Road Trip
- Thread starter Timothy
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megreyhair
Active Member
Timothy
Active Member
No, I am sure Honda would not lie to me.
All joking aside, I have said on this site that the HV range mess has not bothered me that much, which is true since we drive almost entirely EV. But it is still very annoying because it would be so easy to fix. I am sure that some clever Honda engineer tried to come up with a fancy HV range algorithm based on all past driving. With all the different modes, the ice occasionally popping on when the heat is on and the temp too low, etc., I imagine this is very difficult to get right. But I would be happy with a simple algorithm that used the amount of gas remaining and the epa HV estimate. That would not be perfect, but at least it would be useful. So I know I just filled the tank. I now have about 7 gallons and the car will go about 41mpg. Can't my HV estimate just say 287miles? And then 246 once I'd used a gallon of gas? At least this would have some value. Ok, sorry about that, I am ending my rant and going back to my fantasy land where I will get to Philly and back with one tank of gas and plenty of range left over.
K8QM
Active Member
I agree - I've always thought that it's operating exactly as designed but the thought process behind the design was flawed.
Just don't forget to siphon out some gas if your tank starts to get too full as you drive.
geo
The worst part is it holds its guns to the end. You can have 1/2 gallon left and it will show a nice 60 mile range or something. Don't try to make that next gas station 30 miles away. It really is dangerous and needs to be fixed. It isn't a deal breaker since I am aware of it, but wish they could fix this in a day OTA. Unfortunately it will be months then a dealer trip.
Have 10,200 miles on ours now, best family car we have owned.
Have 10,200 miles on ours now, best family car we have owned.
its not that hard to just go by the bars on the gas gauge which we all did for years in the past
Timothy
Active Member
I agree it's not that hard. And in our daily EV driving we never look at it. But this is the first new car we've had in over 10 years (youngest graduating college). It has all these cool new features that I never needed but are fun. The HV estimate just seems to be taunting us. If they'd just switch the HV estimate for volume of gas left (perhaps a little more accurate than estimating from bars), I would just do the math in my head. Maybe I could just put a piece of tape over it.
KentuckyKen
Well-Known Member
I’ll throw this WAG out for the Clarity Brain Trust to consider:
What if they just ported over this part of the software from the BEV & FCV and it’s just using odometer (total) miles from the last few trips and the total of how many gal were added to tank? Or for some reason it doesn’t separate out HV miles from EV miles?
This might explain the why the range goes ever skyward with normal mostly EV driving and little HV, and why some get it temporarily to come down to a reasonable range after several successive HV trips and fill ups with little or no EV but when w a greater
proportion of EV to HV it goes back up.
For example, if your last few trips were 900m EV evenly interspersed with 100m HV, and after you put in 2 gal, it would think you went 1,000m on 2 gal or 500 mpg and calculate the 1,000m (out of display range) HV range.
But if you do several consecutive trips of 900m HV evenly interspersed with 100m of EV and put in say a total of 22 gal, then it does 1,000/22 for 45 mpg or 7 gal HV range of 315.
Just spitballing here and trying to reconcile some of the various experiences posted.
What if they just ported over this part of the software from the BEV & FCV and it’s just using odometer (total) miles from the last few trips and the total of how many gal were added to tank? Or for some reason it doesn’t separate out HV miles from EV miles?
This might explain the why the range goes ever skyward with normal mostly EV driving and little HV, and why some get it temporarily to come down to a reasonable range after several successive HV trips and fill ups with little or no EV but when w a greater
proportion of EV to HV it goes back up.
For example, if your last few trips were 900m EV evenly interspersed with 100m HV, and after you put in 2 gal, it would think you went 1,000m on 2 gal or 500 mpg and calculate the 1,000m (out of display range) HV range.
But if you do several consecutive trips of 900m HV evenly interspersed with 100m of EV and put in say a total of 22 gal, then it does 1,000/22 for 45 mpg or 7 gal HV range of 315.
Just spitballing here and trying to reconcile some of the various experiences posted.
Meanwhile Tesla is sending an OTA update to their model 3’s to update their ABS algorithm to improve their braking distance all within a few days of the flaw being discovered. It’s quite annoying how long this is taking Honda to acknowledge and come up with a fix for such a simple problem.
Timothy
Active Member
Just back from our first long road trip. NC to Philadelphia (about 800 miles overall). At the risk of sounding too much like a clarity fanboy, I'll now say it's the best long distance car I have ever owned. [before this almost all of our miles had been EV]
I'll re-share two pieces of advice for others taking long trips. When on long stretches of highway using the ACC also use Sport Mode. It makes getting up to speed after the space in front of you clears a more normal process. When using the ACC in stop and go traffic (e.g., outside of DC) use the resume button to start again after the Clarity has come to a full stop (and stay in Sport Mode so you don't always leave a huge gap when traffic moves). This worked really well and made stop and go less stressful. Only a couple of times did folks take advantage of my car keeping a safe distance to cut me off. This was much more relaxing that my normal method of fighting to keep my spot.
I also have one question, do you all know how accurate the mpg on the Trip Computer is? During long stretches of all HV "trips" it gave an MPG of over 50mpg. Could that be real?
I'll re-share two pieces of advice for others taking long trips. When on long stretches of highway using the ACC also use Sport Mode. It makes getting up to speed after the space in front of you clears a more normal process. When using the ACC in stop and go traffic (e.g., outside of DC) use the resume button to start again after the Clarity has come to a full stop (and stay in Sport Mode so you don't always leave a huge gap when traffic moves). This worked really well and made stop and go less stressful. Only a couple of times did folks take advantage of my car keeping a safe distance to cut me off. This was much more relaxing that my normal method of fighting to keep my spot.
I also have one question, do you all know how accurate the mpg on the Trip Computer is? During long stretches of all HV "trips" it gave an MPG of over 50mpg. Could that be real?
dstrauss
Well-Known Member
Not sure that is accurate (unless you had some EV miles in the mix) - it is very hard for me to get to 42 mpg in city or highway driving, and my kids (and grandkids) say I drive like...
PHEV Newbie
Well-Known Member
I got 52 mpg in HV on two separate 200 mile loops. The caveat is that the temperature was cool and I did not use heating or A/C. Also, the average speed was 50-55 mph, probably the most efficient speed for HV and I kept a significant charge on the battery. On a long road trip, I averaged 48 mpg in HV going about 65 mph (again, no heating or A/C). These were actually measured by gasoline fill ups (double clicking the pump) and not the trip computer. Higher speeds and using HVAC functions would compromise mileage. Someone else had posted that they got 42 mpg going 75 mph with A/C on which sounds about right.
I have seen the computer be from 0 to 10% off from what I calculate at the pump. It has always shown higher than what I get filling up.
Real world I have done as bad as 33 mpg fully loaded at 75+ mph and then 45 mpg at 65 to 70. If you drive less than 60 mph I imagine it would get over 50 mpg.
This is all loaded for road trips and with 4 or 5 people (3 kids).
Real world I have done as bad as 33 mpg fully loaded at 75+ mph and then 45 mpg at 65 to 70. If you drive less than 60 mph I imagine it would get over 50 mpg.
This is all loaded for road trips and with 4 or 5 people (3 kids).
Timothy
Active Member
I had planned to try to do to a careful fuel/mileage calculation, but our very kind Airbnb hosts allowed us to use their charger and it became more work than I was willing to do over my daughter's graduation weekend. Just calculating in my head after the first refueling (after all HV with no loss of EV range) we were certainly getting well more than 42 (the Trip Computer said 52mpg for that leg which seems too high).
kcsunshine
Active Member
What would you say is the average distance traveled before needing to fuel up? When researching the Clarity, the short range concerned me that I considered getting a gas container which I dismissed as a silly idea. It is unsafe and might be illegal across state lines or tunnels and bridges. I'm used to a car having a range of at least 300 miles.
Timothy
Active Member
We never reached near empty because I look for cheaper gas on Google maps. But we would have easily passed 300 miles on all HV. The trip is about 400 miles one way and we just stopped for gas once on the way back and the tank is still well over half full.
Rajiv Vaidyanathan
Active Member
You can definitely manage 300 miles. Look here for my detailed road trip results with mileage and charging costs:
https://www.insideevsforum.com/comm...est-result-hv-mode-300-miles-on-highway.2026/