Expected battery for a 2018 model

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Sergi

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Hi. I just got my Clarity! According to the door sticker, it was manufactured on June 2018. I was expecting that the battery would have degraded <10%, so was hopping to get 50ah or a bit higher, but it only has a capacity of 48.44ah, which is a degradation of 12%. With that charge I should get ~41 miles out of it, with San Diego weather, even if the guessometer currently is saying only 36 (that's alarming me, but I hope it just needs time to adjust if the previous owner did a lot of highway driving).

Does that still seem like a reasonable degradation?

Edit: It has 26195 miles, but I would expect age (and how the battery has been treated re changing cycles) to be a more important factor.
 
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From all I know, you are right in line with others with similar age and mileage. Mine has 32k. Last time I checked the battery at nearly 30k, it was at 48 Ah.
 
Yes, I agree. From all we know, this is normal degradation.
If you are patient, drive gently (mostly at speeds of 60 or less) you will likely be happy with the EV mileage and the GOM will adjust accordingly after a while.
 
FWIW: Our 2019 had a capacity of 49.9aH after 18 months and 15K miles. That was just over a year ago. At that time, probably 11K of those miles were on batteries, with a typical daily commute using nearly all of the EV range. The battery had been through at least 200 full charge cycles. It had also sat, fully charged for 6 months, in a garage, during the summer of 2020. The 12V was dead. A lithium jump pack brought the car to life, the 12V battery recovered and has been trouble free for the past 18 months.

During the first 18 months, I did not notice any loss of range when driving the same route under similar conditions. I was not provided a PDI from the selling dealer when the car was purchased new. So, there is no record of the battery capacity at that time. I can only assume that it was near 55aH’s.

We have always just plugged the car in and let it fully charge the battery. No smart charging, no apps, no timed charging. Driving patterns have changed over the past year. Daily driving rarely depletes the battery as it did when commuting to work. We typically use about half the range, then charge it up. After 2 1/2 years and ~28K miles any loss of capacity is hardly noticeable. And I’m sure some are cringing at the abuse we’ve administered to the battery.
 
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Sergi said:
Hi. I just got my Clarity! According to the door sticker, it was manufactured on June 2018. I was expecting that the battery would have degraded <10%, so was hopping to get 50ah or a bit higher, but it only has a capacity of 48.44ah, which is a degradation of 12%. With that charge I should get ~41 miles out of it, with San Diego weather, even if the guessometer currently is saying only 36 (that's alarming me, but I hope it just needs time to adjust if the previous owner did a lot of highway driving).

Does that still seem like a reasonable degradation?

Edit: It has 26195 miles, but I would expect age (and how the battery has been treated re changing cycles) to be a more important factor.
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Most on the formum agree that the range guesstimator is not reliable. Its more of reflection of what has been happening. If you're an aggressive driver like most in Cali the 36 isnt too far off.
 
Hopped in my 2018 Clarity Base this morning and see 53 miles on the GOM. 3 years old and still showing same range as new.
 
Mowcowbell said:
Actually, that's my point that the GOM is exactly that... a guess o meter. Never close to reality.
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I agree. I think, (based on my experience and other's), the range estimator i just a reflection of your last several miles of driving. When i go down a mountain and then continue on a slight down grade for about 10 more miles, my ev range goes up significantly from about 40 miles to about 59 miles. Then later it will change back to the 40 miles when I return to my normal route...(when fully charged). All things considered i still am very pleased with the performance of my Clarity! Especially now... LGB
 
Mowcowbell said:
Actually, that's my point that the GOM is exactly that... a guess o meter. Never close to reality.
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Not true... If your driving patterns and conditions are reasonably consistent, then the GOM is quite good. It cannot predict well when you do something entirely different than your previous drive(s), but many people do basically the same thing (or similar) day after day. It is not just the last several miles that are used for the prediction, but at least the last charge cycle if not the last couple of charges.
 
MrFixit said:
Not true... If your driving patterns and conditions are reasonably consistent, then the GOM is quite good. It cannot predict well when you do something entirely different than your previous drive(s), but many people do basically the same thing (or similar) day after day. It is not just the last several miles that are used for the prediction, but at least the last charge cycle if not the last couple of charges.
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I think that's mostly true for the type of people that you mention. In my case my weekly driving is usually pretty consistent, but it has a "standard variation" to it that tends to throw off the GOM. I mostly do local trips during the week, but then every weekend I do an 80 mile round trip, about half of which is on the freeway. I have learned from experience that when I get on the freeway the estimated miles will be overstated and I will reach 0 quite a bit sooner than it says, so I know to switch to HV sooner than GOM would indicate. Then by the time I am driving home it has adjusted to the freeway driving, and since the last several miles are on slower surface streets, if I want to arrive home with 0 EV miles I have learned to switch to EV about three miles sooner than the GOM would indicate.

The key here is comparing the GOM to actual miles in different situations to build experience in how to best interpret it. Which many of us here have done, I know you have, but my observation is that only a small percentage of owners do this. It's surprising how many people have never even once tracked their actual EV miles, instead making the assumption that the GOM is a reliable indication on which to base an opinion on what type of EV range they are getting. You can tell from the many posts where there is happiness when the GOM is up, and despair when it is down, but if someone asks what the actual miles are they don't have a clue. I'm not criticizing, been there done that when I first got the car, after all there's a number right in front of you, and with nothing else to go by and no obvious reason to question it, many people don't. And tracking actual miles take a little more effort, although having the trip meter automatically reset to 0 every time you charge certainly makes it easier, but a large number of owners don't even know you can do that.

So yes when someone reports what their GOM says, maybe what they are reporting is accurate, but it's just as likely to be totally misleading. No way to know one way or the other unless the poster gives some indication that they know about the need for "calibrating" their GOM to actual miles. Not saying you don't already know this or believe this I'm sure that you do, but it's just something that has to constantly be brought up or else discussions where people are giving their anecdotal stories about their range are just not very useful.
 
Frankwell said:
And tracking actual miles take a little more effort, although having the trip meter automatically reset to 0 every time you charge certainly makes it easier, but a large number of owners don't even know you can do that.
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Yes, I highly recommend this. If the "B" trip is set up to reset with every charge, then the EV Range (GOM) can be directly compared to the actual miles on the "B" trip. This is my normal modus operandi and you can tell at a glance how well your GOM is tracking reality on a given trip.
 
At 60k my GOM works very well when I drive similarly each day, its within a mile or two of actual. I get 65-70 miles per charge this time of year.
 
David Towle said:
At 60k my GOM works very well when I drive similarly each day, its within a mile or two of actual. I get 65-70 miles per charge this time of year.
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What are the driving conditions that lead to the guessometer reporting this high mileage? My 2018 Clarity is in very good condition, but never could it consistently report this mileage, and not at the "quicker" speeds I tend to favor. I have seen it occasionally after an EV drive with lots of downhill. The guessometer also gets very confused when there's a mixture of gas and electric driving.
 
Frankwell said:
I think that's mostly true for the type of people that you mention. In my case my weekly driving is usually pretty consistent, but it has a "standard variation" to it that tends to throw off the GOM. I mostly do local trips during the week, but then every weekend I do an 80 mile round trip, about half of which is on the freeway. I have learned from experience that when I get on the freeway the estimated miles will be overstated and I will reach 0 quite a bit sooner than it says, so I know to switch to HV sooner than GOM would indicate. Then by the time I am driving home it has adjusted to the freeway driving, and since the last several miles are on slower surface streets, if I want to arrive home with 0 EV miles I have learned to switch to EV about three miles sooner than the GOM would indicate.

The key here is comparing the GOM to actual miles in different situations to build experience in how to best interpret it. Which many of us here have done, I know you have, but my observation is that only a small percentage of owners do this. It's surprising how many people have never even once tracked their actual EV miles, instead making the assumption that the GOM is a reliable indication on which to base an opinion on what type of EV range they are getting. You can tell from the many posts where there is happiness when the GOM is up, and despair when it is down, but if someone asks what the actual miles are they don't have a clue. I'm not criticizing, been there done that when I first got the car, after all there's a number right in front of you, and with nothing else to go by and no obvious reason to question it, many people don't. And tracking actual miles take a little more effort, although having the trip meter automatically reset to 0 every time you charge certainly makes it easier, but a large number of owners don't even know you can do that.

So yes when someone reports what their GOM says, maybe what they are reporting is accurate, but it's just as likely to be totally misleading. No way to know one way or the other unless the poster gives some indication that they know about the need for "calibrating" their GOM to actual miles. Not saying you don't already know this or believe this I'm sure that you do, but it's just something that has to constantly be brought up or else discussions where people are giving their anecdotal stories about their range are just not very useful.
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Well stated. The GOM used to report about 32 miles during California winters and when I was driving a mix of gas and electric. Very disappointing --- I thought something was wrong with the car when some are boasting about 60-70+. I've later learned my numbers were not real. My GOM EV numbers are back to "normal" even in our winters now that I am driving primarily EV. I also know that the EV numbers are based on history and only an indication.

The only thing I do know is that the ICE noise bugs me (what were the engineers thinking?) and I much prefer peaceful EV

I haven't touched the trip A and B settings since new. Trip A reports the "MPG" since new and is just under 110 MPG. To me that means I have driven a bit over 40% EV, assuming I'm getting about 40 MPG on HV. Can I change the settings so trip A continues to accumulate and trip B captures just that last trip?
 
d99 said:
What are the driving conditions that lead to the guessometer reporting this high mileage? My 2018 Clarity is in very good condition, but never could it consistently report this mileage, and not at the "quicker" speeds I tend to favor. I have seen it occasionally after an EV drive with lots of downhill. The guessometer also gets very confused when there's a mixture of gas and electric driving.
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Its not just the GOM, its what the car actually does. I drive conservatively, coast when possible, am in Florida where roads are straight and flat, and most driving is stop and go maximum around 50 mph. And I rarely use HVAC just the fan.
 
i have 2018 Clarity with 55K miles on it. during the week my charge showing about 40-42mi range. normally come home with 10-8 mi left on charge. on weekends, i drive around town more and charge more, thus able to increase my range to 42-45mi. FL weather now requires ac usage or windows open in early morning, before the humidity sky rockets. so far i haven't had to fill up for over 1200 miles. i do have regular tires on car now, not LRR style. the eco tires suppose to add another 10-12% range, but they not worth the $$ for 40-50k mil you can get out them. when i drive in way that i can get more miles then EV used, my range increases up on next charge. try that. go drive around town on low speed (under 50 w/plenty stop and go traffic) you should be able to increase your range that way.
good luck
 
Mine is a 2018 Touring bought in Jan/19 with 27K miles and original tires, which I keep inflated at 37 PSI, and haven't noticed any difference in EV range. In fact, I would say now it's even better than when the car was new, back in LA. Then the GOM mileage was way less, it rarely made it to 50 even in summer, but I had to commute 20 miles from Northridge to West LA through the Sepulveda Pass, pretty steep slopes to and from. When I didn't have a chance to charge at work I would arrive home with 7-8 miles left, one day I came back with 11 and that was a celebration. Here in Vegas, mostly flat or light to moderate slopes, driving in the city stop 'n' go traffic (no freeway), doing 5 to 15 mile trips and coasting as much as possible, I get consistently 60-63 GOM miles from April to November, 45-50 November to March, depending on the actual temperature, and never have to put gas (haha, I use it only for long trips).
 
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