Our Florida Trip Report

Fast Eddie B

Fast Eddie B

Well-Known Member
I know parts of this have been teased elsewhere, but here goes.

The TL;DR version: the folks that said the Clarity would not be a good choice for long trips were wrong.

The details...

We had to go to S FL for a family commitment, and it was the first long trip in the Clarity we purchased last November.

Day 1: Drove straight through from N GA to Ft. Lauderdale, where my daughter lives. About 820 miles. Left at 5:30A and arrived 7:30P.
Day 2: No driving, re: family stuff and my daughter drove.
Day 3: Visited with friends in Pompano Beach, then to Jacksonville Beach to stay with relatives. Small detour to a Yard Art Emporium in Barberville, FL.
Day 4: Drove to Tallahassee to visit with a high school buddy and spend the night.
Day 5: Drove back home.

Summary: 1,663.5 miles, 39.054 gals burned, 42.6 mpg overall. In spreadsheet format:

47258551682_64d6cc9f94_o.png


Miscellaneous thoughts...

1) The car was quite comfortable. The seats were fine, with the addition of a mesh lumbar support that I always use.

2) The road noise was, overall, a bit on the high side when the road surfaces were the least bit rough. I measured 82db on one moderately rough stretch of State Road in S GA, albeit into about a 15-20 mph wind.

3) I intentionally did not charge during the trip, though I had opportunities to. Mainly because I wanted to see how the car did as a pure hybrid. Next trip I will, though the effect on the numbers above would have been pretty minimal.

4) My "flow" was habitual enough that I never accidentally drove off in EV - HV all the way. As mentioned elsewhere, over the entire trip the EV range dropped from 44 miles to 24 miles remaining.

5) I loved the driver assist features, especially the ACC. The LKAS was nice as well. Together, I think they do marginally reduce driver fatigue.

6) Only issues were minor ones with the infotainment system. Once it could not find my iPhone for CarPlay - a reset took care of that. A handful of times we got messages about some phone not being found. My wife, Karen, has an iPhone as well and it may have been Bluetooth hiccups.

7) No need to go into it again, but the car's fuel efficiency display was consistently optimistic, by 12% on average.

8) No angry bees. At speed, could not even hear the engine over the road and wind noise. Once in a while around town we would joke that the bees were maybe just starting to get a bit perturbed, but nothing obnoxious.

9) It did seem like 300 mile legs on gas alone would be pushing it. Logical, since 7 gals and 40 mpg only buys you 280 miles. Right around 225 miles is when we started planning a gas stop, with the gauge showing 2 bars and maybe 50 HV miles or so remaining.

As I prefaced this thread, the Clarity is, for us, a great cross country vehicle. The gas mileage is truly impressive for a car this size. The trip cost us just under $100 in gas. In our Ford Flex, the last car we've made the trip in, the cost would have been roughly double.

Anyway, this might all be kinda tedious to those who have owned their Clarities for a while and already taken trips. I hope its somewhat informative to those lurkers who might still be undecided.

Oh, and as much as we love our mountain home, it was nice seeing the ocean again - this at the Jacksonville Beach pier:

47261181052_cf1aca0c08.jpg
 
Thank you for the review and collecting good data. I haven’t done a long trip yet but a decision factor for the Clarity for me was the ability to not only be a commuter car but also able to do the occasional long distance trip like yours.
 
A couple more points...

1) Remember, the loss of 24 EV miles was over 1,600 miles. That’s about halfway across the country. In real life one would usually be able to “top off” charge somewhere on a long trip. And, if not, the car doesn’t turn into a pumpkin when EV range hits zero. And one can always invoke the dreaded HV CHARGE mode to keep EV range from completely bottoming out.

2) We can “power through” road trips like this on coffee, donuts and the occasional healthy meal/snack. But on returning home, we often face a couple “recovery days” where naps become the order of the day. We’re just starting to emerge from that fog now!
 
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Interesting account with great details. I also am back from a trip with no charging, Upstate NY-Toronto-Buffalo-home. I have impressions, not keeping data at this time.

Total mileage was about 500 miles, weather was cold both leaving home and in Toronto (15 C). I also went without any charging and was down to 0 when I got home.

Overall I would say that the Clarity is at its worse when you are in town and in hybrid mode, noisy, slow, and a bit bulky. It is at its best in EV in town, smooth and quiet, quite responsive to inputs, although the visibility is constrained (as compared to my Golf Sportwagen).

Over the road in hybrid is OK, a bit noisy but a comfortable cruiser. The takeaway for me is that it is too large for a little gofer around town car, too noisy for a highway cruiser (I would much prefer the 2-liter Accord even if the mileage is much worse), it is a car that does nothing exceptionally well but is a versatile all-rounder. For many, that would be good enough.

But in our situation, where we need two vehicles, I would be better off with a 100-mile range EV and a gasser for over the road. Fortunately, I leased this and can do a buyout at a reasonable price and swap it. Come Spring, that might be in the offing.
 
10sqmiles said:
But in our situation, where we need two vehicles, I would be better off with a 100-mile range EV and a gasser for over the road. Fortunately, I leased this and can do a buyout at a reasonable price and swap it. Come Spring, that might be in the offing.
Click to expand...

While having this option would be nice, even a 100 mile EV requires a level 2 charger. With Clarity you can get by with the provided level 1 charger. For me, that means saving another $1500. Also level 1 charging is safer if you have an older home with older electrical system. I guess a lot of people are in the same boat.
 
Agzand said:
While having this option would be nice, even a 100 mile EV requires a level 2 charger. With Clarity you can get by with the provided level 1 charger. For me, that means saving another $1500. Also level 1 charging is safer if you have an older home with older electrical system. I guess a lot of people are in the same boat.
Click to expand...
Absolutely agree. I happily charged and drove for 2 months with the OEM Level 1 EVSE until I got my ChargePoint Home 32 Amp Level 2.
I splurged on it just so I could track my kWh and costs, make charging easier (especially multiple in one day), and to make preconditioning easier.

After one year, I only needed to multiple charge in one day about 3 or 4 times. So for me the Level 2 is all about preconditioning and tracking data. But if I had to, I could easily get along without it since my temps are not that bad in KY. But if I lived in the frozen north or oven like west, I’d say the Level 2 is almost a must have.

I spent <$550 to purchase/install the ChargePoint. If I were pinching pennies, I’d go with the 16 Amp dual voltage Duosida).
 
KentuckyKen said:
But if I lived in the frozen north or oven like west, I’d say the Level 2 is almost a must have.
Click to expand...

I do live in the frozen north. Bin charging with the OEM and have found no real reason to go to 240v other than i have terminal gadgetitis. I thought that heated seats were the ultimate in luxury when they came with my last car. This preconditioning is just plain decadent.
 
MPower said:
I do live in the frozen north. Bin charging with the OEM and have found no real reason to go to 240v other than i have terminal gadgetitis. I thought that heated seats were the ultimate in luxury when they came with my last car. This preconditioning is just plain decadent.
Click to expand...
Once you go 240 V, you’ll never go back! It makes preconditioning so much easier to schedule and faster to achieve. And tell the wife, gadgets are like shoes and pocket books; no such thing as too many.
 
Agzand said:
While having this option would be nice, even a 100 mile EV requires a level 2 charger. With Clarity you can get by with the provided level 1 charger. For me, that means saving another $1500. Also level 1 charging is safer if you have an older home with older electrical system. I guess a lot of people are in the same boat.
Click to expand...
I bought a reconditioned JuiceBox for $325, my community had wired the carports with 240 so that was my total cost. 110 has an overhead that makes it "hungrier" than 240, not saying it pays for itself but the 2 1/2 hour charge time is a benefit. Today I went out in the morning, did around 20 miles (full charge these days is around 30) put it on the charger and got it full within an hour or so for the afternoon run.
 
It depends on your use. For us 240V works well because of our driving patterns.

25-30 miles round trip in the morning.
...Charge at home
25-30 miles mid afternoon.
...Charge at home
15 mile trips possible some evenings.
...Charge at home

Total on light days is 50 miles.
Total on heavy days is 75 miles.

Still with charging only at home we run EV 100% on those days. No charge has taken more than 2 hours and 15 minutes.

I can see for people who drive less than 30 miles a day, or have a charge station at work, they could use 120V. After all the 240V installation plus the charge station can easily run $1,000 so avoid it if it works for you.
 
KentuckyKen said:
Absolutely agree. I happily charged and drove for 2 months with the OEM Level 1 EVSE until I got my ChargePoint Home 32 Amp Level 2.
I splurged on it just so I could track my kWh and costs, make charging easier (especially multiple in one day), and to make preconditioning easier.

After one year, I only needed to multiple charge in one day about 3 or 4 times. So for me the Level 2 is all about preconditioning and tracking data. But if I had to, I could easily get along without it since my temps are not that bad in KY. But if I lived in the frozen north or oven like west, I’d say the Level 2 is almost a must have.

I spent <$550 to purchase/install the ChargePoint. If I were pinching pennies, I’d go with the 16 Amp dual voltage Duosida).
Click to expand...

It is not the charger itself. I have an already overloaded sub panel (electric dryer, electric oven and electric range). To safely install a level 2 charger (20 amp plug) I need to install a sub panel that costs more than $1000 in our area. I would do it if I could use it for a Tesla, but the 20 amp is barely adequate for a long range BEV. To install a 40 amp plug I need to upgrade the main panel, that will cost $5000 or so.
 
Agzand said:
To install a 40 amp plug I need to upgrade the main panel, that will cost $5000 or so.
Click to expand...
Ouch!! That hurts my wallet just thinking about it. I’d only do it if I could fold it into solar PV and take local rebates and 30% Fed tax credit. And that’s still a lot of money and a longer pay back.
 
KentuckyKen said:
Ouch!! That hurts my wallet just thinking about it. I’d only do it if I could fold it into solar PV and take local rebates and 30% Fed tax credit. And that’s still a lot of money and a longer pay back.
Click to expand...

That's what we did - took the 30% Tax Credit on it (since all of the work was part of the solar install), but even in our cost capital of the USA (San Diego, CA), upgrading to a 200A panel AND running two 240V lines to the garage (40A), a run of about 50 feet, was just a little north of $1300. So $5K for a new panel - unless the guy's doing a complete rewire of his house - sounds just a little on the high side.

I'd take a few more bids before giving up on the new panel. AND yes, the difference between charging at level 1 and charging at level 2 is really night and day.
 
If you need to upgrade the connection between your main panel and the street, it costs much more than $1000.
 
I realize thread creep is a thing, and it could very we’ll be we’ve run out of things to say about our Florida trip or the Clarity as a cross country vehicle, but...

...maybe an extended discussion on chargers, home wiring and charging options deserves it own thread? It’s not really all that relevant here.

Thanks.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
I realize thread creep is a thing, and it could very we’ll be we’ve run out of things to say about our Florida trip or the Clarity as a cross country vehicle, but...

...maybe an extended discussion on chargers, home wiring and charging options deserves it own thread? It’s not really all that relevant here.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Good luck with that ;). Seems many (most?) threads on here drift to either costs, charging, or ICE operation. At least there’s a bit of connection between long distance travel and charging.

But to bring the thread back some, I know you purposefully did not charge on your trip, but could you have plugged in if you wanted to?
 
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