First highway trip review.

[Mowcowbell]

I took my Clarity for its first highway trip. Drove from OKC to Arlington, TX (about 225 miles each way). Ran the vehicle in HV mode the entire way, left my house with 95% SOC and arrived in Arlington with 60%. Drove speed limit of 70mph the entire way. Noticed no 'angry bees' or excessive engine revving during the trip. Most of the time, I could not tell if the ICE was even running unless I turned on the gauge to show power flow.

I did not charge the vehicle while in Arlington as all the charging stations in the area are very expensive and I didn't think it was worth the hassle and money.

2 people and luggage were in the vehicle for the trip.

The biggest complaint I have is the excessive tire noise that the Michelin tires make when driving on grooved concrete roads. I-35 from the Oklahoma state line to the Texas Motor Speedway is almost completely grooved concrete. The Michelins emit a high pitched 'whistle' on these surfaces, and it was so loud I gave up on trying to listen to the radio and just muted it.

Ran into very heavy rain on the way home. Didn't notice any traction issues with the tires even on the wet roads.

I logged 51.5 mpg on the entire round trip, so very pleased with the fuel economy.

 

[fotomoto]

Ran the vehicle in HV mode the entire way, left my house with 95% SOC and arrived in Arlington with 60%. Drove speed limit of 70mph the entire way. Noticed no 'angry bees' or excessive engine revving during the trip. Most of the time, I could not tell if the ICE was even running unless I turned on the gauge to show power flow.

This is so awesome to hear. TRUE auto mode and something I've been waiting for. The auto mode in my CMax basically uses the EV portion up as quickly as possible then resorts to standard HV operation. So say a 30 mile trip to the next town in Auto mode would result in using the 20 EV miles all on the highway and using HV mode around town=dumb.

Ran into very heavy rain on the way home.

Since you don't mention it, I'll take it that no rear wiper was NOT an issue at speed. That's been my experience.

I logged 51.5 mpg on the entire round trip,

Nice but I think that is including the EV miles as free. Most folks get in the 40's in HV mode with a depleted battery.

 

[KClark]

Ran into very heavy rain on the way home. Didn't notice any traction issues with the tires even on the wet roads.

Last winter in what passes for heavy rain in southern CA I always thought that the wipers needed another faster speed. It seemed like the maximum speed was really only a medium speed and it was having problems keeping the windshield clear. I wondered what they would be like in really heavy rain I've experienced in other parts of the country. Did you notice that?

 

[Mowcowbell]

Last winter in what passes for heavy rain in southern CA I always thought that the wipers needed another faster speed. It seemed like the maximum speed was really only a medium speed and it was having problems keeping the windshield clear. I wondered what they would be like in really heavy rain I've experienced in other parts of the country. Did you notice that?

I didn't notice any problem with the speed of the wipers. The rain was so heavy, I had to slow to about 45 mph at times while driving through the thunderstorm.

I do apply Meguiars Quik Wax to the windshield which did help with getting the water to bead up and flow upwards off the windshield. For that matter, I apply the wax to all exterior glass.

 

[MajorAward]

I took my Clarity for its first highway trip.

Last week I drove to Birmingham from NW Atlanta (about 150 miles one-way) to visit my son at UAB. I left with full battery, pushed HV mode as soon as two lanes turned to four, drove 70-75 and turned off HV as I exited I-20 near the UAB campus. After unloading supplies at the dorm, we drove around campus a bit, then went to Taco Mama, a local dive, for lunch. An hour later I dropped my son off, hit HV mode and was on I-20 back to Atlanta.

Like Mowcowbell said, no drama, just a quiet hum. I arrived home with 19 miles EV range left. After accounting for EV miles and refilling the tank, my calculation was 43.7MPG for the HV portion of the trip. That may not be Prius good, but most of my driving is in EV mode, and where I live that "gas" is about $1.38 per gallon.

 

[KentuckyKen]

Ahem...RainX ON the windshield and you don’t even need the wipers over 40 mph.

And to be completely honest you need to account for the SOC that was used on the trip when you compute the mpg. On a 500 mile round trip in HV, it reduced my mpg from 49 to 48 mpg.

 

[Mowcowbell]

Ahem...RainX ON the windshield and you don’t even need the wipers over 40 mph.

And to be completely honest you need to account for the SOC that was used on the trip when you compute the mpg. On a 500 mile round trip in HV, it reduced my mpg from 49 to 48 mpg.

Tried RainX. Unimpressed. Never could get the haziness in the glass to go away. The Meguiars goes on and buffs clear with minimal effort. Plus, the Meguiars can be used on the painted surface of the car.

Unfortunately my 'dumb' Zencar EVSE doesn't track energy consumption. I could guessestimate that I charged the battery with about 15 KWh which costs me about .11 cents per KWh. Otherwise all I can calculate is number of miles driven / number of gallons used.

 

[fotomoto]

could guessestimate that I charged the battery with about 15 KWh

Roughly a 1/2 gallon equivalent of electricity for easy math if you used the whole battery.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Roughly a 1/2 gallon equivalent of electricity for easy math if you used the whole battery.

Battery gives about 47 miles on average, and some have reported 47 mpg*, wouldn’t that be roughly a one gallon equivalent with full battery usage?

*Our highway trips have yielded roughly 42mpg.

 

[fotomoto]

Gasoline is incredibly energy dense. EPA rates one gallon of gas as the equivalent of 33 kwh of electricity. The Clarity pack uses about 15 kwh to fill thus approx 1/2 of a gallon of gas. So it's getting 47 miles out of that 1/2 gallon! NOICE. EV's and batteries are incredibly efficient but not energy dense.

 

[MNSteve]

Gasoline is incredibly energy dense. EPA rates one gallon of gas as the equivalent of 33 kwh of electricity. The Clarity pack uses about 15 kwh to fill thus approx 1/2 of a gallon of gas. So it's getting 47 miles out of that 1/2 gallon! NOICE. EV's and batteries are incredibly efficient but not energy dense.

You are assuming a perfect conversion of the energy in gasoline into useful work. An electric motor is going to come close, but a gasoline engine is not that efficient.

 

[fotomoto]

You are assuming a perfect conversion of the energy in gasoline into useful work.

Yes a rough, simple conversion.

Prius engines are the most efficient that I know of at 40% efficiency with the majority of that energy (mainly) going out the tailpipe. The big advantage is the energy density of getting over 300 miles range in a very, very small and light container. That's the beauty of dual fuels we PHEV owners enjoy: smooth, quiet, highly efficient daily travel with widely available rapid fill range for extended travel.

 

[Mowcowbell]

That's exactly why I ended up buying a PHEV. Oklahoma is a EV charging network wasteland. Public J1772 chargers are almost non-existent, so I needed a vehicle that I could drive 300 miles without getting stranded. The highway trip proved to me that the Clarity is fully capable of highway trips like any ICE vehicle.

 

[LAF]

I took my Clarity for its first highway trip. Drove from OKC to Arlington, TX (about 225 miles each way). Ran the vehicle in HV mode the entire way, left my house with 95% SOC and arrived in Arlington with 60%. Drove speed limit of 70mph the entire way. Noticed no 'angry bees' or excessive engine revving during the trip. Most of the time, I could not tell if the ICE was even running unless I turned on the gauge to show power flow.

I did not charge the vehicle while in Arlington as all the charging stations in the area are very expensive and I didn't think it was worth the hassle and money.

2 people and luggage were in the vehicle for the trip.

The biggest complaint I have is the excessive tire noise that the Michelin tires make when driving on grooved concrete roads. I-35 from the Oklahoma state line to the Texas Motor Speedway is almost completely grooved concrete. The Michelins emit a high pitched 'whistle' on these surfaces, and it was so loud I gave up on trying to listen to the radio and just muted it.

Ran into very heavy rain on the way home. Didn't notice any traction issues with the tires even on the wet roads.

I logged 51.5 mpg on the entire round trip, so very pleased with the fuel economy.

Better milage than the Accord Hybrid! Why would anyone pay more to buy that car over the Clarity, not to mention the plain Accord. Its amazing to me that this car, with its rebates is not flying off the dealer showroom floors.

 

[The Gadgeteer]

Great car but be aware the tire inflation kit, like all tire inflammation kits, is only slightly better than useless.

 

[RataTejas]

Better milage than the Accord Hybrid! Why would anyone pay more to buy that car over the Clarity, not to mention the plain Accord. Its amazing to me that this car, with its rebates is not flying off the dealer showroom floors.

Rebates and available stock vary greatly depending on region.

 

[MNSteve]

That's exactly why I ended up buying a PHEV. Oklahoma is a EV charging network wasteland. Public J1772 chargers are almost non-existent, so I needed a vehicle that I could drive 300 miles without getting stranded. The highway trip proved to me that the Clarity is fully capable of highway trips like any ICE vehicle.

I bought the Clarity as a short-distance vehicle to use for local errands, and of course it is great for that. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is an excellent road car for longer trips. It has replaced our CRV for such trips unless we have a lot of cargo.