Please forgive what might be a series of stupid questions, but I've been trying to figure this out and have read so much that I am completely lost. Completely. I keep thinking people are using different terms for the same thing, but I am not sure.
As of now I understand there is Normal, EV, Econ, Sport, HV, and HV Charge.
Is Normal what I'm using when I push the D button and nothing else?
What is EV and how do I use it? At first I thought that is what I use when I push the D button, but now I'm not so sure.
Is the left button with the green icon on it Econ? Is this EV? Do I have to push it to use it? When would I?
Where is the EV button if there is one?
Why is the owners manual written like everyone intuitively understands all this? - rhetorical.
I'm beginning to think I'm too old to own this car. I spent my life working with computers and it frustrates me beyond belief that I cannot research this and get answers that make sense.
Thank you to anyone that can make all this clear to me. Once you do I have to teach my wife.
The above answers are really good but don't worry if it doesn't all make sense now, be sure to bookmark their comments and read them again later after you get more familiar with the systems.
If you are looking for the simplest explanation either for yourself or for your wife, it would be the commonly heard admonition "Just drive it!" In other words the only buttons that you really need to push are Power, D and R (well I guess you don't really push R, you lift it). You don't really need to know or think about modes, the car will handle all of that for you. You will get great mpg, especially if you charge up before you drive off, but even if you don't charge up you will still get very respectable mph for a car this size.
Okay but likely at some point curiosity will get the best of you and you will want to at least know what mode the car is running in at a particular moment, and why it acts and sounds differently at times. And you might wonder if you might benefit from experimenting with the different modes.
So the first thing to know is that if you "just drive it" you will start out in Normal mode which is the default. And you will start out in EV mode. As pointed out by KentuckyKen there is no indicator for these modes, unlike Econ, Sport and HV which all have indicators when they are turned on. Now there is an "EV" indication above the speedometer but that does not indicate EV mode, as far as I know it's main purpose is just to create confusion.
As I mentioned when you start out you will automatically be in EV mode, assuming the battery has at least some charge. It will remain in EV mode as long as you have EV miles remaining. EV range is indicated by bars on the left side of the screen, as well as numerically indicated on the screen depending on what is being displayed on the screen at that moment. When EV range reaches 0 it will automatically switch to HV mode. Now to add a little more confusion, when that happens it does not indicate HV mode on the screen. It only indicates HV mode on the screen when you push the HV button. Which you are not doing right now because remember you are "just driving it".
While you are driving, sometimes you will be driving only electric, sometimes gas, sometimes both. That's not for you to worry about, or even notice if you don't want to, it knows what it is doing. But if your curiosity gets the best of you and you do glance at the EV range, you will notice that in general whenever the EV range is above 0 the car will normally drive very quiet. After EV range reaches 0 and it switches to HV mode the gas engine will operate, but oddly you won't always hear it. For one thing the Clarity is well insulated, but also even when EV range is 0 the car will still be using battery power much of the time. How can that be? Because EV range 0 doesn't mean the battery is empty, it just means that you will no longer be driving all electric, it will be a combination of gas and electric, just like a normal hybrid. That's why it is called HV mode because it is operating like a standard hybrid.
Sometimes even when your EV range is greater than 0 the gas engine (aka ICE) may come on briefly. This is normal. There are whole threads about this with lots of consternation and hair pulling, but all you need to know is that it is normal and you aren't doing anything wrong.
Also in some specific situations, usually related to climbing a grade or incline, the gas engine may become very loud, even alarmingly loud. Believe it or not this is normal also, but it shouldn't happen very often, just know that it is no cause for alarm. Your car is not being harmed, it is just being efficient in a very noisy way. And yes there are hair-pulling threads about this topic also.
Okay at some point after you gain some experience and also start noticing more what the car is doing, you may (optionally) decide to take at least some manual control over what is going on. To keep it simple and less confusing probably the best one to start off with is the HV button, and use it for one simple purpose, to delay using up the EV range. After driving for awhile you will probably notice that on surface streets the gas engine is more noticeable when it is running, but on the highway you hardly notice it. This is because at highway speeds you have a lot of road and wind noise drowning it out, and also when it gets into its "gear mode" driving steady over about 45 mph the gas engine gets even quieter. You don't have to think about trying to get into gear mode, or really even know about it, it's all automatic. KentuckyKen just mentioned it as part of his explanation about how the car works.
The main point is that most people would prefer if possible to use the gas engine on the highway instead of on surface streets. Of course if your entire trip will be within your EV range it won't matter, just drive EV the whole time. But let's say you are going on a trip that is 100 miles round trip. Even with a full charge you will be driving HV about half of the time. If you do nothing it will use up the EV range first, and once you get on the highway at say 70 mph the EV range will get used up pretty quickly, then you will be HV for the remainder of your trip until you arrive home. But if you prefer to not use up all of the EV range at the beginning of the trip but save some of it for later when you will be driving on surface streets, well that's what HV mode is there for. When you get on the highway, press the HV button, in this case since the button was pushed you will see the HV indicator on the screen. After pushing the HV button you will notice that EV range will continue to decrease briefly, then stabilize and remain pretty much the same as long as you stay in HV mode. When you later are on a surface street and want to switch to EV mode, simply push the HV button to turn it off. Or if you stop somewhere and turn the car off, the next time you start the car it will automatically be in EV mode, you don't have to press anything.
The bottom line, if you try HV mode and think "I like this, I enjoy controlling when the gas engine comes on" then HV is something you will want to use. However if you think "Do I really have to worry about this?", no you don't, if you don't see a benefit in using HV mode then don't use it. Or maybe you want to use it but your wife doesn't, or vice versa. It's all good.
The other two modes, Eco and Sport, you may never need. Sport as the name implies gives a more lively feel to the accelerator pedal, and more control over paddle braking. Eco mode doesn't change the driving feel that much, but it does use the heat and air conditioning systems more conservatively to save power. Eco mode in one sense is for people who are coming from previous hybrids and enjoy maximizing their mpg, even small improvements are a challenging goal to them. However you have to press the Eco button each time you start out, otherwise it defaults to Normal. If you feel that is too much trouble, then just drive it.
