EV Range Down 25%!

[Yonno]

I have a 2018 Clarity Touring that I leased in May 2018. I now have about 25K miles on it and just recently noticed a large drop in my EV range on a full charge - lower than the cold weather impact I experienced last winter. All summer long I was getting ranges in the 47-55 mile range on a full charge. I have not had over 40 miles on a full charge in the past 3-4 weeks — even with temps in the 70-85 degree range outside. This is a HUGE disappointment to me. I’ve not called my dealer yet because they are so lame in terms of knowledge about this car in my past service visits. (Honda North in Danvers, MA) My daily commute is 43 miles each way and I’m able to L2 charge at home and work. When I first bought the car it was no problem to do the entire commute in EV mode - now I am having to use HV mode for 10+ miles of each trip — not what I was expecting when I leased this car.

Anyone else have similar experience? Suggestions?


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[insightman]

Other than a stuck brake caliper, nearly flat tires, or some detached underbody panels hanging low, your battery is a likely suspect. Your dealer should be capable of performing a battery pack capacity test for you. It doesn't sound like your battery is bad enough to trigger a warranty replacement, but your fellow forum members want to know what the number is so we can speculate on the cause of your loss of EV range. Many forum members report their battery pack capacity was 55 Amp-hours when their car was new. Honda will replace a battery pack that tests less than 36.6 Amp-hours.

 

[Dan Albrich]

Not trying to throw any fuel on any fires, I can say my car which appears to be unique in these forums take about a 50% hit each time the weather gets cold. My best EV range is about 47 miles. My winter EV range goes down to about 25. Se la vi.

In my mind not a big deal. The car gets great gas mileage so while I do burn gas in cold weather and not during the summer, I don't burn nearly as much gas as I used to.

In my specific case here's the reasons (long worked out):-
I live in Oregon where defrost is a must. So likely the heater is on, the AC is also on (due to defrost setting), heated seats, and I live up about 1100 feet from the valley floor.

I literally cannot turn off the defrost in the winter time. Our air is simply moist all the time and I can't see out the front windshield without defrost running almost constantly. Earlier on I didn't understand why this was occurring and I assumed it was my large battery. My dealer refused to read it without full-payment so I bought the readout. If 55 amp hours is nominal, I think mine was 53.2. So not the default but not extreme bad either.

So not sure if this helps or not, but yeah, not uncommon situation for me. We're not real cold yet in western Oregon, but my EV range is down to 35 miles tonight-- it will continue to dip lower until it hits about 25 miles when real winter hits.

-Dan

 

[jdonalds]

For the first year we would get 48-52 in the summer. This second year it had been stuck at 41 and beginning to drop as the weather cools. That's more than a 20% drop. Honda calls it normal and won't do anything about it.

 

[Landshark]

Yonno,

Have your driving habits or conditions changed since you noticed the decline in EV range? Brisk accelerations and higher speeds will deplete EV range rapidly.

The car seems to estimate EV range based on previous driving history. Yesterday my commute was 46 miles RT, rush hour in both directions. Remaining EV range was 19, so potentially 65 total, which would have been a new best. This morning, after L1 charging, EV range showed 67, one of the highest I have seen.

Today was the same commute, 46 miles but only 9 miles remaining. The big difference was the return trip was not in rush hour. It was mostly 65-70mph. I swear the car could go 100 miles in EV in rush hour traffic, I just don’t want to spend 4 hours running the test.

Honda has set a fairly conservative charging protocol for the batteries. It allows a maximum state of charge of ~85-90% and a minimum SOC of ~20%. It is natural/normal for Lithium batteries to lose capacity over time. A common standard is that they will maintain 70% of their original capacity after 3000-5000 charge/discharge cycles.

The warranty covers the batteries down to ~66%, so Honda has given themselves some cushion. Combine the conservative charging protocol with the ability to modify the charging parameters to extract more capacity, and I can’t imagine many batteries failing under warranty. These are high quality Panasonic cells that are being protected and nurtured by the engineers at Honda.

 

[Mowcowbell]

40F outside temp this morning. Fully charged my Clarity using the OEM evse on 240v. Showing 61 miles range. Just shows that number is only a guess-estimate.

 

[LAF]

I have a 2018 Clarity Touring that I leased in May 2018. I now have about 25K miles on it and just recently noticed a large drop in my EV range on a full charge - lower than the cold weather impact I experienced last winter. All summer long I was getting ranges in the 47-55 mile range on a full charge. I have not had over 40 miles on a full charge in the past 3-4 weeks — even with temps in the 70-85 degree range outside. This is a HUGE disappointment to me. I’ve not called my dealer yet because they are so lame in terms of knowledge about this car in my past service visits. (Honda North in Danvers, MA) My daily commute is 43 miles each way and I’m able to L2 charge at home and work. When I first bought the car it was no problem to do the entire commute in EV mode - now I am having to use HV mode for 10+ miles of each trip — not what I was expecting when I leased this car.

Anyone else have similar experience? Suggestions?


Sent from my iPad using Inside EVs

Are you spending more time on the highway- that will do it. Mine is almost 2 years old and 21k miles with no loss ofEV


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[David Towle]

Not trying to throw any fuel on any fires, I can say my car which appears to be unique in these forums take about a 50% hit each time the weather gets cold. My best EV range is about 47 miles. My winter EV range goes down to about 25. Se la vi.

In my mind not a big deal. The car gets great gas mileage so while I do burn gas in cold weather and not during the summer, I don't burn nearly as much gas as I used to.

In my specific case here's the reasons (long worked out):-
I live in Oregon where defrost is a must. So likely the heater is on, the AC is also on (due to defrost setting), heated seats, and I live up about 1100 feet from the valley floor.

-Dan

You don't need to use the defrost button except at startup. Go to the climate control screen and push the far right button which is defrost plus floor. Turn off the AC. Run the car in HV mode and use whatever level of heat and fan is required to keep the windows clear. Also make sure the system is not in recirc.

One other thing that helps a lot with defrost is good cleaning of the insides of the windows. Use lots of windex on the whole window then remove it with a small squeegee, just use a towel to clean up around the edges.

 

[Agzand]

I have a 2018 Clarity Touring that I leased in May 2018. I now have about 25K miles on it and just recently noticed a large drop in my EV range on a full charge - lower than the cold weather impact I experienced last winter. All summer long I was getting ranges in the 47-55 mile range on a full charge. I have not had over 40 miles on a full charge in the past 3-4 weeks — even with temps in the 70-85 degree range outside. This is a HUGE disappointment to me. I’ve not called my dealer yet because they are so lame in terms of knowledge about this car in my past service visits. (Honda North in Danvers, MA) My daily commute is 43 miles each way and I’m able to L2 charge at home and work. When I first bought the car it was no problem to do the entire commute in EV mode - now I am having to use HV mode for 10+ miles of each trip — not what I was expecting when I leased this car.

Anyone else have similar experience? Suggestions?


Sent from my iPad using Inside EVs

I would say first thing check tire pressure and look for any suspect noise from suspension or wheels.

 

[css28]

For the first year we would get 48-52 in the summer. This second year it had been stuck at 41 and beginning to drop as the weather cools. That's more than a 20% drop. Honda calls it normal and won't do anything about it.

Please keep us posted on this, if it continues the trend.

 

[Marvin Gordon]

Geez.. I must be one of the lucky ones. I live in St. Paul and have a 2018 I purchased in August of 2018. My range during summer months has been ~60Miles both years. The lowest during the dead of winter was ~27. That's not PREDICTED range, that's actual miles.

 

[Ken7]

40F outside temp this morning. Fully charged my Clarity using the OEM evse on 240v. Showing 61 miles range. Just shows that number is only a guess-estimate.

Are you talking about the PHEV? At 40F I would find 61 miles beyond extraordinary. We’ve never even gotten that in any summertime temps. Hard to believe.

 

[Mowcowbell]

Are you talking about the PHEV? At 40F I would find 61 miles beyond extraordinary. We’ve never even gotten that in any summertime temps. Hard to believe.

Yes, mine is a PHEV. I doubt I get 61 miles out of this charge in real-world driving.

 

[4sallypat]

60 mile range is normal for me when I don't use the cabin heater or A/C.
Using just the vent air, I get the most miles from the PHEV.

I noticed when my wife drives it during the summer, she leaves the A/C on all the time and in winter, she leaves the heater on - getting 45-50 miles per charge.

I tend to drive without any heating or cooling most of the year and love the range winter or summer....

 

[RickSE]

I’m down about 20% on the Guess O’Meter since the Boston temps started dropping into the 50s overnight. During the summer my stated range was ~55 but at the end of my 15 mile commute I often had about 35 miles of range remaining so it’s always about 10% off in its stated range. I think in “real” terms the range is down now about 10% overall no matter what the GOM is telling me. Still amazing range over any other plug in and I can’t get why they can’t sell these. I guess gas is still too cheap.