Clarity in winter on Level 1

[chilito]

Hi! About to take delivery of a 2018 Clarity with 46k miles here in MN. I have a couple questions:

1) Dealer tested battery at 47.6Ah, this seems in-line with others’ posts I saw on the Google spreadsheet. Any concerns here?
2) Planning on L1 charging in my detached garage on a dedicated GFCI outlet, and having an electrician out to see about the possibilities of how to get 240v power to the detached space thru existing buried conduit. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
3) Biggest concern is winters. Manual states the car won’t start if battery temp reaches -22F. That’s not unheard of and we usually get a few of those mornings a year here. The car will be in an unheated garage that’s generally ~10F warmer than outside, but the possibility of a no-start is concerning. Will L1 provide enough power to precondition at that temp, or at all? My guess is no.
4) If no, can I just walk out to the garage and start it, turning on the ICE in HV mode to warm the cabin like a traditional car and not precondition at all? I am accustomed to waiting 10 mins for a standard ICE to warm up in winter.
5) Will the Clarity survive the winter on an L1? Probably the most important question of all!

Thank you all!

 

[Landshark]

This isn’t the greatest forum to find answers. We haven’t figured out why that is, but an inability to answer questions is pretty prevalent here.

1) No.
2) Follow NEC and local codes.
3) Pretty sure L2 is required to “precondition”. Disclaimer: I’ve never used that feature.
4) No. The car will not power up at temperatures below what is stated in the manual. Default mode is EV. If it doesn’t power up, it will not be possible to start the engine.
5) Yes. However, there may be times when you will not be able to start the vehicle, regardless of the charging method.

It may be beneficial to use a scheduled charging technique where the battery is still charging, or has just finished charging at the time when you intend to use the vehicle. Charging warms the battery, so that may be a way to avoid a “no start” condition.

 

[David Towle]

How close can you park to your dryer? You could buy an appropriate extension cord and a charger to use when the temps might be too cold to start. These cords are monsters though.

https://www.amazon.com/GearIT-Exten...0885RLQLW&ref_=pd_bap_d_grid_rp_0_1_ec_t&th=1

 

[BrianRC]

If you're having an electrician come out, ask him if your detached garage can tolerate a 20 amp circuit breaker. If so, you can buy a 16 amp level 1 charging cable vs. the standard 12 amp cable that comes with the Clarity. That's what I did with my detached garage since refitting for 240v would have cost thousands. The 16 amp cable charges noticably faster than the 12 amp and makes a big difference with the small 15 amp usable capacity of the Clairty.

As far as the super cold days in MN, maybe when the forecast predicts one of those days you could turn on a small electric space heater near the Clarity that just might take enouigh of the edge off that the Clarity will function normally.

 

[PHEV Newbie]

It's OK to draw from a battery that's below freezing but it's harmful when you charge a battery whose temp is below freezing. Batteries warm naturally when used so it should be above freezing when you get home or destination so charge immediately if the surrounding temp will be below freezing after a drive.

 

[Charged_Up]

If your 110 volt outlet is in fact dedicated and is wired with 12 gauge wire it may be possible to rewire the existing outlet to 24O @ 20 amps by changing the existing single breaker to a double breaker in the electrical panel and replacing the outlet with the proper 240 volt 20 amp outlet. In this configuration both wires would be hot without a neutral. The ground wire would remain unchanged.

That would allow you to use a level 2 charger with a max output of 16 amps, (.80x20 amps or 16 amps continuous duty)

Amazon sells an inexpensive 16 amp charger for about $115.

That would allow you to precondition your car in the winter.

If your outlet is not dedicated (not only device on the breaker),the above won’t work. You should consult an electrician to be sure local codes allow this.

Many states offer incentives to install EV chargers which may pay all or most of the cost.

Hope this helps.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

[Danks]

You can precondition with L1 as long as the car is not also charging - so if the car is fully charged or if you stop the charge.

 

[Dan Albrich]

My .02 inserted below with "-->"

Hi! About to take delivery of a 2018 Clarity with 46k miles here in MN. I have a couple questions:

1) Dealer tested battery at 47.6Ah, this seems in-line with others’ posts I saw on the Google spreadsheet. Any concerns here?
--> No concerns. That looks pretty standard for a 2018 Clarity.

2) Planning on L1 charging in my detached garage on a dedicated GFCI outlet, and having an electrician out to see about the possibilities of how to get 240v power to the detached space thru existing buried conduit. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
--> L2 charging is nice. I doubt the L1 will be any unusual problem. I just mean L1 always takes longer to charge, so cold means more energy usage, so you may miss L2 more than someone in warm place.

3) Biggest concern is winters. Manual states the car won’t start if battery temp reaches -22F. That’s not unheard of and we usually get a few of those mornings a year here. The car will be in an unheated garage that’s generally ~10F warmer than outside, but the possibility of a no-start is concerning. Will L1 provide enough power to precondition at that temp, or at all? My guess is no.
--> I can't find the reference now, but there was a poster in this forum or clarity forum living in North Dakota. He claimed his Clarity did start below -22F. Separately, there is a maintenance command to force the gas engine on. I don't have it with me, but I printed it and put in my glove box in case I need to try it someday. All bets are off doing things outside what the manufacture says will work, but I'd guess you'll be OK. There exists a Canadian version of Clarity with a battery warmer, but I'm not going to suggest you swap cars.

4) If no, can I just walk out to the garage and start it, turning on the ICE in HV mode to warm the cabin like a traditional car and not precondition at all? I am accustomed to waiting 10 mins for a standard ICE to warm up in winter.
--> I'd likely schedule climate control to warm the cabin 30 minutes before my planned departure daily. I'm thinking of the human, not the battery, although it could help the battery too. Climate control worked fine for me for months when all I had was L1. The caveat being that it would stop the charging on L1 if the timing overlapped. So it meant I didn't get a full charge if I didn't have the correct number of hours charging before climate kicked in.

5) Will the Clarity survive the winter on an L1? Probably the most important question of all!
--> I suspect you'll be fine. If you can get an L2 delivered even at 16 amps, it will be way nicer. If you go forward with this plan (or have to) and later respond to this forum about how it goes, I think we'd be glad to hear. I do think if Clarity really gets to or below -22F and sits there, and especially routinely, then it may really not work. But you indicate the unheated area is usually 10 degrees warmer than outside in general. That may make the difference.
The L2 or L1 won't be the issue. If the battery chemistry is unable to function due to temp, that's the only concern. L1 is just a pain due to the long charge time, but otherwise is no big deal.

Thank you all!

 

[Landshark]

It's OK to draw from a battery that's below freezing but it's harmful when you charge a battery whose temp is below freezing.

By reducing charging current a lithium battery can be charged when its internal temperature is below freezing. The charging process will raise the internal temperature thus allowing the current to be gradually increased. The BMS will prevent us from harming the battery.

 

[Landshark]

My .02 inserted below with "-->"

Can the maintenance command to force start the engine be successfully executed while the “Temperature too cold” warning is in effect?

 

[Dan Albrich]

Good question Landshark. I would like to know the answer. Since at very cold temps this could be a life-safety issue, it should be tested in a controlled environment. For example, purposefully park "on the street" near home so if it doesn't work you don't turn into an icicle trying.

Here's the steps I found in this forum:
1) turn car off
Note: the rest has to be done within 60 seconds. So timing is an issue.
2) Press start without pressing the break pedal. Then a second time after a few seconds so that the lights come on around the P on the shifter.
3) with the shifter in P, press accelerator peddle to the floor twice.
4) Push break pedal and move shifter to N, release break pedal. Press accelerator pedal to floor twice.
5) Push the break pedal and move the shifter to P. Release break pedal, press accelerator pedal to the floor twice.
6) push the break pedal and push ON to start the car. The display will show maintenance mode and engine will start after a few seconds.

Due to the need to select N during the procedure, I kind of assume this should all be done on flat ground.

As an aside, at least in my lifetime western Oregon has never gotten cold enough to test this. I can't remember a time with negative temperature, let alone -22F.

 

[megreyhair]

I have pre-conditioned my car with L1 charger connected. HEAT ONLY! AC pre cond will not start with L1 charger. It will try and then stop.

 

[insightman]

I have pre-conditioned my car with L1 charger connected. HEAT ONLY! AC pre cond will not start with L1 charger. It will try and then stop.

Huh. So I guess you have to go out and unplug your Clarity if you want to do AC pre cond. Wonder why?

 

[Dan Albrich]

L1 Preconditioning Main issues:
- One cannot pre-condition and charge at same time. Since L1 can take 14 hours to charge, I doubt this works for many people to have enough time to charge and heat or cool before their work-day. In my case, say car gets home at 10pm, its not ready at 6am to go to work. If you have a full 14 hour charge, and then schedule preconditioning it works fine. But I never have that much time and it is hard to imagine that anyone does.
- Preconditioning only works within a specific temperature range. I don't have that info handy, but its in the manual. The car must be hot or cold enough for pre-conditioning to engage. If you're in what Honda believes is a normal comfort range, the precondition won't enable. I mostly use heating which means my car's interior must be below 50F for the system to work at all.
- HondaLink servers seem to be wonky to some degree. Off and on not communicating. I believe this issue is real, but I do not believe it has anything to do with L1 or L2 connection. That is to say, sometimes HondaLink fails to communicate with the car to engage the setting. It is not consistent.
- The car has an LTE modem using ATT's network. If the car cannot be reached for the data connection, the precondition will fail. I happen to live next to an ATT tower, so this problem doesn't occur at my home.
- One more HondaLink comment. Due to the failures I've seen, I do not believe the car keeps the schedule. When HondaLink servers are down, the feature doesn't enagage. Its as if the only schedule is on your smartphone. The app requests the change on your scheduled time and then HondaLink servers reach out to your car. The reason I say this is when others have complained HondaLink servers are down, my own preconditioning has failed. Even though I leave the schedule "in" all the time. Stupid, I know, but I have not seen any evidence that the car has the schedule at all, and in fact have witnessed events that seem to confirm the contrary.
- One can use the keyfob to manually engage preconditioning. However, if I'm going to get out of bed, walk to my car and use the FOB to engage, this seems to negate the convenience of using the feature.

In my area, the temperature range is the biggest factor. I use preconditioning in the winter. When we get really cold here (western oregon) for say a month in January, the system works daily as described. On other days when it doesn't enable, I find the interior of my car ever so slightly above 50F (unheated garage) which still feels cold to me, but it is outside Honda's temperature range for the feature. I forget what the high temperature is (not an issue for me where I live).

 

[Landshark]

Given all the CC&R’s for pre-conditioning, a possible solution for arriving at a vehicle with a survivable interior temperature where exterior temperatures are well below freezing might be to schedule charging to terminate when pre-conditioning is desired, regardless of the battery SOC at that point in time. If the stated goals are to have a comfortable interior and a vehicle that won’t display a “Too cold to operate” warning, some additional effort may be required under certain conditions.