Insideev Test Drive: Honda Clarity, 7/14/2019

Ken7 said:
Wow, lots of Clarity hate there. Amazing.
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I think the Clarity is a great car for the right use case. For me it is the ability to drive the vast majority of miles all electric- but have the range on demand offered in hybrid mode (gas and battery). That and safety, comfort, handling and interior/exterior styling round out the "package."

There are only two areas that could potentially change my opinion- poor reliability and high cost of repair. The latter may also be a function of its popularity and Honda market support. As for reliability, hopefuly having both an ICE and battery adds to versatility without impacting reliability.



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Ken7 said:
Hey now, I'm a Tesla fan/owner AND a Clarity owner. Some of us can share our love between two cars. ;)
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And those Tesla fans I speak of would likely make fun of your Clarity and call it a "decade behind"! Just like in the comments of the article. It's quite annoying, and patently false!
 
Lowell_Greenberg said:
I think the Clarity is a great car for the right use case. For me it is the ability to drive the vast majority of miles all electric- but have the range on demand offered in hybrid mode (gas and battery). That and safety, comfort, handling and interior/exterior styling round out the "package."

There are only two areas that could potentially change my opinion- poor reliability and high cost of repair. The latter may also be a function of its popularity and Honda market support. As for reliability, hopefuly having both an ICE and battery adds to versatility without impacting reliability.



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You just said a lot there. I love the Clarity, but $2000 windshield repairs make me wonder what the other repairs will cost.
 
Volt and bolt seem to be made for 4ft tall people. In the volt's case, even they would have to have no legs to sit in the back "seats". (As someone who looked at volt and bolt before buying clarity last month. )
 
The video was pretty good, although was it just me or was the narration usually completely out of sync with what was being shown on the screen? Made it a little difficult to follow at times. Also I never heard someone pronounce PHEV as "fev" instead of spelling out the letters. I actually didn't realize what he was saying at first. Maybe that is a common pronunciation, do they also call BEV's "bev" and EV's "ev"?

Unfortunately he perpetuates the myth that you get better efficiency in stop and go driving because of regen. He specifically said that the higher energy use on the highway was because of lack of regen. No, it's because of geometrically increased wind resistance at higher speeds. City driving with stops will likely be on roads with lower speed limits. Stop and go driving on the freeway will be, duh, at lower average speed. Regen causes energy loss, just much less energy loss than friction braking. But no braking at all is best.

One of his few nits was the lack of charging indicator in the car, you have to use the app to see how much charging time is left. But I think that's more of a BEV thing as electric car owners are more likely to sit in their cars while charging. The great thing about a PHEV is that in EV mode you can drive past gas stations and in HV mode you can drive past charging stations.
 
Bender said:
Volt and bolt seem to be made for 4ft tall people. In the volt's case, even they would have to have no legs to sit in the back "seats". (As someone who looked at volt and bolt before buying clarity last month. )
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Except that the non-adjustable seatbelts in the Bolt and Volt seem to be for 6ft tall people only; in the Bolt I tested even with the seat at its highest setting (which felt a bit too high for me given the big camera box blocking the windshield) the seatbelt was uncomfortably hitting me in the neck. Combined with the narrow seats that were otherwise fine for me but made it hard to shift a bit to the right, that was actually a big decision maker for me to go with the Clarity. Now of course I'm very happy with my decision to go with the far more comfortable car.
 
2002 said:
Also I never heard someone pronounce PHEV as "fev" instead of spelling out the letters. I actually didn't realize what he was saying at first. Maybe that is a common pronunciation, do they also call BEV's "bev" and EV's "ev"?
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That's the way I've always pronounced them and have heard others do the same; usually when the audience is assumed to be in the know. When I speak to newbies/general public, I'll use other terms like "battery electric" or say the letters "E" and "V", etc. Broadcast standards (youtubers are saying "whut dat?") have the voicer upon the first reference of the acronym say each word, so "Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle" and immediately follow with the pronunciation "or fev" and then say fev after that.

Once the acronym has become mainstream, such as RADAR or SCUBA, only the pronunciation is used and over time many folks don't even know it was never not a word nor know what the letters originally stood for. I know scuba but I never can remember what radar stands for. I wonder if fev will become mainstream?
 
insightman said:
I wonder if PHEVs will ever become mainstream?
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Seems like they're more of just an interim situation, I don't think they'll grow market share that much before becoming obsolete. With cheaper batteries and faster charging, BEV lose their only disadvantages.

But its lot of power / heat to deal with to speed up fast charging....
 
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