Long trips, running gas engine a lot, related question

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Dan Albrich

Well-Known Member
So I have a family member that's not an EV fan at all, so wasn't sure if to take this advice with a grain of salt or not. Anyway, his claim is that the smaller than average gas engine in the Clarity will have less of a lifespan than a normal gas-mobile if used frequently or that the life will be unusually reduced if used for long trips.

i.e. His assertion is that Honda probably thinks Clarity user will go 90% electric and 10% gas. So for folks like me that occasionally do a 4000 mile road trip, its a bad car choice.

I don't actually know the answer, but thought I'd ask this forum which seems to have a bunch of knowledgeable folks. My gut instinct is that the engine will last as long as a similarly equipped gas-mobile and perhaps longer due to hybrid use, and admittedly lots of time between long trips (where I use electric only). But anyway, even if I did use hybrid mode 100% of the time, I'm not sure Clarity would have shorter engine life (which is his contention).

Thoughts?

-Dan
 
Well Honda makes many engines of various sizes. Small outboard motors made by Honda are extremely reliable and last years with many thousands of hours on them. I suspect the engine will easily last through 200,000 to 300,000 miles. I see nothing to substantiate the Clarity ICE will suffer a short life.
 
That sounds highly speculative. Some here have tracked engine rpm and it’s nothing remarkable.

Though rpm is not closely related to longevity, the engine certainly does not seem stressed in normal highway driving.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
That sounds highly speculative. Some here have tracked engine rpm and it’s nothing remarkable.

Though rpm is not closely related to longevity, the engine certainly does not seem stressed in normal highway driving.
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Right. All the engine is doing much of the time is driving the generator. When it is connected to the wheels it is a low stress situation.
 
A 4,000 million roadtrip with a Clarity in hybrid mode is interesting. I am a new owner, so hopefully others will offer real live examples. There are many factors including ICE power, regenerative functions, whether the battery will be recharged occasionally or more frequently on the way, outside temps. Hopeful others will chime in. I have no doubt the Clarity can complete the trip, but taking into account it's small gas tank and limited range before refueling- it wouldn't be my first choice for a trip with no external recharging.

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The actual hard data doesn’t prove out what your family member says. In fact the direct opposite. Hybrid cars have been around for 20+ years and have proven to be long lasting and highly reliable far more so than non hybrid vehicles. There are plenty of old hybrids driving around with hundreds of thousands of miles.

The engine in the Clarity like most hybrids for the most part is chugging away in its ideal load and rpm range whenever it can which is practically all of the time it is running. Even during your 4000 mile trips I imagine the engine is under far less stress than a traditional vehicle’s engine not more.

The target audience for hybrids cars has always been people that drive a lot because the savings are most significant that way. All you have to do is ask just about any hybrid driver how many miles they have in their car and their experience. You will see. High mileage is common and issues are low.

Now explain your 4000 miles trips. I have to know the story behind that.
 
The engine does not directly propel the car, it can but under “ideal” circumstances only that rarely happens in the real world. So basically the small engine is a generator to charge the battery, and the electric motor still propels the car.


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The Clarity has a 1.5L engine. Tell your friend millions of cars have 1.5L or smaller engines that have racked up billions of highway miles just fine. Our gen2 prius has a 1.5L and those are well known for reaching 400-500k miles in taxi fleets and long term owners.

My first new Honda was an '84 CRX HF which had a 1.3L and made a whopping 58hp. We drove it for 10 years with zero engine issues before trading it in on a 90 Civic SI with...... you guessed it, another small 1.5L.

Relax, enjoy your new car, and have a fun trip!
 
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First, thanks for all the thoughtful and supportive replies. I kinda guessed this was a biased response.

With regard to my long trips: When I was younger I would typically do a road trip in the summer time in the western states over a week including the weekends. I live in Oregon, so typically include places in the Southwest and Grand Canyon, or maybe a trip to Banff etc. It's been awhile so I was wanting to do another road trip.

I drove from Eugene to Tucson and back this past week. I guess that's about 2700 miles or so. The car drove fine, no problems, and I really enjoyed the trip. Love the desert west, especially when we've had some rain and flowers. Anyway, haven't actually done 4000 miles in the new car in one week, but I have done trips like that in the past (which I think my father in-law is thinking).

But yes, back to hybrids and high miles, it seems virtually every Uber and Lyft driver I see is in a Prius or similar... And you know those guys are doing high miles.
 
fotomoto said:
Our gen2 prius has a 1.5L and those are well known for reaching 400-500k miles in taxi fleets and long term owners.
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Does the Prius keep the engine on longer and not rev it as much during acceleration? This is my first hybrid, so I don't have anything to compare it to.

When I run in HV mode in moderate commute traffic (45 minutes for 20 miles) the engine will rev up (increased noise proportional with acceleration) as it kicks in from 10 MPH to 35 MPH. Then it turns off as I level off at 35 to 45. It will then turn on for very brief 20 seconds periods and then off for a minute as I maintain speed on flat land. It will repeat the rev up if I have to stop and accelerate. This seems counter to what others on here are saying about the engine running optimal RPM and only to charge the battery. It is either trying to charge the battery more under acceleration or it is generating extra electricity to power the motor directly instead of draining the battery during acceleration and filling it up over a longer period. This doesn't seem like a way to maintain optimal RPMs, but that is how the car is behaving. This is with 40%+ charge. From other's description about optimal RPM I was expecting that acceleration would use the battery for extra power and only run the engine at optimal RPM for charging since spinning up RPMs in stop and go traffic is the worst efficiency pattern for ICE.

Is the engine stopping/starting 30-40 times over a 45 minute trip normal for a hybrid car? I haven't seen the 10 minute warmup and stuck engine on that others have observed. It will do 20 seconds on 40 to 60 seconds off cycle immediately (this is 60-70 degree weather).
 
I agree with the general consensus here. The engine in the Clarity gets a break from all the miles in EV mode. Even taking lots of long trips, there will still be significant EV downtime. The de-coupling of the engine RPM to the accelerator actually allows the engine to be better treated than a conventional ICE car. On top of that is the oil change requirement that will give zero credit to EV miles and cause the oil to be changed more often than in an ICE car. I'd bet on the engine lasting beyond the life of the car.
 
Right now, I am not sure the Honda engineers have truly optimized the engine control system.

On a long drive, the hybrid system has a theoretic advantage for going up and down hills. A gasmobile would experience the strain going up every hill. The hydrid system should allow the ICE to stay at optimum rpm going up or down hills.

The Clarity system is not optimized, and does not allow enough battery useage to go up some hills. The ICE kicks into high-rpm drive to finish the hill, then shuts off for the downhill.

Whether high-rpm's are hard on engines is a matter of opinion, but the Clarity experiences higher rpm's than my gasmobile ever did.

(The high-rpm's can be avoided in a Clarity with mode management, but if high-rpm's are not a problem...)
 
TeeVee said:
Is the engine stopping/starting 30-40 times over a 45 minute trip normal for a hybrid car?
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On a "regular" hybrid like the Prius this can occur hundreds of times over a 45 minute trip; the ICE is in a near continuous state of on/off, engaged/disengaged. Watching the power flow meter can help you understand. Going down an overpass, slightly lifting off the accelerator, at the top portion of the HV mode SOC range, little or no power needed (at a stop) are just some reasons why the ICE briefly stops running while in HV mode.

Bottom line: Honda is not really breaking any new ground here. Their implementation does add some new variations but at its core it's a hybrid; a design that has been working great worldwide for last 20+ years.
 
I tend to keep my cars for a dozen years or so. I am much more worried about battery degredation and having to replace that eventually vs. any engine problems with the Clarity. Went through this with my daughter's Prius.
 
By their nature, hybrid cars are the most reliable ICE vehicles out there. Priuses can rack up hundreds of thousands of miles and the weak link is the battery, not the ICE drive train. FCA's most reliable vehicle is the Pacifica PHEV and you would have guessed that should be their least vehicle because it's their first and only PHEV. The Clarity PHEV seems like a one off but it's not. The drive system is exactly the same as the current Accord, Insight, and CR-V hybrids (CR-V sold in Europe) except it has a much bigger battery. So, although most of us probably put over 70% of miles in EV drive (some over 95%!), it would probably last the longest if you go 50:50 because you would be balancing ICE and battery longevity. Oh, BTW, the weakest link of nearly all ICE vehicles these days is the automatic shifting transmission, even on Japanese cars. The Clarity doesn't have one at all.
 
Mark W said:
I tend to keep my cars for a dozen years or so. I am much more worried about battery degredation and having to replace that eventually vs. any engine problems with the Clarity. Went through this with my daughter's Prius.
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If you drove the Clarity in HV mode only, the battery would last forever because it's 10 times bigger than batteries in pure hybrid vehicles. To make the Clarity last the longest, drive a combination of EV and HV and keep the battery between 30% and 80%.
 
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