Now at 82 Mile Range

insightman said:
You're equating "5 mph over the speed limit" with "driving the speed limit," but to real speeders both are the same. I set my ACC for 5 mph BELOW the speed limit and look for a semi truck to follow (but not too close). If I'm "stuck" behind a semi, no one has cause to look down on me.

I have lots of experience ignoring down-lookers from hypermiling my Insight for 20 years. In the early days, when I was a total mpg fanatic, I loved it when I came up behind a car going even slower than me. I'd follow the slow car and say my motto out loud, "Nobody can out-slow me!" I should add that I didn't have a long commute, so I wasn't ever late for dinner. With this technique I managed to get my Insight's lifetime gas mileage (including Michigan's dismal 45 mpg winter months) up to 64 mpg.
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I ran into this SAE paper about the original Insight development. Includes discussion of the low viscosity oil, improvements in the VTEC design mechanism, electric motor windings, etc... All the little details that are looked at during development. If you haven't seen it, it's informative, from what I glanced at.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAJegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3pQNmZeeVHEHE23aoePL6K
 
ab13 said:
I ran into this SAE paper about the original Insight development. Includes discussion of the low viscosity oil, improvements in the VTEC design mechanism, electric motor windings, etc... All the little details that are looked at during development. If you haven't seen it, it's informative, from what I glanced at.
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Thank you. That's the most I've ever read about the design of Honda's IMA system. It reminded me of how amazing that ground-breaking technology seemed back in 1999. The Clarity PHEV would have blown my mind back then.
 
JCA said:
1) Speed -- I can easily see a discharge and range difference when I drive 65 MPH on the highway portion of my commute vs 80, and more so when I am around town at 45-50. I suspect that 60-80 mile EV ranges involve a lot of 25-40MPH driving, and sub-40 mile ranges involve a lot of 70+ highway driving.

2) Defroster -- see heat + AC below.

3) Heat -- with no engine waste heat, the electric resistance heater is a big draw. I don't know the wattage, but I've seen references to Tesla cabin heaters drawing 4000 watts or more (a standard home plug-in space heater is 1500 watts, but a car likely needs 2-3 times that at least for initially heating from freezing). 3kW (3000 watts) would use 20% of our battery capacity in an hour's drive, enough to make a big difference in range.

4) AC -- although much less of an impact than the heater (a heat pump cooling from 90 to 70 is MUCH MUCH more efficient than resistance heat raising temperature from 30 to 70).

5) Ambient temperature. I'm sure this does make a difference, but it's hard to separate out from the heat/AC use.
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All of this matches my experience too. The range guess-o-meter adjusts fairly quickly too. I was regularly getting 55-58 miles of estimated range when fully charged. I made one long trip and used EV on the last stretch (going at 75 mph) since I was heading home. After that, for the next several charges, my range dropped to 49-52.

I also found that fan speed (and heater in winter) are big range killers.

-RV
 
Just hit a personal all time high EV range estimate of 66.3 miles. (It’s been slowly going up the last month.) That’s an “honest” GOM number since all my trips/charging cycles are round trips so that accounts for elevation/regen inflation. I find that my actual range is almost always within 3-4 miles of the estimate and adjusts in real time to always hit 0 when the ICE comes on. That’s an amazingly accurate estimate in my book, but then my driving profile is very consistent.

This is in ECON, with all local driving and a max of 55-60 mph and about a 50/50 mix of hwy/city. Also with no passengers or cargo and AC set to 75 F. I have the R passenger and rear vents off and the auto fan is usually running on the lowest speed (sometimes higher for a few min if car is parked in sun). I think the ceramic IR blocking tint (also on windshield) really helps reduce the heat gain. Normal acceleration but I do a good job of anticipating red lights and “coasting” in 1 chevron regen and using paddles instead of pedal if I have to brake. (Don’t know if paddle vs. pedal is more efficient; I do it out of laziness since it’s easier to move my finger than my foot.) I usually only have to brake for the last 5 mph. Ambient temps have been high 80s to low 90s F and garage temps have been mid to high 80s. I also charge by timer set to early the next morning so I am not charging a battery already heated by use and to reduce the amount of time the battery sits fully charged. Don’t know how much that helps, but it make me feel better.

I have not found ECON to reduce cabin comfort in temps so far up to the low 90s F. I have noticed that in ECON, when the cabin temp has stabilized, that I think the fan speed goes to a setting that is lower than the low indication. Not 100% sure, but it feels that way to the back of my hand when I adjust the temp up and down but not enough down to call for higher fan speed. It’s a rather subtle difference. Has anybody else noticed this?
 
After I filled up my gas the car showed an all time high of ICE miles of 325. This was two days ago. Today, with no ICE use at all the range mysteriously dropped to 299. Now I know neither 325 nor 299 is really accurate but couldn’t the car just leave me at 325 for the sake of sanity? :-)
 
RickSE said:
After I filled up my gas the car showed an all time high of ICE miles of 325. This was two days ago. Today, with no ICE use at all the range mysteriously dropped to 299. Now I know neither 325 nor 299 is really accurate but couldn’t the car just leave me at 325 for the sake of sanity? :)
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I think a 299 or even a 325 HV estimate is well within the bounds of reality since I got 49 mpg on my last out of town trip in HV from driveway to destination and back to fill up. (325miles/7 gal=46 mpg)
Whether it’s accurate or not for you will depend on what happens on your next HV trip and how close the driver and road conditions match.
 
I've also been getting 48-49 mpg on full tanks during warm weather. A mix of short (<10 mi) extensions on gas and longer (80-100 mi) extended trips or parts of trips.

My gas miles tracker has me at 249 miles on the current tank, with the range meter still showing 127 remaining. Last filled on the way back from a trip two months ago.
 
My personal best is 64. But that's just a displayed number, on the way back I had driven 50 before the battery ran out. The real range I can drive without purposely changing my behaviour a lot is around 50.
 
Wow, that's impressive, the best I got was 105.8, but it is in kilometers. I found the trick is to use the regen as often as possible, that will keep the range higher. Does anyone know how I can turn the ICE off when it start running? Usually it's when I start the car and it only comes on once every few days, I know this it a system check and not letting the gas gel up in the tank, but I prefer not to emit any carbon emission at all. Any ideas? Thanks for your advice in advance.
 
Here’s 2 ideas for what they’re worth.
1. I would suggest not turning off the car to stop the ICE running. The internal engine parts and oil will be much happier if they come up to operating temperature as this will burn off any accumulated moisture.
2. If your ICE starts are just after fully charging, they may be due to the limited regen with a full battery and not a Systems Check. If so, you can usually reduce these ICE starts by avoiding heavy and/or prolonged braking right after charging, but if you have a downhill close to your house this may not be an option. Some have reported that using the heater/defroster to use some energy in the first few miles after charging also will help reduce the limited regen ICE starts.

I would guess that not all of your ICE starts are System Checks since mine is not starting more than once a month.
 
Thanks for the reply and tips. After a full charge, the car usually goes uphill so I rarely use the brake pedal, I can try turning on the A/C so it will give more room for regen. I even asked my Honda dealer service advisor but he never got back to me, he said the Clarity is too new and no one knows why this happens. I am a bit puzzled when he said it's too new, after all, it has been around for a couple of years now. Cheers.
 
Michael Wei said:
I even asked my Honda dealer service advisor but he never got back to me, he said the Clarity is too new and no one knows why this happens.
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Unbelievable. Honda dealers drive us all nuts when it comes to the Clarity.

In addition to Ken's #2 response, you can also address the problem by not fully recharging the car if that suits the way you drive. Such as plug in when you get home from work, unplug when you go to bed. But that only works if your commute is short.
 
Yes, I have to watch this on mine to keep it from starting the ICE when I use the paddles or brake hard at the beginning of a drive after full recharge. I have had reasonable success turning on the Climate control to a higher setting than I would normally use (or the defroster) for the first few minutes of the drive, but it is not a guaranteed deterrent if you decelerate hard too early after full recharge. I try to stop charging about 95% when I think about it using the Hondalink App, but you have to be paying a attention, especially if you are charging at 240V and 32A as you can go through that last 10% of charge in about 15 minutes. Today, I stopped the charge at 92% early in the day, then restarted it just before I headed to my car from work. It was at 96% when I unplugged which is enough of a buffer that I didn't have to worry about it on the way home. I wish Honda had given us control of this variable (as well as charge amperage). But we could all write a fairly long list of all things like this we wish we could set and data we wish we could readily see on this car. It is a true testament to this car that in spite of all we wish we could change/improve, most of us are still REALLY happy with it.
 
Robert_Alabama said:
Yes, I have to watch this on mine to keep it from starting the ICE when I use the paddles or brake hard at the beginning of a drive after full recharge. I have had reasonable success turning on the Climate control to a higher setting than I would normally use (or the defroster) for the first few minutes of the drive, but it is not a guaranteed deterrent if you decelerate hard too early after full recharge. I try to stop charging about 95% when I think about it using the Hondalink App, but you have to be paying a attention, especially if you are charging at 240V and 32A as you can go through that last 10% of charge in about 15 minutes. Today, I stopped the charge at 92% early in the day, then restarted it just before I headed to my car from work. It was at 96% when I unplugged which is enough of a buffer that I didn't have to worry about it on the way home. I wish Honda had given us control of this variable (as well as charge amperage). But we could all write a fairly long list of all things like this we wish we could set and data we wish we could readily see on this car. It is a true testament to this car that in spite of all we wish we could change/improve, most of us are still REALLY happy with it.
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There's no perfect method but I use scheduled charging. For me the end time is always the same (7:00 am) I just modify the start time so that by 7:00 am it has the amount of SOC that I want. I just divide the % increase that I want by my average SOC increase per hour which is 7% (level 1 obviously). So for example if it's at 65% and I want to go to 90% that's an increase of 25%, divided by 7 equals 3.57 which is about three and half hours, so I would modify the schedule to start at 3:30 am. (3:25 am if I want to be more precise). When charging ends at 7:00 am it's usually pretty close.

Although if you are charging at both home and work then it's a little harder as you would have to modify not only the start but also the end time. Or if scheduled charging is not always reliable, but for me it is very reliable.
 
Michael Wei said:
After a full charge, the car usually goes uphill so I rarely use the brake pedal
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It sounds like you may have a different problem unrelated to the normal ICE start due to regen. What is the manufacture date of your car (located on the door jamb). There may be some software updates that need to be installed on your car. Probably not worth going in just for the updates but have them check if updates are needed when you go in for your next service. Meanwhile try and charge only to say 90% as suggested and see if it still happens, just as another data point to see if it is related to being fully charged even if it's something different than the normal regen "feature".
 
Also, it is easy to not "think" the ICE start is due to regeneration. It took me a little while to accept that the ICE starts I was experiencing were due to the regeneration. In my case, I leave my work, accelerate over about 3/4 mile to about 40 mph, then decelerate pretty quickly (possibly to a full stop) for a left turn. The terrain is essentially flat and maybe even a slight upward grade. Still, the car is so close to 100% charge at the time of applying the brakes that it is likely that it will kick on the ICE. The brakes seem a little less likely to start the ICE than using the regen paddles at max, but either will do it. Again, using the climate control heavily as soon as the car is started (gives me a couple of minutes prior to the turn including time in the parking deck - by the way, chargers are on ground level so no regeneration in the parking deck) will cut probability of ICE start but not always eliminate it. Of course, remembering to drive slower so that the deceleration is not as strong helps too. Unfortunately, driving slow goes against my nature. :) Limiting recharge to 95% or lower seems to always do the trick.
 
Part of the equation is likely the temperature of the battery. To protect the battery the Clarity may not allow the fast charging of regeneration with a near fully charged battery that is very warm due to high ambient temperature and/or heated up by recent fast charging. A very cold battery also can have similar limitations.
 
Thank you everyone for your words of wisdom. Lots to learn and adapt for this vehicle, my HondaLink has never work properly since day one, and the customer support manager has never called me back about this problem. The software has been updated a couple of times but I still can't get it to work, sigh....
 
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