Wrong HV range

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Well Ken7, I just took my first trip out of town of 134 miles and filled up upon return (2.2 gal) and.....
You guessed it! HV range now at 550 miles. I did make an official ticket with Honda on this and I hope every one else will too and maybe we can get Honda to issue a software patch.
Now I’m going to vent and preach to the choir: Did anyone at Honda even drive this car before putting it on the market!?!!!! Really?!? Really?!?
There, that changed nothing but now my spleen feels better.
 
Ken, I didn't want to be a Debbie Downer, but it was inevitable you'd join the "WTF!" range club. ;)

It is amazing that this somehow escaped the testers...especially since mileage is one of the major selling points.
 
Maybe they did drive it and when they saw the range shoot up like that they just thought they did a really good job making the car. The range is WAY better than they thought!
 
Just created a new thread with a link to make it easy to open a ticket with Honda on this issue and a poll to track how many of us have done this. Please go there and vote. If enough of us do this it may light a fire under Honda to fix what appears to be a systemic problem in our PHEV Claritys.

Please excuse me if I should have done that on this thread instead of a new one. I’m new to this and don’t know what the ediquette is on this.
 
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I’m thinking in terms of all the cars I’ve ever owned (with the exception of the Tesla), I can’t ever recall a software fix being applied to anything like this. I hope I’m wrong, but I think the odds of us getting a fix for this are very low. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this fixed in the 2019 Clarity. :(
 
Ken7 said:
I’m thinking in terms of all the cars I’ve ever owned (with the exception of the Tesla), I can’t ever recall a software fix being applied to anything like this. I hope I’m wrong, but I think the odds of us getting a fix for this are very low. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this fixed in the 2019 Clarity. :(
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Ken7, you are probably right unfortunately.
Wonder what would happen if I took it in for warranty service on this issue for the 4/reasonable # of times KY Statutes on Lemon Law require and met all the other KY Lemon Law requirements and it was not repaired?
Hmmmm. Refund of purchase price, fees, and taxes minus a reasonable deduction for time in service and offer of a comparable vehicle. Perhaps a way to convince Honda to take the time, effort and expense to give us a software update???
 
Sorry for the cross-post with another thread, but this is fairly important: I just got a call from Honda in response to my problem report. She seemed genuinely interested in the issue but said she never heard of it and told me to go to report it to the dealer. However, when I asked her to simply look at one of their cars to see the problem, she said their test vehicle shows a normal HV range of about 300 miles or so. I pointed her to this forum to see how many people are having the problem and how nobody has reported not having the issue. She opened a case number and told me I can get a message to her by entering the case number when calling tech support. She also agreed to report the problem to their engineers through her channels.
 
Not sure if this was answered. The Range display is based partially on your recent driving distances. I had two months with no gas, EV only, about 2000 miles. Had a reasonable range. The next time I filled up it has 1000 mi HV range; the range display on the Honda owners manual says 2200. It would be nice just to have a decent range display for the HV mode (e.g., gal * 42 MPG).
 
Pix from the Honda Clarity owners manual
Clarity 2280 Mil Range.webp
 
IMG_1039.webp

Yesterday, the 2 month anniversary of buying my Clarity, I finally put gas in it. 1680 miles driven and it took 5.43 gallons. Gauge was showing about 1/4 and HV range said 89. This is after the refueling.
 
Tailwind said:
View attachment 799
Yesterday, the 2 month anniversary of buying my Clarity, I finally put gas in it. 1680 miles driven and it took 5.43 gallons. Gauge was showing about 1/4 and HV range said 89. This is after the refueling.
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Welcome to the club of infinite HV mileage. It seems to be a universal problem. Please use this link to open a case and hopefully if enough of us complain, we can get Honda to fix this.

https://crrs.secure.force.com/service/hondaownerw2c

Also, there is another thread on the weak headlight problem that most of us are experiencing with a link to he NHTSA site to open a complaint. I have done so for both inadequate headlights and incorrect HV range.
Here is that link:

https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2018/HONDA/CLARITY%2520PLUG-IN%2520HYBRID
 
We are also members of the 1000 Club. In fact, our gas gauge has now dropped one bar but we are still showing 1000 for hv range.
 
So this just gets better and better (actually worse & worse). I had filled up about 2 weeks ago, but had been running only on electric, with the typical 1,000 mile HV range showing after fill up. Today we took a longer trip and depleted the electric, running on gas for quite a few miles.

I had expected the HV range to gradually drop to something under 1,000 miles as we continued to run on gas, but it didn't happen. Despite dropping at least 2 notches on the graphical gas gauge on the right, the HV range was stuck at 1,000 miles. Absolutely nuts. My wife and I call it 'The Honda Eternal Flame'.

IMG_0972.webp
 
Yet another crazy HV-miler here... Odometer shows about 1,200 miles; 450-500 of those having been with ICE in the highway (went to NYC and back from Boston). Apparently there is no learning on Honda's range formula, since I still see ~500 miles of HV range.

Just created a case -- thanks KentuckyKen for posting the link for it. Let's hope Honda solves this silly issue soon.
 
I guess the good news is that I'm not the only one to experience this problem. I had driven about 1500 miles in the first three months, with very little gas use. The reported EV and HV range was reasonably accurate throughout. A couple of weeks ago I decided to fill up - added 2 gallons to top the tank, and the HV range jumped immediately to 999 miles, and has been there ever since. I have since used the engine for only a few miles, just to try to see if the mileage would move down at all, but it has not, so far.

I really don't expect the local dealer would have any way of actually resolving this apparent design/programming problem, and I don't want to let them experiment with it. I know they would immediately try to reset the car, as an easy and meaningless "fix" for the problem, and that's the last thing I want done with it.

I'm glad to see that others have reported it to Honda, and I hope they can resolve it.

I have one question, though. Have any others found that the HV mileage will work back down toward a more rational range after extended engine use?
 
UPDATE - after a round trip to New Orleans (1629 miles) my HV range came down to 280 miles +/- 15 miles per fill up. That was after the first 2-3 refills, and I would guess 95% HV mode only. I did forget at least three times to set in HV mode and started off down the interstate at 75 mph just to look up in horror and see there was less than 10 miles EV range left - I think I could hear the electrons whistling out of the batteries at plus-70 mph :eek::D - so then I'd run in HV Charge mode for an hour or more to get it back up to plus 20 miles EV range - not sure that is a good trade off frankly.
 
dstrauss said:
UPDATE - after a round trip to New Orleans (1629 miles) my HV range came down to 280 miles +/- 15 miles per fill up. That was after the first 2-3 refills, and I would guess 95% HV mode only. I did forget at least three times to set in HV mode and started off down the interstate at 75 mph just to look up in horror and see there was less than 10 miles EV range left - I think I could hear the electrons whistling out of the batteries at plus-70 mph :eek::D - so then I'd run in HV Charge mode for an hour or more to get it back up to plus 20 miles EV range - not sure that is a good trade off frankly.
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Dstrauss, great data points for all is trying to figure out how our Claritys work.
Do you think your being the first of us to get back to a believable HV range is because practically all your 1,600+ miles were in HV? As in the computer is calculating based on the past several trips/miles so it had no EV miles to “pad” the HV miles with? Just speculating.
 
KentuckyKen said:
Dstrauss, great data points for all is trying to figure out how our Claritys work.
Do you think your being the first of us to get back to a believable HV range is because practically all your 1,600+ miles were in HV? As in the computer is calculating based on the past several trips/miles so it had no EV miles to “pad” the HV miles with? Just speculating.
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My gut tells me it will shot back up as I go back to daily driving of EV only over next few weeks. In fact, I've left the tank half-full from the weekend trip and won't refill until I get closer to the next long distance trip - will be interesting to see what kind of HV mileage this gives me then.

Couple of more observations: even when nearly full battery, braking with the paddles will add a tenth of a mile or more to remaining range. This leads me to believe they could at least let HV Charge mode go to 80% or more when you really want the range at the other end. I'd rather give up 2-4 mpg to recharge fully rather than waiting for a charger at the other end of my trip.

I also want the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and Santa to bring us a 500 mile BEV with 30 minute recharge because I really prefer the quiet and smoothness of battery over ICE.
 
That's what's happening. Since so many appear to not be using much gas in this early adopter phase, the computer is unable to parse EV use from the gasoline mileage. Give it more time. If the algorithm was built on the assumption that people would be driving a certain percentage of their miles in EV vs HV, then possibly that assumption didn't take into consideration that most people could conceivably run their vehicle on electricity only for long periods of time. While it seems in retrospect to be a glaring error in assumption, it is understandable.

The Prius Plug-in worked the same way. Estimated mileage was based on past use. Though in that car, the opposite situation occurred. Many drivers were upset that their EV range was so low. So upset that they'd resort to resetting the system or even in lots of cases removing the terminal from their 12v battery in an attempt to "reset" the range. It would reset and return to a higher estimate, but would eventually range down. These folks were mostly trying to eke out as many miles as they could on EV only (Which in that car amounted to about 12-15 actual miles). As they drove more gas/hybrid miles, their EV range increased.
 
bfd said:
That's what's happening. Since so many appear to not be using much gas in this early adopter phase, the computer is unable to parse EV use from the gasoline mileage. Give it more time. If the algorithm was built on the assumption that people would be driving a certain percentage of their miles in EV vs HV, then possibly that assumption didn't take into consideration that most people could conceivably run their vehicle on electricity only for long periods of time. While it seems in retrospect to be a glaring error in assumption, it is understandable.

The Prius Plug-in worked the same way. Estimated mileage was based on past use. Though in that car, the opposite situation occurred. Many drivers were upset that their EV range was so low. So upset that they'd resort to resetting the system or even in lots of cases removing the terminal from their 12v battery in an attempt to "reset" the range. It would reset and return to a higher estimate, but would eventually range down. These folks were mostly trying to eke out as many miles as they could on EV only (Which in that car amounted to about 12-15 actual miles). As they drove more gas/hybrid miles, their EV range increased.
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How hard (expensive) would have been to install a fuel flow meter and track fuel flow against odometer reading to keep a live track of HV range?

Like this morning, after a couple of bursts of high speed driving depleted the battery pack more quickly than usual last weekend, last night's recharge only showed 43.1 miles estimated EV range. However, my usual nearly 6 mile drive in to work registered only a 3.4 mile drop in EV range - it sure looks like it is trying to correct for actual usage relative to battery capacity remaining.
 
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