because that is normal HV operation. Just to ask an obvious question, are you sure the HV indicator isn't on when this is happening? The EV indicator coming on doesn't by itself mean you are in EV mode. You are in EV mode only when you have more than zero miles range (which you said you do) but also the HV indicator has to be off.

yes, my HV mode is always off unless I turn it on for a long highway trip. I am in ECON, HV off, and the only change is the fact that EV sign turns on and off when ICE turns off/on.

here's a wider shot of my instrument cluster this morning

 

[2002]

View attachment 6213

View attachment 6214

That's a bit more acceleration than I was imagining, I was thinking it was happening at somewhat lighter acceleration. Is the red line at the same level you were experiencing when switching from sport to econ? I.e. does this test seem to confirm that what you experience is not related to switching from sport to econ, it works the same way after ICE comes on in econ mode?

So to sort of recap, at the beginning of your trip in econ mode, as long as you stay below the detent and don't trigger ICE, you can accelerate past the red line without ICE ever coming on. The only time ICE comes on is if you press pass the detent. Once you have passed the detent ICE comes on, and ICE remains on for a few minutes as expected and then shuts off. But then for the rest of your trip if you are in EV mode you cannot accelerate past the red line without ICE coming on. And when it does come on it's only momentarily while you are in that power level, once you let off the accelerator ICE immediately turns off again and remains off as long as you stay below the red line.

If I have all of that correct, I can't say for sure your car is acting differently than others because I can count on one hand the number of times I have triggered ICE in EV mode (well maybe I am up to two hands now), so I can't say for sure how mine acts afterwards but I will be trying it. @insightman said he noticed that ICE comes on more often in that situation so it might be normal, or at least Honda's version of normal.

My guess is that in the cold engine situation it would like to turn ICE on at that power level for efficiency reasons, keeping in mind that high torque drains the battery pretty fast. But it doesn't because it is cold and thus ICE wouldn't be able to provide much power anyway since I think they limit ICE power when it first starts. And for course it would also lead to warm up cycle. Thus when it is cold ICE comes on only at the detent (or the corresponding mapped points in normal and sport mode). But once it is warmed up, when you are getting to a higher power level and causing high battery drain the system is less hesitant to turn on ICE to provide additional power for that brief period of time and then it shuts off again. The gas used in that case would be minimal and may actually save quite a bit of electricity.

Just a theory based on what I understand from your description. I know any ICE activation in EV mode rankles most people especially if it doesn't seem necessary. In this case I don't know if it is a bug or working as designed.

 

[victor_2019]

That's a bit more acceleration than I was imagining, I was thinking it was happening at somewhat lighter acceleration.

it can happen at lighter acceleration and higher speed.

since power equals torque times speed, at lighter acceleration it will happen when reaching highway speeds, at the end of acceleration.
at moderate acceleration it happens around 60 km/h or so.

you can see this yourself, do a constant acceleration and watch the power meter needle, it will keep increasing as speed increases.

Is the red line at the same level you were experiencing when switching from sport to econ?

no, this is much later. it was harder to get it to turn on in econ mode.

when I was switching from sport I remember the ICE was turning on kinda halfway, I wasn't accelerating so hard before it turned on.

I.e. does this test seem to confirm that what you experience is not related to switching from sport to econ, it works the same way after ICE comes on in econ mode?

well, it works almost the same. the only difference is that in the sport mode it is a lot easier to make the ICE turn on.

since ECON seems to be a bit laggy and the pedal has more resistance, it might be that the power spikes up a lot easier in sport mode with a lighter press on the accelerator pedal.

I wasn't watching the gauge so closely before, I just remember once that the ICE turned on and I was annoyed because the needle was barely halfway up the power gauge.

I'll have to try it again by switching sport mode back to econ and see if it behaves the same way or it's more likely to trigger the ICE.

So to sort of recap, at the beginning of your trip in econ mode, as long as you stay below the detent and don't trigger ICE, you can accelerate past the red line without ICE ever coming on.
The only time ICE comes on is if you press pass the detent. Once you have passed the detent ICE comes on, and ICE remains on for a few minutes as expected and then shuts off. But then for the rest of your trip if you are in EV mode you cannot accelerate past the red line without ICE coming on. And when it does come on it's only momentarily while you are in that power level, once you let off the accelerator ICE immediately turns off again and remains off as long as you stay below the red line.

yes, something like that. the amount of time the ICE stayed on ranged randomly (to me at least) from 2 seconds to 30 seconds but the amount wasn't decreasing in time so it doesn't look like it's a coolant temp.
stays on 10 seconds, then 20, then 2 seconds, with only a minute or so passing between these instances. not enough time for the coolant to really change temp significantly.

My guess is that in the cold engine situation it would like to turn ICE on at that power level for efficiency reasons, keeping in mind that high torque drains the battery pretty fast. But it doesn't because it is cold and thus ICE wouldn't be able to provide much power anyway since I think they limit ICE power when it first starts. And for course it would also lead to warm up cycle. Thus when it is cold ICE comes on only at the detent (or the corresponding mapped points in normal and sport mode). But once it is warmed up, when you are getting to a higher power level and causing high battery drain the system is less hesitant to turn on ICE to provide additional power for that brief period of time and then it shuts off again. The gas used in that case would be minimal and may actually save quite a bit of electricity.

Just a theory based on what I understand from your description. I know any ICE activation in EV mode rankles most people especially if it doesn't seem necessary. In this case I don't know if it is a bug or working as designed.

perhaps this makes sense, if the engine is already warmed up and can be briefly turned on, then it's not a bad thing really from a consumption point of view.

 

[2002]

since ECON seems to be a bit laggy and the pedal has more resistance, it might be that the power spikes up a lot easier in sport mode with a lighter press on the accelerator pedal.

That's basically what sport mode does, they change the pedal mapping. This creates the illusion of more power, because if you have been driving in econ or normal you get used to pressing the accelerator a certain amount to accelerate from a stop. Then you switch to sport and press the accelerator the same amount, and you feel the car accelerate harder at the same pedal position so your brain says wow this is more powerful, because you assume if you have this much power at this pedal position just think how much you will have when you floor it. But then you floor it and it turns out to be the same amount of power as Econ.

The "squeezed" pedal mapping also has the effect that the ICE turn on point occurs prior to reaching the physical detent. Some have assumed this means that people in sport mode want ICE to come on sooner so they will have more power. Well I guess maybe that's part of the thinking but regardless, if the pedal is mapped to provide higher power with less pedal movement then it will reach the maximum EV level with less movement of the pedal. The first time I tried sport mode, in less than five minutes I had ICE accidentally turned on because I pressed the pedal to a level I was used to in regular mode.

But the main reason people use sport mode is not because of pedal mapping but because of the effect it has on ACC following distance and acceleration, and also when using the paddles it holds the higher regen level longer.

 

[victor_2019]

so I did more experimenting and my previous theory has proven to be wrong...
This time was after work and the car was in an indoor garage all day so it was warmer than first time.

I put the car in sport mode and pushed the kickdown switch to start the ICE. It ran for a few minutes and then shut off, as usual.
now I pushed the pedal expecting the ICE to turn back on and... nothing happened. I accelerated hard several times past that red line I marked, without starting the ICE. I tried in econ mode as well, same thing. didn't want to start.

then finally I went past that red line and it started again for a short period of time then shut off.

but then I had a moderate acceleration where the power gauge didn't go past that red line, but hovered below it for a longer time and then the ICE again started.

Then I reached the highway, the ICE turned off, and I said to myself this experimenting is useless, I switched to econ mode and went on my usual commute home. then as I was exiting the highway I noticed the ICE was on again, even though during this time I was driving quite nicely, mostly on cruise, with no hard accelerations.

so basically the ICE does what it wants and turns on when it wants with no obvious logic to this behaviour.

The only thing I am sure of, for now, is that if I start the car in econ mode and never push past the kickdown switch, the ICE won't start, at least not in the summer/fall. We'll see what happens when we reach -20 celsius in quebec.

 

[2002]

It definitely takes a lot of experimenting and even then we can never completely figure it out. But it's good to know that as long as ICE is kept off it will tend to stay off. I have found EV to have plenty of power, and I try and avoid situations when I have to floor it. Not saying it can never happen, but even when I need to accelerate pretty quickly I just take a quick glance at the power bar to make sure I don't go too far (I use Normal mode). So for me the ICE on situations are extremely rare, but I may do some experiments to see if I experience anything similar after triggering ICE.

On the other hand I do drive in HV a lot when I am on the freeway, and then I switch back to EV when I am back on surface streets. I don't remember experiencing anything like you are describing during that time. I wonder if it is the ICE activation from hard acceleration that is putting it into the pattern that you are describing. Does it also happen when you switch from HV to EV?

 

[victor_2019]

I've used HV mode and I don't remember the ICE turning on when switching to econ either, but I haven't done a long trip in a while.

 

[TomL]

It definitely takes a lot of experimenting and even then we can never completely figure it out. But it's good to know that as long as ICE is kept off it will tend to stay off. I have found EV to have plenty of power, and I try and avoid situations when I have to floor it. Not saying it can never happen, but even when I need to accelerate pretty quickly I just take a quick glance at the power bar to make sure I don't go too far (I use Normal mode). So for me the ICE on situations are extremely rare, but I may do some experiments to see if I experience anything similar after triggering ICE.

On the other hand I do drive in HV a lot when I am on the freeway, and then I switch back to EV when I am back on surface streets. I don't remember experiencing anything like you are describing during that time. I wonder if it is the ICE activation from hard acceleration that is putting it into the pattern that you are describing. Does it also happen when you switch from HV to EV?

Same for me, exactly.

 

[fargledaer]

When this problem happens, restarting the car is the only way to get it to stop randomly and unnecessarily starting the engine. That tells me that there must be some internal state in the car’s control software/firmware linked to the behavior (which is cleared on a restart). The fact that it doesn’t happen every time the car is driven or the engine is engaged due to hard acceleration tells me that it is an intermittent condition. It’s possible that it was intentionally designed by Honda to behave this way, but my money is on a bug.

Aside from the rare maintenance cycle, there is no reason why the engine should turn on and stay on indefinitely when the power meter is not being pushed near the threshold, the battery has charge remaining, and the weather is not extreme. And yet it happens sometimes.

 

[KentuckyKen]

While we don’t have a clue as to why, it does seem from posts on the forum going back to Dec of 2017 that some Claritys act differently from the rest of ours from time for time.

One suggestion is to try a hard reset by disconnecting the neg terminal of the 12 V battery. This has helped some that have had unusual behavior. This erases some data history such as that used in calculating EV and HV estimated range (and who knows what else). It won’t hurt anything and keeps most of your settings, although you may have to recalibrate the tire pressure. You will get a lot of warning lights at first but they will all clear themselves after a few miles of driving and the range estimates will return to their former accuracy after a few driving cycles.

Try it and let us know if it helps or if it doesn’t change anything.

 

[victor_2019]

I can confirm the car does not behave the same way in HV mode.

I turned on HV mode when leaving work today, ICE immediately turned on and the power meter circle turned white.

Then after a few minutes i turned HV off and went back to econ, the ICE turned off right away and the power meter circle went back to blue, which doesn't happen in the other situation.

So it seems when ICE turns on due to hard acceleration the car remains in that mode for whatever reason, either on purpose or a bug. Power meter circle remains white until car is turned off.

 

[KentuckyKen]

I can confirm the car does not behave the same way in HV mode.

I turned on HV mode when leaving work today, ICE immediately turned on and the power meter circle turned white.

Then after a few minutes i turned HV off and went back to econ, the ICE turned off right away and the power meter circle went back to blue, which doesn't happen in the other situation.

So it seems when ICE turns on due to hard acceleration the car remains in that mode for whatever reason, either on purpose or a bug. Power meter circle remains white until car is turned off.

That just happened to me. Had to floor it to miss a car that changed lanes just as I was merging onto the expressway.
ICE came on, Power Meter goes to white, and engine icon on infotainment screen lights up. ICE turned off after just a few minutes and a couple of miles at 55 mph (ambient 80 F). But the Power Meter stayed white after the ICE stopped and the engine icon went off. ICE was definitely off and the car was being propelled solely from the battery for the rest of the trip just as it is at any start up. Power Meter did not return to blue until shut down and restart.
I think some one else has also reported this. Seems like a software bug.

 

[2002]

Wow! I tried it tonight and it is definitely different. I took one for the team and floored it briefly to start ICE in Normal mode, even knowing that I was coming up to a red light. But that's okay it just charges the battery while you are sitting there, basically Charge Mode so not a total waste. After the light turned green I then continued towards the freeway. ICE shut off once it was warmed up, but I immediately noticed that things looked different on the gauge, no blue line and ICE came on and off at least once, based on the EV indicator turning on and then off.

I reached the freeway at slow speed, EV indicator was on at this point. Moderate acceleration onto the freeway onramp, the EV indicator stayed on at first, still with no blue line, but as speed increased the EV indicator turned off and I could see EV range starting to drop. So I was essentially in HV mode. Got onto the freeway and I cruised several miles at 65 mph with no EV indicator, but no HV indicator, EV range at 18 but dropping steadily. I have never had it work that way in EV mode that I can remember.

After a few more miles with cruise control at 65 mph, without doing anything all of a sudden I had a nice big blue line and and an EV indicator and things seemed back to normal, the first time I had seen the blue line since the hard acceleration event several miles and about ten minutes earlier. I normally don't use EV on that section of the freeway so after it looked like it was going to stay in EV mode I went ahead and switched to HV and thus ended the test for the evening.

So that was just one experiment and I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I don't remember ever seeing it act that way in EV mode when I have plenty of range. Again I rarely trigger ICE via hard acceleration which is probably why I haven't noticed this before. It's not a big deal or any real problem it just seems somewhat quirky.

Again with just one test it's hard to say but my initial theory is that maybe the engine wasn't warmed up like I thought it was. When the EV indictor came on the first time I assumed that meant the warmup cycle had ended, but maybe it hadn't. Maybe it was just doing the normal HV thing of turning off the engine when you have some excess SOC built up from regen, and then ICE comes back on again, just like it normally does in HV mode. Maybe ICE wasn't truly warmed up until several miles and about ten minutes later when I finally got the blue line again. I tend to doubt it though, that seems like a long time for warmup on a warm evening, but for now I am keeping that theory open.

Next time I try this, when it gets into what I guess I would call Trigger-happy EV Mode after an ICE startup event, I am going to try switching to HV mode then back to EV. I tend to doubt that will make a difference but I will try it anyway.

 

[victor_2019]

Next time I try this, when it gets into what I guess I would call Trigger-happy EV Mode after an ICE startup event, I am going to try switching to HV mode then back to EV. I tend to doubt that will make a difference but I will try it anyway.

I was thinking the same thing. I don't have the clarity today but I can try it tomorrow.

it's at least good that you saw the power meter return to blue. mine doesn't, but perhaps my commute is too short?

 

[insightman]

Next time I try this, when it gets into what I guess I would call Trigger-happy EV Mode after an ICE startup event, I am going to try switching to HV mode then back to EV. I tend to doubt that will make a difference but I will try it anyway.

First, thank you, @2002, for "taking one for the team" LOL.

I don't find that switching in and out of HV has the same "restorative" effect as a restart.

 

[2002]

it's at least good that you saw the power meter return to blue. mine doesn't, but perhaps my commute is too short?

If my "still in warmup mode" theory is correct, I reached full warmup sooner because I continued in this mode onto the freeway and drove a couple of miles at 65 mph, so that would have completed warmup faster than if I had stayed on surface streets where ICE would be shutting off during deceleration and at stop lights.

I don't find that switching in and out of HV has the same "restorative" effect as a restart.

I was kind of thinking it wouldn't. So I'm still thinking it could be that warm up just takes longer than we think, it could be not only a requirement of reaching a certain temperature but also requiring a certain amount of time at that temperature to clear out whatever cobwebs it's trying to get rid of.

So then the question becomes why shut off ICE prior to completing warmup? Efficiency I suppose. My tentative theory (admittedly based on just one test) is that during initial warmup the system is in HV charge mode (thus engine runs sitting at the red light) but then after reaching a certain temperature it switches to regular HV mode meaning it will sometimes briefly shut off ICE like HV mode normally does. Then after a certain amount of time at that temperature, or perhaps after reaching a higher target temperature, warmup is considered complete and it switches back to regular EV Mode. If during this second phase of warmup it sometimes shuts of ICE then naturally the process will take longer.

Interestingly System Mode has the same visual indication:

● The curved blue line in the POWER/CHARGE Gauge will not appear during the system check (EV indicator may still turn on)

So maybe from a software standpoint it's basically the same thing, sometimes caused by not running ICE for a long time, othertimes caused by triggering ICE via hard acceleration. I wonder if the regen with full battery scenario works the same way also.

There could be exceptions to all of this I'm just thinking about what the normal pattern might be.

 

[KentuckyKen]

I can say two things with reasonable certainty based on my observations of my car’s behavior.
1. When going past the detent/click and causing the ICE to start up for more power, it is behaving like HV not HV Charge. I got all possible power flows just like on my highway trips with HV manually selected.
2. One time I did this and the Power Meter turned white and did not return to blue even though the ICE was off and the car was obviously back in EV. But one time it did turn back to white when the ICE turned off and in a short while the ICE came on again for a very short time.

That seems kind of like a System Check so I wonder if the algorithm is programmed to do a System Check if it’s close to being due when the ICE starts for other reasons.
Our Claritys seem to be inscrutably Japanese, or else the Honda software engineers added a random number generator just to mess with us Gaijins.

 

[2002]

it is behaving like HV not HV Charge. I got all possible power flows just like on my highway trips with HV manually selected.

Except HV mode doesn't run ICE when you are stopped at a light. Do you think it's possible that the "all possible power flows" was occurring during the second phase of the warmup cycle that I was alluding to? In my current theory warmup phase one is similar to HV Charge, and doesn't last very long, then warmup phase 2 is similar to HV and lasts longer.

NOTE - I realize some people don't really like theories. In that case I would say skip this discussion for now, we'll come back later when we have actual facts

That seems kind of like a System Check so I wonder if the algorithm is programmed to do a System Check if it’s close to being due when the ICE starts for other reasons.

I agree it might be the same software algorithm as System Check, however my ICE was running just a few hours prior for nearly an hour. So I suspect it does this any time you activate ICE through hard acceleration, or at least a lot of the time and has no bearing on recent ICE usage. People have complained that System Check or at least something like System Check runs on their cars even though they use ICE regularly. We know that some of those are likely explained by full battery regen, maybe this is an another situation that can cause it.

 

[MPower]

Envy all you people who can actually see all of the instrument panel. Most of it is blocked for me most of the time unless I duck my head down to look under the top of the steering wheel. To see all the lighting changes you are describing, I would look like one of those bobble-head dolls.