Clarity PHEV Trip MPG

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Viking79

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I am constantly blown away with how efficient the Clarity is. My wife took it on a 600 mile round trip to Omaha this past week, starting with a full charge. She only used 13.2 gallons of gas. Most of the driving was at around 77 mph (indicated by car). Assuming about 50 EV miles that is almost 42 mpg. Again, at 77 mph.

For comparison, I drove my i3 Rex this past weekend 180 miles on a full charge and 3.3 gallons of gas at about 60 to 65 mph. Assuming 70 miles on electric that is only 33 mpg at much lower speeds. The air drag is a lot worse on the i3, so higher speeds will lower it, but 65 is slow enough not to be terrible, and the fact the Clarity was averaging so much faster and still doing better speaks volumes to how thermally efficient that engine is.

I really want to know what the Cd is for the Clarity as well, maybe better than I think to get that kind of mileage.
 
Carro con enchufe said:
The more I drive and enjoy my clarity the more I’m glad I didn’t get stuck with an i3 :)
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The i3 is a great car too, but not good for highway driving (it does fine, but the Clarity is much better for that). The small size of the i3 is ideal in urban environments, I can do a U turn on most streets, etc. If I could only have one it would be the Clarity though for practicality, and we need 5 seats.
 
Viking79 said:
I am constantly blown away with how efficient the Clarity is. My wife took it on a 600 mile round trip to Omaha this past week, starting with a full charge. She only used 13.2 gallons of gas. Most of the driving was at around 77 mph (indicated by car). Assuming about 50 EV miles that is almost 42 mpg. Again, at 77 mph.

For comparison, I drove my i3 Rex this past weekend 180 miles on a full charge and 3.3 gallons of gas at about 60 to 65 mph. Assuming 70 miles on electric that is only 33 mpg at much lower speeds. The air drag is a lot worse on the i3, so higher speeds will lower it, but 65 is slow enough not to be terrible, and the fact the Clarity was averaging so much faster and still doing better speaks volumes to how thermally efficient that engine is.

I really want to know what the Cd is for the Clarity as well, maybe better than I think to get that kind of mileage.
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42 mpg is really impressive at 77 mph, running the A/C I assume given the current heat wave. Car and Driver measured 46 mpg for the Clarity at 75 mph in HV and only 37 mpg for the Volt on the same loop. I had a similar experience on a road trip. At 60-65 mph, I got 48 mpg in the Spring w/o running heating/air cond (in HV mode with no change of EV range for a couple of tank fulls). The Clarity can be forgiven if its hybrid mode wasn't so efficient given its excellent EV range (making the car quite heavy compared to normal hybrids) but it is really impressive in the real world. With its incentives, its the best automotive bargain out there yet so few people know that (the Clarities have been languishing on my local dealer's lot while the Accord Hybrids are sold as soon as they arrive).

I'll bet the drag coefficient is super low. Honda spent a lot of money on aerodynamics beyond the obvious aero shape (air vents to reduce turbulence for all four wheels, rear wheel skirts, smooth underbody cladding, extra seals for windows and doors, windshield wiper design, little rear window for visibility to compensate for max aerodynamic shape, aero wheel covers). Each of those things do very little individually but add up. If you put the same drive system in a CR-V, the EV range and HV mpg would be far worse at highway speeds.
 
Yes, climate was on. It really is impressive. I was surprised (and not, owning one) by the good results in CandD report as well, especially how the Clarity almost matched one of the class leaders, the Prius, on that loop. It is just mind boggling how a 4000 lb midsize car can do so well. Usually cars get much worse than EPA at 77 mph. My Nissan Juke once got 21 mpg for a tiny car at about 80 mph, highway EPA was 30 mpg, never got close to that unless driving 60 mph, usually was getting 24 mpg (only slightly better than my old minivan got at the same speeds).
 
I bet we can get a few extra miles on highway if honda got rid of the side mirrors and replaced them with tiny cameras. I am sure those 2 mirrors add a lot to drag.
 
Mine was hit or miss this past weekend in the Texas hill country. 70-75 mph (with some 65 mph construction thrown in) - hotter than two suns (well, 100+ anyway, with AC on whole time). On the four legs of approximately 130 miles each, we got 40, 35, 41, 43 mpg on odometer miles/actual refill. The 35 is a real mystery, but overall just under 40 mpg. Granted, there is a lot more hilly driving than out here in the West Texas desert, but I guess that is fairly close to EPA - I was just hoping for at least low to mid 40's.

Just a wilder driver than @jdonalds...;)

Actually, I shouldn't be whining since 75 mph was the majority, and I'm sure the EPA does not drive full throttle on the highway miles test...:)
 
I got 35 mpg once in winter at highway speeds too. I wonder if that is if it can't run atkinson cycle or something? They use VTEC to run in Atkinson mode so it can go in and out of that as necessary, as I understand it. It seems a dramatic drop, and same thing I saw, leading me to believe it would do just ok on the highway.
 
kcsunshine said:
How do you get the mpg of individual legs of a trip?
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I reset the trip odometer every time I fill up and I do the double-click method to make sure my tank is actually full. Then I calculate my mileage from actual miles driven and the amount of gasoline dispensed from the pump. I can't rule out some inaccuracy with pumps but even so, it's far more likely to register more fuel pumped (vis-a-vis more money for them) than less. From multiple reviews I've read (and my previous cars), the mpg postings in most cars are pretty inaccurate.
 
GentLarry said:
I also ran into the forming of a tornado outside Denver with baseball sized hailstones and had to tape the car up to make it to back to Calif. Every outside panel on the car has to be replaced and that was 14 days ago, still waiting on the official assessment on the car to begin repairs or just total it: I was promised a quote this week.
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Bummer! Any photos?

Bob Wilson
 
bwilson4web said:
Bummer! Any photos?

Bob Wilson
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Why don't I see GentLarry's post in this thread?

For 19 years I've been carrying around the thickest car cover I could find to would protect my gen 1 Insight's aluminum and plastic body from hail. I doubt it would work when the hail reaches baseball size, however.
 
Just got our car and driving in Econ mode electric only so far for a few days commuting. It's showing a crazy number of 0.5 l/100km = 470 mpg after its first 140km! Is this even possible?
IMG_3149.webp
 
Steven B said:
And as you empty the battery of electrons, the car gets lighter and fuel economy gets even better. ;)
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Well, let’s see....Each electron weighs 9.109×10-31 kg. The universe is about 13 billion years old. So if you started driving your Clarity just after the Big Bang (allowing a few days for dealer prep) it looks like you should start seeing a measurable effect just before the sun becomes a white dwarf. Please post back here then with your findings.
 
Tangible said:
Well, let’s see....Each electron weighs 9.109×10-31 kg. The universe is about 13 billion years old. So if you started driving your Clarity just after the Big Bang (allowing a few days for dealer prep) it looks like you should start seeing a measurable effect just before the sun becomes a white dwarf. Please post back here then with your findings.
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Those are some shocking facts.
 
Just figured out the fuel efficiency indicator only considers gas consumption and excludes electric consumption. When driving on econ full electric it shows 0 L/100km per pure electric trip (infinite MPG).
 
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