Incorrect claims for EV distance

[Thomas Kennedy]

I just purchased a 2018 Honda Clarity PHEV Touring vehicle .

Great car after 350 miles but I am seeing only 38 EV miles on a full charge, not the 48 claimed .

Are others seeing this as well?

 

[JustAnotherPoorDriver]

Have you been using the heater? Lots of highway?

The estimates are based on how you are driving. Driving slowly in the City will give you more range than at highway speeds (especially above 70). In NY, I'm regularly getting 50+ miles, even in cool weather, as long as I only use the heated seats. Using the electric heater (which is what happens when you use heat without the engine) will reduce your range by an amazing amount.

This has been covered in lots of other threads

 

[Sandroad]

I just purchased a 2018 Honda Clarity PHEV Touring vehicle .

Great car after 350 miles but I am seeing only 38 EV miles on a full charge, not the 48 claimed .

Are others seeing this as well?

Yup, completely normal. Winter range is less, summer range is more. Annual average for us will be over 50 miles. There are LOTS of posts on this; run a search using "range" as the search term and you'll be reading for a long time.

 

[Thomas Mitchell]

Yep, normal. I had posted about the same thing a while back. Car originally reflected 47+ miles EV and then after some time driving it in colder temps, it dropped down to the high 30s. We just drove down to AZ for Christmas and now EV mileage shows 48+ after a full charge.

 

[PHEV Newbie]

Have you been using the heater? Lots of highway?

The estimates are based on how you are driving. Driving slowly in the City will give you more range than at highway speeds (especially above 70). In NY, I'm regularly getting 50+ miles, even in cool weather, as long as I only use the heated seats. Using the electric heater (which is what happens when you use heat without the engine) will reduce your range by an amazing amount.

This has been covered in lots of other threads

EVs are most efficient at low speeds. Tesla says their cars are most efficient at 23 mph and the range drops some every mph above that. It's probably similar for the Clarity. Most of my EV driving is in town. In the summer, a 16.5 mile loop I do a couple of times per day consistently uses 19% of the battery (as indicated by the Hondalink app). If the battery measurement is accurate, that's an 86 mile range under such conditions. Not sure if it can actually get that but I once drove 70 miles on a single charge around town and the battery still had range left when I got home! Now that it's winter, my range has dropped significantly, especially when I heat the cabin, even modestly.

BTW, some people may not like the way the Clarity looks but it is designed to be very aerodynamic to maximize EV range and HV mileage. The Outlander PHEV, which is less aerodynamic, only provides 22 mile EPA EV range even though its battery is more than 2/3 the size of the Clarity's. Also, its gas mileage is much worse than the Clarity in hybrid mode.

 

[Viking79]

I just purchased a 2018 Honda Clarity PHEV Touring vehicle .

Great car after 350 miles but I am seeing only 38 EV miles on a full charge, not the 48 claimed .

Are others seeing this as well?

I hesitate to say that it is a claimed range of 48 miles all electric, it is the label required by the EPA, and during EPA testing the car will see 0-47 miles all electric under similar conditions, if you were to repeat the EPA test. The 0 meaning the engine can start if it needs to, in practice it doesn't randomly start very often. As with car gas mileage, real world results will vary.

I would suspect that you will see 25 to 75 mile all electric range most of the time. You might see 25 in sub 0 F (-18 C) weather and you might get 75 driving 25 mph around an oval track. Typically you should see mid 30s (winter/cold/high speed) to low 50s (summer/mild weather).

Your 38 mile EV range probably means it is either colder or you are driving at highway speeds, or maybe both. For reference, my Wife's Clarity recently showed 34 miles EV range. It has been around 35 F and was driving 75 mph on the Interstate for the previous trip.

(I had several edits above)

 

[Sandroad]

BTW, some people may not like the way the Clarity looks but it is designed to be very aerodynamic to maximize EV range and HV mileage. The Outlander PHEV, which is less aerodynamic, only provides 22 mile EPA EV range even though its battery is more than 2/3 the size of the Clarity's. Also, its gas mileage is much worse than the Clarity in hybrid mode.

And the Outlander is AWD, which certainly pulls down EV and gas range.

 

[Thomas Kennedy]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply!

 

[Thomas Kennedy]

Yep, normal. I had posted about the same thing a while back. Car originally reflected 47+ miles EV and then after some time driving it in colder temps, it dropped down to the high 30s. We just drove down to AZ for Christmas and now EV mileage shows 48+ after a full charge.

Thank you for your reply!

I wonder if there is a simple function for temperature affecting EV mileage and if it is linear or logarithmic?

 

[Thomas Kennedy]

EVs are most efficient at low speeds. Tesla says their cars are most efficient at 23 mph and the range drops some every mph above that. It's probably similar for the Clarity. Most of my EV driving is in town. In the summer, a 16.5 mile loop I do a couple of times per day consistently uses 19% of the battery (as indicated by the Hondalink app). If the battery measurement is accurate, that's an 86 mile range under such conditions. Not sure if it can actually get that but I once drove 70 miles on a single charge around town and the battery still had range left when I got home! Now that it's winter, my range has dropped significantly, especially when I heat the cabin, even modestly.

BTW, some people may not like the way the Clarity looks but it is designed to be very aerodynamic to maximize EV range and HV mileage. The Outlander PHEV, which is less aerodynamic, only provides 22 mile EPA EV range even though its battery is more than 2/3 the size of the Clarity's. Also, its gas mileage is much worse than the Clarity in hybrid mode.

Thank you for your reply!

I am using the heater AND driving on the highway. Average temperature in Western Massachusetts this time of year is in the low 30's during the day and 20's to teens at night.

To me, the car looks great - like money! Tesla boats the lowest coefficient of drag (COD) at 0.24. Anyone know or hazard a guess at what the Honda Clarity PHEV is for COD?

 

[Thomas Kennedy]

I hesitate to say that it is a claimed range of 48 miles all electric, it is the label required by the EPA, and during EPA testing the car will see 0-47 miles all electric under similar conditions, if you were to repeat the EPA test. The 0 meaning the engine can start if it needs to, in practice it doesn't randomly start very often. As with car gas mileage, real world results will vary.

I would suspect that you will see 25 to 75 mile all electric range most of the time. You might see 25 in sub 0 F (-18 C) weather and you might get 75 driving 25 mph around an oval track. Typically you should see mid 30s (winter/cold/high speed) to low 50s (summer/mild weather).

Your 38 mile EV range probably means it is either colder or you are driving at highway speeds, or maybe both. For reference, my Wife's Clarity recently showed 34 miles EV range. It has been around 35 F and was driving 75 mph on the Interstate for the previous trip.

(I had several edits above)

Thank you for the reply!

Do you know where I would find the EPA test specifications?

 

[dnb]

Thank you for your reply!

I wonder if there is a simple function for temperature affecting EV mileage and if it is linear or logarithmic?

Electric has a huge loss for heating, which is why the car turns on the front heat seater (to the 1st of 3 power levels) to save on energy.

Make sure to use the pre-conditioning (set a schedule through the app for 30 min before you want to leave). That will help a lot with winter (or super hot summer) conditions.

 

[Viking79]

Thank you for the reply!

Do you know where I would find the EPA test specifications?

Sure, US06 (SFTP) is the more aggressive test, and I think they combine that with the older less aggressive test (FTP):
https://www.epa.gov/emission-standa...-or-supplemental-federal-test-procedures-sftp

Here is the more general page with all the tests:
https://www.epa.gov/emission-standa...sion-standards-light-duty-vehicles-and-trucks

For EV range, I am not certain which test that uses. Usually, manufacturers run their own tests and report data to EPA, and the EPA certifies it (but has option to run their own testing).

Point is it is just a number for particular driving situation, and more importantly isn't going to include heating. They probably need more numbers for EV range that include heating. Heat comes almost for free on internal combustion engines (heat engines...) due to how thermally inefficient they are.

 

[insightman]

FYI, from the Honda engineers' SAE paper preview, here's a graph showing All-Electric Range vs Speed (effects of temperature not included). It shows the you get the most range when traveling at about 28 mph. The 15-mile max range for the "Previous PHEV" suggests this curve represents the 2014 Accord Plug-In Hybrid. You can see that someone at Honda decided 100 mph was fast enough for the Clarity, but was the 2014 Accord Plug-In limited to a top speed of just 75 mph?

 

[JustAnotherPoorDriver]

You can see that someone at Honda decided 100 mph was fast enough for the Clarity, but was the 2014 Accord Plug-In limited to a top speed of just 75 mph?

View attachment 3195

I doubt is was limited; more likely that's what they had data for from the initial testing of the old Accord and they weren't going to refresh one to test it (it would need to factory fresh condition for the test to be accurate))

 

[Viking79]

20 mile range is pretty impressive for 100 mph. It is entertaining to watch how fast the battery drops in the i3 near that speed (much less aerodynamic). Not that I have tested it, of course, but it might be less than 1 mile per kWh.