Primary Driving Scenario Recomendations:

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Scott Bleier

New Member
I am taking delivery next week. I drive from the suburbs to the city early in the morning. How shall I most efficiently drive this vehicle?
I'm guessing I'll leave with a full charge. First, on the highway for 20 miles of high speed 70-80mph driving. I'm guessing I will use hybrid mode (HV). I then encounter slower, more congested conditions but still on the highway moving 40-50mph. Do I stay in HV? Then I craw up the helix into the Lincoln Tunnel. This is 30 minutes of stop and go driving. Pure EV mode I guess. Then parking in a garage. Home is a crawl to the river again and then the reverse, 45-50 mph driving then highway speeds to home and the charging plug.
Am I on the right track? Any suggestions?
 
In general, that sounds good. Depending on how long the stop-and-go portion is, you might be able to use EV during the congested portion of the highway as well. If you want to try to max out the battery, monitor your GPS on the final highway stretch and once your distance to home is less than your estimated EV range, you can switch back over to EV.
 
Your method is the general consensus. To test your theory, you can add the last digit of your driving range (say 155 miles) and the last digit of your odometer (say 841 miles) so the total would be 6. Whenever the odometer goes up 1 mile, the total range should go down 1 mile so that 6 should be the same throughout the trip. At different points in your trip, if you fall below 6 you are using more miles than you should be (like when you are driving over 45 mph) and if you are increasing over 6, you are gaining miles (like when you are driving slower or stop-n-go). If you have electric at the end of each trip, you can more of the more efficient miles back into EV driving. This gives you a guide as to getting the best use of the electric miles.
 
My 46 mile commute is roughly 90% 65mph freeway driving. In temps 60 F and above, I easily make it home without using any gas at all (a few times going around 55 miles running additional errands). Driving the route until the range is exhausted a few times (especially under differing conditions) will provide a good idea of how much HV driving your drive will require. Once that is established, I agree that HV for the highest speeds is the most efficient way to go.
 
If you leave the dealership with a full charge you are very fortunate. Many dealerships have no way to charge your car because they are not supposed to use your cable. But your gas motor needs to be broken in too so not all bad.
 
neal adkins said:
If you leave the dealership with a full charge you are very fortunate. Many dealerships have no way to charge your car because they are not supposed to use your cable. But your gas motor needs to be broken in too so not all bad.
Click to expand...

Supposedly all cars now are supposed to get the 4 SBs applied, including the HV range fix. Otherwise, on the first fill up you will notice a very high HV range...
 
neal adkins said:
If you leave the dealership with a full charge you are very fortunate. Many dealerships have no way to charge your car because they are not supposed to use your cable. But your gas motor needs to be broken in too so not all bad.
Click to expand...

Unless they're a new dealership, they should have L2 chargers in place that would have it's own cable?

Scott Bleier said:
I am taking delivery next week. I drive from the suburbs to the city early in the morning. How shall I most efficiently drive this vehicle?
I'm guessing I'll leave with a full charge. First, on the highway for 20 miles of high speed 70-80mph driving. I'm guessing I will use hybrid mode (HV). I then encounter slower, more congested conditions but still on the highway moving 40-50mph. Do I stay in HV? Then I craw up the helix into the Lincoln Tunnel. This is 30 minutes of stop and go driving. Pure EV mode I guess. Then parking in a garage. Home is a crawl to the river again and then the reverse, 45-50 mph driving then highway speeds to home and the charging plug.
Am I on the right track? Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

What's your total travel distance, point to point?
 
Mariner91 said:
Unless they're a new dealership, they should have L2 chargers in place that would have it's own cable?



What's your total travel distance, point to point?
Click to expand...
Should is correct. Unfortunately many dealerships don't have it. I asked them to plug mine in but it never happened. This happened to others on this forum also. Hopefully his dealership will. I think as more phev's are sold they will upgrade.
 
neal adkins said:
Should is correct. Unfortunately many dealerships don't have it. I asked them to plug mine in but it never happened. This happened to others on this forum also. Hopefully his dealership will. I think as more phev's are sold they will upgrade.
Click to expand...


The Honda dealer I went to didn't have any chargers. Rahal in Mechanicsburg, PA. I was very surprised by that.
 
Your parking deck might allow you to plug into 120V during the day. When my company's level 2 chargers are occupied I often plug into 120V. Depending on how long you're at work (most of us at least 9 hours), you can get back most of the charge (if they would let you do this).
 
I should shout out to my dealer then, Elk Grove Honda. I didn't buy their demo Clarity, but one on the 'back lot', so it needed charging. They have a charger (although it's not open to the public as far as I can tell.) And they charged it up while we finished the paper work.

Then in July I hit something on the freeway and they had it again for a little shy of a week. I could track the battery status with HondaLink. I asked them to charge it before I picked it up and they did.
 
Robert_Alabama said:
Your parking deck might allow you to plug into 120V during the day. When my company's level 2 chargers are occupied I often plug into 120V. Depending on how long you're at work (most of us at least 9 hours), you can get back most of the charge (if they would let you do this).
Click to expand...
Sure, my parking garage in Manhattan has a plug. It's $10 per day...
 
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