New 2018 Clarity - battery concerns?

[Navk]

Just purchased a new 2018 base Clarity about a week ago (680 miles at purchase).
I had concerns about the battery capacity since it could've been sitting uncharged on the lot for a year, but after asking multiple people in service at the dealer they said they did not have the ability to do a battery capacity test. Perhaps foolishly, I was unable to pass up the price, and knowing about the extensive battery warranty I decided to purchase it anyway.

I've only charged it to full a few times so far but my range is estimated at 40 miles, and from tracking my actual driving it seems to be accurate. I'm in LA and temps are mid-70s to 80s, so I would've expected to be getting around 50 or higher as others have reported in the summer.

Should I be concerned about my battery? Would I be able to get a different dealer to check my battery since the one I purchased from seems incompetent?

Thanks

 

[4sallypat]

Do a search for battery capacity test on this forum you will find lots of the same concern.

Not to worry - the EV battery has a 10 year / 150,000 mile warranty in CA.

Your guess o meter miles per charge will change as you drive it more.

 

[2002]

The estimated range is not always accurate but if you are saying that your actual EV range is about 40 miles that is lower than others experience however it also depends on speeds, if most of your miles are at freeway speeds above 60 mph you will use up EV range much faster.

What is your manufacture date (located on driver door jamb). If the car had nearly 700 miles on it when you purchased it then it was probably driven for awhile by one of the managers. Presumably that meant they were charging it although you can't be certain.

Any dealer can do the battery capacity test, they may charge you for it although if you tell them that your purchasing dealer didn't do it as part of PDI inspection they might be nice and do it for free.

 

[PHEV Newbie]

I've had the car since Dec 2017 and over 10,000 miles of all EV driving (rest were in HV mode). A loop I do daily uses the same percentage of the battery (under similar conditions) as it always has so I've observed no apparent battery degradation so far. On the other hand, my lifestyle lends itself to babying the battery (minimal depth of discharge, battery always kept in moderate temps, rarely fully charging [once a month for cell balancing], and never fully depleting). The bigger question is how the battery does under severe use.

 

[AnthonyW]

Print out the Clarity PDI sheet on post 5 of this thread. Take it to the dealership and politely tell them that if they have and HDS (which they do) they can pull the battery capacity. Also let them know that they should have completed this PDI before they sold you the car. Scratch your head and ask is it standard procedure to have the customer research on their own the procedures and paperwork that should be performed standard before the car is delivered.

I had to fight tooth and nail to get mine over 4 visits (service bulletin updates and warranty wheel bearing replacement) Finally when I gave them the PDI the service advisor came back and told me that the mechanic asked me why did I want the information. After she saw the look on my face she turn right around and went back into the shop. I had my readout 10 minutes later.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

[ozy]

Yep, I did all these things. Went to the dealer and demanded the battery capacity test. Showed them the PDI etc etc. Made 3 trips to them since they gave me the run around. I eventually gave up as I realized they had no intention of doing it.

 

[fotomoto]

I had concerns about the battery capacity since it could've been sitting uncharged on the lot for a year

I've now owned three plug-ins all purchased new locally here in Texas (big truck country) that all sat for around a year with many months of heat, the Clarity the youngest @ 8 months, and have observed no initial loss in capacity of any of them.

I've only charged it to full a few times so far but my range is estimated at 40 miles, and from tracking my actual driving it seems to be accurate.

Estimated miles of EV range is more a measure of efficiency than capacity. For example with a full capacity battery, a Clarity owner can see estimates anywhere from mid-30's to mid-60's. The spread reflects SPEEDS traveled, hard or easy acceleration, air temperatures, additional electric side loads (heater is huge, a/c, etc), winds, hills, etc.

Now having said that, I do find the "guess0meter" to be fairly accurate without the big and quick swings I have seen with other meters.

Made 3 trips to them since they gave me the run around.

 

[David Towle]

Mine sat on a lot for 8 months before I bought it and I've hit 80 miles on a charge. Its about driving slow, not using brakes, coasting, no HVAC, minimal hills. If you're doing highway driving and getting 40 that's very good.

 

[Mowcowbell]

I've now owned three plug-ins all purchased new locally here in Texas (big truck country) that all sat for around a year with many months of heat, the Clarity the youngest @ 8 months, and have observed no initial loss in capacity of any of them.



Estimated miles of EV range is more a measure of efficiency than capacity. For example with a full capacity battery, a Clarity owner can see estimates anywhere from mid-30's to mid-60's. The spread reflects SPEEDS traveled, hard or easy acceleration, air temperatures, additional electric side loads (heater is huge, a/c, etc), winds, hills, etc.

Now having said that, I do find the "guess0meter" to be fairly accurate without the big and quick swings I have seen with other meters.

I had the same setup... Okla (big truck country), Clarity had 4 miles on the clock and had been on the lot at least 9 months with 2 bars. Regularly seeing 40-50 miles per charge depending on how much highway driving I do in EV mode.

 

[Clarity_Newbie]

After she saw the look on my face she turn right around and went back into the shop. I had my readout 10 minutes later.

While I was waiting to pick someone up from dropping their car off at the dealer...I asked a random Honda dealer service rep if they could do this test for me one day...he had to "check with his manager" and after 10 minutes of consultation with the "man behind the curtain"...he came back and said they could but it would require 3-4 hours. I said thank you I'll keep that in mind.

Humorous and scary all at the same time.

 

[2002]

While I was waiting to pick someone up from dropping their car off at the dealer...I asked a random Honda dealer service rep if they could do this test for me one day...he had to "check with his manager" and after 10 minutes of consultation with the "man behind the curtain"...he came back and said they could but it would require 3-4 hours. I said thank you I'll keep that in mind.

Humorous and scary all at the same time.

When I first heard people talking about the capacity test I wondered what the test entails, I was thinking it's a full discharge and recharge, which of course is a bit disconcerting to think about happening to your battery, and I assumed it needed equipment which a typical dealer didn't have on hand. But if I understand correctly now this is just a value stored in the system, but it's not available with the typical OBD-II tools but something more professional? If so then it seems "testing" is a bit of a misleading term. Then again we have annual emissions "testing" here in Georgia, however whereas for cars through 1995 model year they put them on a dynamometer and run the engine at various RPM and actually test what is coming out of the tailpipe, for 1996 and on they just plug into OBD-II and pull the stored emissions data into their computer. But they still refer to it as "testing"

 

[sniwallof]

When I first heard people talking about the capacity test I wondered what the test entails, I was thinking it's a full discharge and recharge, which of course is a bit disconcerting to think about happening to your battery, and I assumed it needed equipment which a typical dealer didn't have on hand. But if I understand correctly now this is just a value stored in the system, but it's not available with the typical OBD-II tools but something more professional? If so then it seems "testing" is a bit of a misleading term. Then again we have annual emissions "testing" here in Georgia, however whereas for cars through 1995 model year they put them on a dynamometer and run the engine at various RPM and actually test what is coming out of the tailpipe, for 1996 and on they just plug into OBD-II and pull the stored emissions data into their computer. But they still refer to it as "testing"

It's parameter no. 7 on the Autel report (they don't seem to give PIDs or conversion factors/equations), I think the report was called something like electrical powertrain, this is my example: 7 Battery Pack Capacity 54.7 A.h

I have a similar question as to how Clarity gets that number. Is it a report of the last factory or dealer test (e.g. Is there a charge discharge-discharge protocol/test that might run over some 3+ hours that must be run to generate a stored Battery Pack Capacity number?). Or, is it a running number of some kind of internal computation where Clarity somehow tracks charge / discharge cycles itself? I've lost track if the list actually knows how the Battery Pack Capacity number (in amp hours) is arrived at. There appears to be some consensus that the Battery Pack Capacity a.h. number may be indicative of battery health / aging, that is more than guess-o-meter, but rather some kind of actual quantitative measurement / indication of battery health.

Of course if the Battery Pack Capacity number turns out it is just a "report" of the last factory or dealer extensive test, it will not change over time with battery aging. OTOH, the higher end Autel tools (e.g. 908, 808) also report cell voltage for each cell of the battery pack, at the given soc, and those numbers may give a more clear indication of battery pack aging.

The thread is here and includes detailed sample Autel pdf pages from AIAI and my car - https://insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/battery-capacity-test-results.5836/page-2 see post #22 where @AIAI told us about the report.

@AIAI showed this data was available with the Autel MK908, and suggested that we try the MK808 (One Autel tech told me that only the 908 or 906 would do the job for that report). I tried the MK808BT with some success (it did generate the same pdf as AIAI's first example, a few less PIDs than the AIAI second exemple, which had a bit more data), but it had some issues and it doesn't really do data logging in the conventional sense (the data logging function turns out to be for debugging the Autel tool with Autel engineers), so I returned mine. @MrFixit has been trying to download the same OBD data with a much lower cost Autel tool. He is in contact with Autel engineers and reports regularly at the thread above. An Autel tech told me early on that the lower cost DIY tools would not provide the Clarity battery information, but maybe MrFixit can get them to include it?

 

[rodeknyt]

I have a similar question as to how Clarity gets that number. Is it a report of the last factory or dealer test (e.g. Is there a charge discharge-discharge protocol/test that might run over some 3+ hours that must be run to generate a stored Battery Pack Capacity number?). Or, is it a running number of some kind of internal computation where Clarity somehow tracks charge / discharge cycles itself? I've lost track if the list actually knows how the Battery Pack Capacity number (in amp hours) is arrived at. There appears to be some consensus that the Battery Pack Capacity a.h. number may be indicative of battery health / aging, that is more than guess-o-meter, but rather some kind of actual quantitative measurement / indication of battery health.

Tracking the actual capacity of the battery is probably very simple. Apple's iPhones show the percentage of charge capacity in the Settings app. This is not the same as the SoC on the home screen. They could just as easily show the mAH instead of percentage. No reason Honda can't or isn't doing the same with the Battery Capacity reading.

 

[DucRider]

Battery capacity:

After that it is a matter of math (the Clarity PHEV has 168 cells). Capacity rating is derived at a specified discharge rate and temperature. Battery Capacity is actually a variable. Higher discharge rates will yield a lower capacity. Temperatures that stray from a cell temp of ~23℃ will yield lower capacities.

SOC% can be calculated using voltage or internal resistance, or sometimes a combination of the two.