High speed, high elevation, mountain mpg

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Pooky said:
e-CVT is a marketing term. The Clarity just has one reduction gear for the electric traction motor—nothing "variable" about it.

Cheers
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Had to look this one up and you’re right. Blurb from an online article below, and seriously how confusing.

“That's where the couplet of electric motors (so named because of their tight packaging) comes in. One motor--the propulsion motor--is used to drive the wheels, while the other is connected directly to the engine and is used primarily as a generator.

Under most driving conditions, the gasoline engine is used to used to generate electricity, which is fed to the propulsion motor by the generator. Weirdly, Honda calls this mode eCVT, implying that there is a continuously-variable transmission at work.

In this mode, the engine will either be off or revving in a way that doesn't correspond to road speed; surely a strange sensation for those who haven't driven a Volt (or, to some degree a conventional CVT powertrain).”
 
If you really want to understand how the Clarity "transmission" works, this video is excellent:


It has been referenced here before...
 
Still on my to-do list is trying to climb hills in "HV charge" mode to see if that'll be quieter than HV. The theory is that the goal of charge mode is to achieve ~55% state of charge by running the engine a bit more than needed for as long as it takes; but current state of charge doesn't influence engine rpm much. As opposed to HV, where the goal is to maintain some specific point of charge (set whenever HV button was pushed), and the engine gets angry when current state of charge moves too far away from that set point.
 
I got home from the trip yesterday.

Total miles driven in the last 26 days, 6171. 2362 to Mom's, due to blizzard backtrack. 2127 coming home. 1682 in the three weeks there. Overall, 37.1 mpg.

I'm satisfied with the Clarity as a road tripper. It was comfortable and handled 35 mph crosswinds gusting to 50+ well. The LKAS needed some assistance, but it was still better than not having it. Had to turn it and Road Departure Mitigation off through some of the construction zones.

Gene 2020 Honda Clarity
Sent from my Pixel 3 using Inside EVs mobile app
 
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