Realistic full range - is 340 miles gonna happen?

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So to directly answer the OP from my experience: yes, 340 total range is easy to achieve no matter how you drive.
I would like a larger tank just just for convenience, not need.
I rarely make trips that require more than one stop for gas during the trip. Plus I gain the range of miles that the full charge gives me by the next morning when I get home.
 
2002 said:
Probably most of us know that the rear fender skirts are there because of aerodynamics and not because of some misguided design whim.
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Kentucky Ken was nice enough to send me a photo of his white Clarity's rear wheel well so I could feature it on the back of the T-shirt I'm making to wear to the Drive Electric Week event in Ann Arbor. If Honda said the skirt was only for looks and not for better fuel economy, I wouldn't like it. There's a reason this 2-ton car can get 42 mpg instead of 41 mpg and I'm flaunting it.

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Started with full tank and battery. Drove from So. OC to Santa Barbara. Used battery last. 340 is easy. Took 6.1 gallons for the 328 miles and 28 more in fuel showing. Great car!
 

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I'm a fan of Clarity, but definitely not a fanboy. Interested in objective facts.
Note that folks showing it's technically possible to get 352 miles including EV range aren't very convincing. Yes, 352 exceeds 340, but cutting it that thin gets into matters like how the vehicle is driven and how cold it is outside. And perhaps no need to state this but nobody really drives their car on empty. At some low point of fuel we all stop and refuel. And yes this happens at or before 300 miles.

I think what Honda missed was things like my 16 year old Subaru with crap mileage could easily do 400+ miles per tank. And yep its tank is more than double the size of Clarity. But still, it seems short sighted to not at least match prevailing range. i.e. do at least 400 miles per tank. And yep that would require a 9 gallon tank. Anyway, it would only need be 2 more gallons larger to hit 400 miles or more.

Strikes me as something someone from Japan might do (not needing range), and not someone intimately familiar with geography if US. For example, my home state is 395 miles wide. I would not cross my home state with Clarity range without refueling.
 
If i could wave a magic wand and get a 10 gal tank in exchange for a couple of inches lost in the trunk, I would do so.

That said...

1) I’m pretty sure fuel efficiency is calculated with full fuel. 3 extra gallons weighs 18 lbs. Trivial for an individual to lose some fraction of a mpg in exchange. For a large company trying to eke out the very best fleet mileage, I’ll bet 18 lbs one way or the other makes a measurable difference.

2) With 7 gals, our cars can easily go for 3 hours/200+ miles with healthy reserves. It’s not healthy to sit for more than several hours without getting out to stretch and walk around a bit. As such, our somewhat limited range can be seen a a positive!
 
Fast Eddie B said:
1) I’m pretty sure fuel efficiency is calculated with full fuel. 3 extra gallons weighs 18 lbs. Trivial for an individual to lose some fraction of a mpg in exchange. For a large company trying to eke out the very best fleet mileage, I’ll bet 18 lbs one way or the other makes a measurable difference.
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I wouldnt be surprised if the tank size was more of a safety constraint. Tanks on new cars are mounted closer to the center of the car(before the rear wheels); which a large battery currently occupies.
 
I'm wondering if Honda was expecting that the comparison would be with a BEV. Most BEV's currently have a range of about 100 miles or a little more, only more expensive versions go 200 miles or more, and even those you have to likely go slightly out of your way on a trip to find a charging station, and then spend time charging. So 340 mile range in that context is a big selling point, especially when you can just pull over at one of the 150,000 gas stations in the U.S. and fill up for another 200-300 miles in about ten minutes.

I think it was also expected that around town people would be doing a lot of their driving in EV and would thus need less gas. That certainly seems to be pretty much everyone's experience as most of us make our monthly, or even less frequent stops at a gas station. The only time we even think of the fuel tank limitation is on long trips, where it is more of a slight inconvenience in most cases rather than a problem.

So I am giving Honda the benefit of the doubt that there would have been some type of drawback or tradeoff that having a larger gas tank would have created. However if there is actually room for a larger gas tank but they were just trying to hit EPA numbers by shaving some weight, that would be slightly disappointing but we don't know that.
 
Hoon said:
Related to the trunk, does anyone know if Accord 2019 trunk kit is compatible with Clarity's? When I open the trunk, it's pretty loose and it won't stay open unless I open it 90% open. The trunk is pretty light weight so I think the gas struts would work nicely on these. I'm just not sure on the size.

Something like this for example:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/330...chweb0_0,searchweb201602_8,searchweb201603_60
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AlAl said:
I wouldnt be surprised if the tank size was more of a safety constraint. Tanks on new cars are mounted closer to the center of the car(before the rear wheels); which a large battery currently occupies.
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That could well be a design consideration. BOTOH, I wouldn’t feel safer sitting in 7 gallon gasoline fire than I would in a 15 gallon one. And it’s very rare for a car to catch on fire in a wreck despite all the Hollywood films to the contrary. What we all wouldn’t give to be able to sit down with the Honda Clarity engineers and ask our 1,000s of questions!

To the OP, the car’s range on 7 gallons (even with a decent reserve at 70 mph) still far exceeds the limits of my antique bladder, so I’m happy with it. I get 50 mpg in HV, so I can go about 300 miles Before having to look for a good refueling and relief stop. But I almost always have to stop to pump bilges before then. All y’all wanting to drive 6 hours plus without stopping are making me feel old.
 
Unless I do a road trip, I go several months without refueling anyway, so 7 gallons is more than I need. Filling a 7 gallon tank from empty should take less than a minute or two.

Most of you guys must not remember cars in the 1960's. I owned a 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 2 door with a 6.3L (390 cubic inch) V8. On the highway, it got 12 mpg. With a 21 gal tank, that netted me 252 miles to bone dry!
 
KentuckyKen said:
That could well be a design consideration. BOTOH, I wouldn’t feel safer sitting in 7 gallon gasoline fire than I would in a 15 gallon one.
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I think the speculation had to do with placement of the fuel tank, the battery is taking up space where the fuel tank would normally go for safety reasons, so it could be an issue with how large of a fuel tank you can squeeze into the remaining space in that location. Putting in a larger fuel tank probably could have could have been done but only with other tradeoffs, perhaps battery size being one of them. Or some other tradeoff that would increase cost or reduce cabin or trunk space, constrained also by a platform designed originally for fuel cell and electric. My guess is they considered the tradeoffs and decided that a smaller gas tank was the better choice, they also likely considered the points that I referenced about how a PHEV will probably be utilized by most people. Of course we would love to know the real reason then we could have an opinion on whether we think it was worth it or not.

KentuckyKen said:
And it’s very rare for a car to catch on fire in a wreck despite all the Hollywood films to the contrary.
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I think it's likely that regulations related to fuel tank design and placement are partly responsible for that.
 
Mowcowbell said:
Unless I do a road trip, I go several months without refueling anyway, so 7 gallons is more than I need. Filling a 7 gallon tank from empty should take less than a minute or two.

Most of you guys must not remember cars in the 1960's. I owned a 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 2 door with a 6.3L (390 cubic inch) V8. On the highway, it got 12 mpg. With a 21 gal tank, that netted me 252 miles to bone dry!
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Thanks for the reminder of the 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 XL I got after my tour of duty in the USAF ending in 1971. My current 2007 Honda Ridgeline has a 300 mile range in the summer and less in the winter so my Clarity's range of 300+ is no issue. I owned a 2009 Honda Civic for a few years as a commuter car and its range was 300-400 miles. I'm trying to decide whether I am a fan of the Clarity or a fanboy, but in either case I think it is a marvelous vehicle.
 
I wanted to see where I could go on full, full. Nice long hv, drive then emptied the battery, and waited for fuel light to come on. It did, and fill up was 6.1 gallons. I had a 2017 Accord hybrid with about 12 gallon tank. At 40+ mpg, range was unnecessarily far. Vegas and back? No, 340 miles is enough on $24.00 of gas.
Around town, I use no gas. Amazing car!
 
Sthomasa said:
I wanted to see where I could go on full, full. Nice long hv, drive then emptied the battery, and waited for fuel light to come on. It did, and fill up was 6.1 gallons. I had a 2017 Accord hybrid with about 12 gallon tank. At 40+ mpg, range was unnecessarily far. Vegas and back? No, 340 miles is enough on $24.00 of gas.
Around town, I use no gas. Amazing car!
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Yikes, $24 to drive 340 miles? That costs me $12 in my region.
 
Why in California the ev rules! Paid 3.75 a gallon for low test gas.
Suddenly, Clarity is the only choice. Charging stations are few in So OC.
Charging from 4 to 9 pm could cost me .54 kw. (.09 from midnight to 6 am.)
We pay for the benefits of insane good weather and RE appreciation.
 
2002 said:
it could be an issue with how large of a fuel tank you can squeeze into the remaining space
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That's the way I see it--this car is really packed solid. I've often asked the larger-tank advocates how much EV range or trunk space they would trade for a larger tank.
 
It’s nice to dream but the Unfortunate reality is that you’d have to give up the entire engine in order to get enough battery for another 40 miles of ev range. That’s a Clarity BEV.

Me? I’d gladly give up the trunk space of only 3 gallons of milk to gain another 120 miles of road trip fuel range...and current EV range would remain unchanged.
 
I love that Honda makes the Clarity BEV, but if Tesla can cram 100kWh of battery into the Model S, why can't Honda do the same thing with the Clarity? Why not at least an option for something bigger than the 25.5 kWh battery? I know it would cost more to lease, but some would pay it. As for the Phev, I'd gladly give up 100 miles of gasoline range for 10 miles of extra battery range. Probably would stop at 100 miles reduction in gas range since I want at least 200 in gasoline, but living with 250 miles of full range wouldn't bother me much. In 15 months of ownership, I have only put 6.0 gallons in the car once, and my average fill up is 4.2 gallons... But I know, all drivers and driver needs aren't created equal. If I was driving cross country often, I'd want more gasoline tank, but then again, if I knew I was going to be driving cross country often when I bought the car, I might have opted for the Accord hybrid.....
 
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