Cold Weather Range

It isn't justEVs. My old ICE car uses about 20% more fuel on the highway in bitter cold than in the summer. This is due to the fact that cold air is much heavier than warm and it takes more energy to plow through it. Also, the winter tires seem to have more rolling resistance (particularly so compared to the Leaf's stock tires).
The cold battery seems to only count for about 15% of the range loss. Put them all together and there's your 40% range loss from best to worst.
 
I live in the Bay Area, so we don't have a cold winter. It does go down into the 30's at night.
I bought the car because it was eligible for carpool stickers to drive solo in the commute lane. The Clarity could have been a horse and cart, as long as it had the hallowed carpool stickers. I do enjoy driving in full electric, but that's not practical for me. I drive mostly on gas, because I don't have a a regular place to charge the car. The Clarity PHEV seems to be getting about 40+ miles per gallon (gas) including a small boost from periodic electric participation.

The car registers about 42-44 (electric) miles after a full charge in summer. Last winter, it regularly dropped to the low 30's. I suspect none of these numbers translate to how much real mileage the car gets. People who report getting 50+ miles on electric-- sorry, I take this with a grain of salt.

That being said, apart from the noisy gas engine, the Clarity PHEV is a pretty impressive vehicle.

Some of the expensive Mercedes and BMW PHEV's about to be introduced have smaller batteries and poor range. Imagine if the official range for the car starts at 25 miles. The electric feature would be practically worthless in winter.
 
d99 said:
People who report getting 50+ miles on electric-- sorry, I take this with a grain of salt.
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I’ll tally up my 50+ mile EV trips this evening. It will be a big number. The EV estimate has been above 50 almost every day for the past 3 months. So, even on the 45-48 miles trips that are completed without a depleted battery, it is estimating that the car will go 53-56 miles on a regular basis.

What is your preferred salt?

d99 said:
Imagine if the official range for the car starts at 25 miles. The electric feature would be practically worthless in winter.
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If it gets the owner a carpool sticker it may be worth something.
 
I've noticed for me kind of a large fear of missing out (fomo) factor. I see others in the forum with better guess-o-meter (gom) numbers and think, geez, I never see those numbers.

My last vehicle was a 2003 Subaru Outback and what a pig that thing was for gas. In the winter holiday time I'd get busy and need to fill up once week. I don't miss how much it cost me for gas, and I don't miss waiting in line for gas. I'm lucky to live in a place where electric is about 11cents per KWh.

Now a days I do sort of just sit back and enjoy the car. Whatever I'm getting its way better than my last car. And yep, the hit in winter is noticible and I do occassionally burn gas in winter. But now, even in winter, I get gas like once every 2 months. I "fill up" at home daily with an electric charge.
The car is comfortable and drives well. It's a huge step forward for me.

(And not for this thread, but PHEV is perfect for me - not BEV. I like to do multi-thousand mile driving trips for vacation, and routinely do long trips. And I don't tend to do the long trips in winter i.e. reason I go long time without buying gas in winter)
 
Rowerpilot1111 said:
I live in Hawaii and pay almost 30 cents per KW. Gas is about $2.30. I don't charge up at home any more. I don't enjoy driving in HV because of how loud it is going from electric to the engine coming on all the time so I do the same where I run HV charge for a while and the drive electric the rest of the time (and then of course charge at free places like Target). I thought the MPG range would drop a lot due to inefficiency in converting gas to electric but I have been doing this for the last couple months and from my calculations I am still getting about 45-50mpg (not counting the free electric I may be able to get once in a while).
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I don't know why so many people think driving in HV Charge will be less efficient than plain HV. Its basically the same thing just in HV Charge you are doing the battery charge more consistently (except in gear mode, I make sure I use HV Charge only when gear mode wouldn't work). Less on and off cycles gives better mpg not worse.
 
David Towle said:
I don't know why so many people think driving in HV Charge will be less efficient than plain HV. Its basically the same thing just in HV Charge you are doing the battery charge more consistently (except in gear mode, I make sure I use HV Charge only when gear mode wouldn't work). Less on and off cycles gives better mpg not worse.
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I agree. Regular HV mode is doing exactly the same thing much of the time -- running the engine to generate electricity that's then used to run the motor. HV charge just lets the battery charge increase (up to 58% I think). The differences are gear mode when running in HV mode at steady speed/light load, and potentially higher RPM in HV charge that may or may not be quite as efficient -- but offset by possibly less need to let the engine run at very high RPMs for heavy power climbing/accelerating by using more of that stored battery power. I'm not surprised if MPG is close.

And the "grain of salt" for 50+ mile range is driving speed and to some extent ambient temperature and heat/defrost usage. I've personally gotten 55 miles of actual range twice (starting fully charged, driving until EV 0.0) -- by taking slower ~40MPH routes, which admittedly took a lot longer but was fun as a challenge. Much more normal for me is 40-45 miles of actual range, since my commute prior to March was half 75+ freeway and half slower roads. And last winter I had a few ~35 mile days when it was cold for here (30s) and moist, so used heat and defrost, and also drove pretty fast.

The GOM is pretty accurate when driving is the same day after day, but it can be deceiving when varied. After a mountain trip and a charge, the range guess was 60 miles the next day because it was affected by the downhill. But because I'm driving 3-5 miles every few days (and then plugging in again) instead of 40+ at a time, the range showed in the high 50s for weeks, decreasing a mile or 2 at a time as it averages in the "normal" driving. Fun to see, but of course I know I wouldn't actually get that if I drove a full charge.
 
Here in E TN and N GA, the lowest predicted EV range we’ve seen in the winter is around 38 or 39 miles. Most of our local running around doesn’t exceed that by much, if at all. Gas is around $1.79 right now. And electricity is relatively cheap as well (thanks TVA!). I haven’t run the numbers, but assume that gas vs. electric is enough of a “push” not to worry ourselves about.
 
JCA said:
The differences are gear mode when running in HV mode at steady speed/light load, and potentially higher RPM in HV charge that may or may not be quite as efficient
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Honda wouldn't have gone to the trouble of adding all the extra hardware for gear mode unless it was the most efficient way to propel the Clarity PHEV in the range of speeds in which gear mode (Engine drive mode) operates. At speeds lower than 45 mph, the combination of EV drive mode and Hybrid drive mode could be more efficient than Engine drive mode, but it could be that Honda didn't want to make Engine drive mode even more complicated by adding extra gears just to handle those lower speeds.

Here is my latest version of my 3-year old chart showing how various Clarity PHEV modes work (now with these 3 mods):
  1. Replaced the 4 exclamation marks in the Zero-Regen Engine Braking mode diagram with a single question mark.
  2. Removed the 212 hp label from the Engine Drive mode diagram
  3. Added a sentence: Honda's claim of 212 total horsepower remains mysterious
ClarityPHEV-HV-2020.jpg
 
Insightman thanks for the chart update. But of course the hp is only 1 of many mysteries.
- Why turn on the engine to somehow dissipate extra regeneration?
- Why not lock into gear mode on the highway (I probably average year round on the highway 50/50 gear/electric time). It does make me wonder if the gear mode is really worth the extra weight and cost and complexity, and that maybe Honda included it because calculations said it was worth it but then maybe they didn't do enough real world testing to confirm. It will be interesting to see if the feature remains or goes away in future Honda hybrids.
- Why not allow the drive settings to hold between uses?
- Why make the engine rev so quickly in response to hill climbing with high revs even if there's plenty of battery left (I've said before I think this is because they just used the same code as the non-PHEV hybrids to save money]

I'm sure there are many more others can add.
 
Nice chart!

And yeah, I seem to be getting around low 30s EV range now that the weather's colder, seemed to be around 40 earlier in October. It varies considerably depending on how/what you drive, and I still have a very small sample size. The defogger/climate needs to be used here often, and I try to turn it off as often as possible. At low-speed stop-and-go city driving <40 mph, I think 50 EV range is possible. Things seem to plummet quickly once you touch the freeways, use any climate, or once it just gets colder out.

Again, small sample size, but I was getting a solid ~40 mpg on the couple longer highway trips I've taken, whether speeds were around 60 or 80. And that's not counting the time spent coasting/in EV that it uses to spend extra regen.

Still really glad I picked up this Clarity vs one of the "25 mile" range PHEV options, along with the fact that it's the cheapest after rebates and the best driving experience compared to similar classes of vehicles.
 
Dislin said:
Nice chart!

And yeah, I seem to be getting around low 30s EV range now that the weather's colder, seemed to be around 40 earlier in October. It varies considerably depending on how/what you drive, and I still have a very small sample size. The defogger/climate needs to be used here often, and I try to turn it off as often as possible. At low-speed stop-and-go city driving <40 mph, I think 50 EV range is possible. Things seem to plummet quickly once you touch the freeways, use any climate, or once it just gets colder out.

Again, small sample size, but I was getting a solid ~40 mpg on the couple longer highway trips I've taken, whether speeds were around 60 or 80. And that's not counting the time spent coasting/in EV that it uses to spend extra regen.

Still really glad I picked up this Clarity vs one of the "25 mile" range PHEV options, along with the fact that it's the cheapest after rebates and the best driving experience compared to similar classes of vehicles.
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I agree with Dislin. I've never seen 50 EV range because my driving is more freeway at around 70 MPH. It drops into the low 30's during "California" winter nights.
 
David Towle said:
Insightman thanks for the chart update. But of course the hp is only 1 of many mysteries.
- Why turn on the engine to somehow dissipate extra regeneration?
- Why not lock into gear mode on the highway (I probably average year round on the highway 50/50 gear/electric time). It does make me wonder if the gear mode is really worth the extra weight and cost and complexity, and that maybe Honda included it because calculations said it was worth it but then maybe they didn't do enough real world testing to confirm. It will be interesting to see if the feature remains or goes away in future Honda hybrids.
- Why not allow the drive settings to hold between uses?
- Why make the engine rev so quickly in response to hill climbing with high revs even if there's plenty of battery left (I've said before I think this is because they just used the same code as the non-PHEV hybrids to save money]

I'm sure there are many more others can add.
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The 212 HP is a mystery because it's what Honda claims the car can produce, but they don't explain it. Similarly, why does the CR-V hybrid produce 212 HP and the larger-engined Accord Hybrid also produce 212 HP? None of them explained.

Turning on the engine to somehow dissipate extra regeneration is the question I've been yelling out for nearly for 3 years since it first happened to me. The Insight and the Accord Hybrid instead force the starter motor/generator to turn a deadened engine to use up excess regenerated energy. Perhaps the Clarity's greater weight results in a greater amount of regenerated energy than the deadened-engine scheme can dissipate. I don't know why burning more gas was the scheme Honda chose for getting rid of the excess energy and I'm clueless how that scheme gets the job done.

I assume Honda won't lock the car into gear mode because the small, wimpy Atkinson-cycle engine can't handle much of a load. The Clarity PHEV's gear mode is essentially a less-complex version of the came capability first introduced in the Chevy Volt. So both Chevy and Honda came to the conclusion that the most efficient way to propel the car on the highway is through a direct engine-to-wheel gearbox. The Clarity's problem is that it has only one gear, so its gear mode is only viable in a small range of speeds and with a limited load.

I can imagine two possible reasons for not holding the drive settings. The first one is that Honda thought it would make operating the car more confusing (I wouldn't agree, but it's a possibility), and the second one is that it would somehow affect the mileage numbers the Clarity PHEV achieved in the EPA tests because there was no way to guarantee in what mode the car would be operating by default. I really wish HV would hold when I stop for a quick break so I wouldn't use up a lot of battery power before I realized I forgot to press the HV button after powering-up the car.

I've often begged for an "expert mode" screen where you could monitor all kinds of Clarity operating factors (like the factors that HV mode is using to make its mysterious decisions), create "sticky" settings, and change the default settings for certain options. Honda could sell it as a software app that ran on the Clarity. The BMW/MINI world has a 3rd-party Bimmercode app that lets people program the default behavior of their cars, why not Honda?

You are probably correct that the Clarity PHEV shares software with Honda's non-PHEV hybrids. The reason the engine revs so fast going uphill is probably because the small, wimpy Atkinson-cycle engine is tuned for maximum efficiency and that efficiency is achieved at high revs. The mystery about why the Clarity's larger battery isn't called in to help get up a hill while the engine is going wild will remain a mystery until Honda starts talking. I'm sure if they did start talking, the words "maximum overall efficiency" would be spoken in one of their first sentences.
 
David Towle said:
The drop in range was especially stunning for me this Fall. I drive 100% on gas and bring the battery to the max allowed 60% charge with HV Charge before each fillup. We had a drop in average temperature of about 30F from 70 to 40, at 70 I got 49 mpg gas and on the next tank at 40 it dropped to 38, a drop of 22%. No snow tire change, and I did pump up the tires to make up for the cold weather pressure loss. Never used heat until the engine was fully warm. Do owners who drive electric see similar cold weather losses? (Or maybe bigger due to electric heat usage?) The car is stored outside for now so it doesn't have the benefit of a warm garage.

With my old ICE car I would have expected to see a loss of 5% max in these conditions. All data based on measured miles and gas, ignoring the car's calculations. Last winter I got as low as 31 mpg in the depth of winter with the Clarity.

Any explanations why these cars plunge in efficiency so bad in the cold? Are they just so optimized for warm conditions and colder weather ignored? Its also quite noticeable in HV charge required time, it takes about twice as long to recover a given charge in this weather.
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Just finished reading this thread about why my EV miles have decreased. I live in the Los Angeles area and the nights are getting colder when I charge my Clarity on 110v. Use to get mid to high 40s EV. This morning after charging completed I got 38 EV. I will now start my charging in the afternoon and lets see what I get tomorrow.
 
turtleturtle said:
Giving numbers here, today it’s down to 34. High in summer is 52.
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Yes. And if it helps you not worry, mine routinely maxes out at 28 miles this time of year. I live on a steep hill and I find my range is generally lower than most in these forums. And yes, I paid to have my traction battery tested (when the car was newer) to be sure it wasn't defective. Anyway, my advertised GOM range while lower than most see here, has stayed about the same since I bought the car in Sept of 2018. i.e. year over year it hasn't dropped further, but does "get sucky" in winter. My summer range is about 44miles.
 
Dan Albrich said:
Yes. And if it helps you not worry, mine routinely maxes out at 28 miles this time of year. I live on a steep hill and I find my range is generally lower than most in these forums. And yes, I paid to have my traction battery tested (when the car was newer) to be sure it wasn't defective. Anyway, my advertised GOM range while lower than most see here, has stayed about the same since I bought the car in Sept of 2018. i.e. year over year it hasn't dropped further, but does "get sucky" in winter. My summer range is about 44miles.
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