Top Wishes (to Honda) - Persistent Modes (or persistent HV), and Quieter Gas Only

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Dan Albrich

Well-Known Member
This request is by no means unique. After driving the car for a couple months, I can say it would be immensely useful to have a persistent HV mode (in fact if I designed this car, it would default to HV, but let folks choose what they want, and keep their setting).

EV mode is good for about town, and it starts in EV mode each time. Econ setting is persistent. But for some darn reason, HV is not persistent. Further and I don't know why, if I engage HV manually at low speed, it just disengages all by itself and stays off. Perhaps its why folks in the forum recommend you short-press HV when getting on the freeway.

For me personally I can remember to press (or re-press if need be). My wife pressed HV in town prior to a 100 mile freeway trip. She claims at some point the car automatically disabled HV and went back to EV. She failed to notice, so the EV range went to 0 for most of her trip.

Of course the initiated know, the main downside of gas-only after EV range gone is a high-rpm sounding engine (some call 'angry bees') but the car is otherwise responsive. On her trip, she did remember the long-press HV option, did that, and got some electric range back so she could drive more quietly once in-town.
 
Dan Albrich said:
if I engage HV manually at low speed, it just disengages all by itself and stays off
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In my experience, HV disengages only when I press the HV button again or when I shut off the car. Are you certain the HV icon goes out all by itself at low speeds? It's possible for EV drive mode to happen while in HV mode, so you would see both icons then.

If, indeed, your car takes itself out of HV mode, your Clarity PHEV may have a problem the dealer should check out.
 
Anyone confirm what mode the vehicle falls back to after HV Charge mode has gotten battery up to 58%? Maybe HV charge is being engaged and vehicle resets to EV when 58% is reached?
 
Never used HV Charge but my HV only switches to EV when I turn off and restart. I would think that if it’s switching itself from HV and not HV Charge as @Steven B mentioned, it’s time for a dealer check as this behavior has not been reported before on the forum.
 
Steven B said:
Anyone confirm what mode the vehicle falls back to after HV Charge mode has gotten battery up to 58%? Maybe HV charge is being engaged and vehicle resets to EV when 58% is reached?
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What I've experienced is when HV Charge completes I get a message on the console telling me it's done and it reverts back to HV. One caveat is I've been driving in HV before I switched to HV Charge. I wonder what happens if I were to go from Normal mode right to HV Charge?
 
I’ve never had HV revert back to EV. It does use EV occasionally like a solely HV car does, but that’s a small percentage of the time.

If you’re taking wishes to Honda, besides the various things that always get called out on this forum, my two tweeks would be that the trunk br more spring loaded (unless opened all the way it falls back down again which really annoys me), and that the windows would squeegee dew when you rolled them down.
 
KentuckyKen said:
Never used HV Charge but my HV only switches to EV when I turn off and restart. I would think that if it’s switching itself from HV and not HV Charge as @Steven B mentioned, it’s time for a dealer check as this behavior has not been reported before on the forum.
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My experience has been when I turn off HV and take my foot off the gas the EV will re-engage and resume EV mode—no need to turn off the car.
 
I've never had my car drop out of HV by itself, only when the button is pressed to go back to EV or the car is shut off then restarted. I've had the HV Charge max out and it went back to HV mode.

I am usually in HV because of low/no EV range left. After I've recharged, I wouldn't want it to restart in HV mode even if I was in that mode when I shut off my car.
 
Something is wrong with your car, or you are not doing what you say you are doing.

Once you put the car in HV mode, it should stay in HV mode until you press the HV mode button again to return to EV mode, or if the car is turned off. On the next power-on, the car will come on in EV mode.

I have taken two 1000 mile trips with my Clarity and on these trips, I start HV mode every time I re-start the car, and it has always stayed in HV mode until I turned it off to fill the tank.

So, something is wrong if the car is behaving the way you say it is. Once you press the HV mode button, the car should stay in HV mode until you press the button again or turn off the car.

Now, when you are in HV mode, the car will alternate between electric and gas power but that is normal HV mode behavior. Below about 45 mph, the car is powered by the electric motor exculsively, but you will hear the gas engine coming on and off intermittently to keep the battery charge about at the point when you turned on HV mode, and as you hit 45 mph, the gas engine and electric motor will both cycle on and off, but again, this is normal for HV mode. If that is what you are experiencing, that is normal. The car will not run exclusively on the gas engine even in HV mode. It is constantly cycling back and forth between the gas engine and the electric engine, or a combination of both (for example, if the gas engine is engaged and you go up a hill, the electric motor might come on to add some power so the ICE does not have to work as hard to get up the hill).
 
jdonalds said:
What I've experienced is when HV Charge completes I get a message on the console telling me it's done and it reverts back to HV. One caveat is I've been driving in HV before I switched to HV Charge. I wonder what happens if I were to go from Normal mode right to HV Charge?
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This is also my experience.

I believe that you have to already be in HV to go into HV Charge, even if you've only been in HV for a few seconds.

I agree with the consensus that the best strategy is to switch to HV mode on a long trip as soon as you're established on a highway. I wish that there was an option for the car to do that automatically; given the amount of intelligence in the system that's not an unreasonable function.
 
MNSteve said:
This is also my experience.

I believe that you have to already be in HV to go into HV Charge, even if you've only been in HV for a few seconds.

I agree with the consensus that the best strategy is to switch to HV mode on a long trip as soon as you're established on a highway. I wish that there was an option for the car to do that automatically; given the amount of intelligence in the system that's not an unreasonable function.
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But Steve... (there's always a But right) that would put our car into HV every weekday as we drive our son to school which includes about 12 miles of freeway round trip. The entire trip is 25 miles, well inside the EV range of the Clarity. I wouldn't want the car to automatically switch to HV. I suppose if it was implemented there could be a setting to select that feature or now. Also for those who don't want a persistent HV mode that could be a setting as well.
 
jdonalds said:
But Steve... (there's always a But right) that would put our car into HV every weekday as we drive our son to school which includes about 12 miles of freeway round trip. The entire trip is 25 miles, well inside the EV range of the Clarity. I wouldn't want the car to automatically switch to HV. I suppose if it was implemented there could be a setting to select that feature or now. Also for those who don't want a persistent HV mode that could be a setting as well.
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Yes. Choices. Choices are good. I agree that automagically switching to HV isn't a universal wish. One should be able to select it, or not.
 
So just as a followup to my original post. My wife claims it happened to her, but I haven't been able to reproduce-- which is a good thing. I've driven a few hundred miles this weekend, all in HV mode and it stayed as it should. Also she said I witnessed this behavior once which sounds right. I tried to engage it when not moving (very start of trip) and had a hard time selecting then it fell back to EV if memory serves. I will say even in my tests this long weekend where I've been watching carefully, I have a hard time getting my car into HV at all. I must press the button more than once to get that mode.

In terms of wishing from Honda, my primary desire would be to just let the user select a setting, and have it be persistent-- or an option to set persistence.

I also find for the uninitiated, the closest to 'I just want to drive a gas powered car' option to be HV. You still get a quiet ride, and good range.

5 days a week I prefer EV mode (the reason most of us bought this car) but if we're on a long trip, it is easy to not select HV, or if you have a family member drive the car...

-Dan
 
As I said, it is possible that something is wrong with your car. You can select HV mode at any time and it only takes a short press of the button. If your car does not go into HV mode, or it drops out of HV mode, then there is something wrong with the car. This is not the normal behavior. Once you select HV, it stays selected until you un-slelect it. Anything other than this indicates that your car is malfunctioning.
 
Dan Albrich said:
5 days a week I prefer EV mode (the reason most of us bought this car) but if we're on a long trip, it is easy to not select HV, or if you have a family member drive the car...
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I wish that there was better information in the Owner's Manual regarding driving strategy - the things that I have learned by reading experience-based posts from owners. The obvious strategy is to drive the car in EV mode until it switches itself because the battery is flat. Since it doesn't allow the battery to go completely discharged, maybe that's not such a horrible thing . . . but I wish that new owners were provided with the kind of information that we see here. My strategy on my first road trip was to run the battery down to empty and then shift into HV-charge, which accomplished getting me to my destination with juice left in the battery, but simply shifting to HV mode during the highway part of the trip is a much better solution. The explanation in the manual for the various modes leaves a great deal to be desired.
 
I'd say that not reliably going into HV mode upon the first, quick button press, based on a handful of commenters on the forum, might be normal. There are times when I press the button and the car does not go into HV mode. Usually the second press takes. If it drops out of HV without user intervention, something is wrong.
 
Agree on all counts. The manual really could of included better info. These forums have been extremely useful to me. I do sometimes have to press HV more than once to get it to take, but haven't had to press more than twice. I have been watching for falling back to EV mode, but haven't witnessed it since I've been tuned in to watching for it.

With regard to why not just run battery low, and let car handle: At least in my case, when the car goes to low on battery I hear relatively high RPM sound (higher pitched but not louder than 'normal' gas car). I admit I don't like that sound, and that I'm likely more adverse to it because the car is normally so quiet.

Finally, on a recent trip up a slow ascent (over mountain pass) I started with HV on at beginning of trip, and used cruise control as much as possible. This seemed to yield a very quiet ride -- even compared with last time I did the same trip. The car appears to like 'auto' settings where possible. I also retained about 26 miles of EV range over the ~200 mile round trip. Last go-round, same trip, not using cruise control at all, my EV range went to 0 miles when I got to top of the pass (even though HV had been selected). Long uphills seem to kill EV range to some degree even in HV mode.
I also suspect all of this is why long-press HV exists. i.e. in certain circumstances having EV range go to zero is unavoidable. Should this occur, it gives you an option to get a more 'cooperative' HV ride down the road. i.e. the car seems to like to be able to mix the electric and gas motors as needed.

-Dan
 
MNSteve said:
Interesting. I wouldn't have predicted that. Unlikely I will get to actually experience it here in the flat Midwest.
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Considering that the car weighs 4000 lbs and the engine provides only 100hp, it is very predictable that the electric propulsion system would need to assist the engine in hilly conditions.
 
Dan Albrich said:
I also suspect all of this is why long-press HV exists. i.e. in certain circumstances having EV range go to zero is unavoidable. Should this occur, it gives you an option to get a more 'cooperative' HV ride down the road.
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I believe that HV CHARGE Mode (long-press HV) is provided to recharge the battery before the next mountain climb. It makes the most sense to use it for this purpose. When travelling through flat country, the big MPG hit that HV CHARGE Mode incurs forces you to decide whether minimizing engine noise or maximizing fuel-efficiency is more important to you.
 
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