Clarity won't allow you to fully charge its 17 kW battery nor will it allow you to fully discharge the battery as it maintains a "cushion" on both the top and the bottom. I don't recall that actual number of kW we get to use but someone will surely provide that information.
First, +1 on everything you said.
Second, from the start of the forum, the most anyone has reported is that a full charge from EV range 0, or 2 bars which is usually 10% (sometimes a little less) on the HL app, is about 14.4 kWh. That’s the power from the EVSE and does not take into account the inevitable loss in the onboard charger/converter. Information from several sources and posts lead me to consider the onboard charger/converter efficiency to be about 92% efficient with about 8% lost to the Laws of Thermodynamics.
So 14.4 to 14.5 x .92 = ~13.3 kW actually going into the battery packs. Then 13.3 / 17 kWh capacity of battery = ~78%. So there is at least a 22% buffer built in by the BMS and in under normal circumstances, you will never be allowed to completely charge and drain the battery from 100% to 0% absolute, which would rather quickly degrade a Li-ion battery. That’s why many have to replace their phone batteries in much less time than Honda’s 10 yr warranty.
But we don’t know for certain how the buffer is split between top and bottom. The members of the Clarity Brain Trust (and you know who you are) that have measured voltages and other parameters can weigh in on this since this is as far as an old broken down molecular biologist can go.
I have a gut feeling or hunch that being overly concerned with babying the battery will gain only a small benefit since the BMS and cooling system seem to be robust and well designed. But only time will tell. And until
@craze1cars finds his crystal ball, we won’t know exactly to treat the battery so that it fails at exactly 7 yrs, 11 months, and 29 days (or 9 yrs... for Cali.)
So where does that leave us. For me, I try to be kind to my battery since I keep cars along time but I only do so when it’s easily done and I don’t wast time on it.
For example, I garage the car to prevent extreme temperature swings to the battery. I use scheduled charging to charge 2 hours before I usually leave to reduce the time the battery sits at 100% allowable charge instead of having it charge every afternoon when I come home and plug in. If the software would allow 90% charging, I’d do that and take a 5 mile hit on range since it would be easy to do and I seldom drive more than 40 miles in one day. But since it doesn’t, there’s no way I’m taking the time to calculate the time and either reset the timer or keeping track of when to unplug. Ain’t gonna happen. However, I will skip o/n charging if I’m above 50% and know I have little or no driving for the next day. Since that only happens about once a week or so, I don’t worry about the cells not being balanced that day.
The other thing I can easily do is reduce the depth of discharge (which is why I think Honda says plug in before very drive) by not letting the SOC go below 30-40% which is easy to do with my low distance local commuting.
And I don’t usually charge right after returning home (unless I have to) to keep from charging a potentially hot battery. And in 2+ years, I’ve only heard what I assume to be the battery cooling system one single time.
So in summary I try to be kind to my battery but don’t take the time and effort to baby it.
Of course, YMMV as always. And
@Cash Traylor and I must have a common ancestor since Murphy seems to be our constant copilot, which probably means my battery will hit 36.6 Ah one day after 8 years.
Oh, and I’m not worried about jigaWatts since didn’t the last Delorean in the movie have a fusion device that ran on banana peels?
