Happy battery, happy owner

Discussion in 'Clarity' started by 228ra, Apr 20, 2019.

  1. 228ra

    228ra New Member

    After a long-cold winter, I was so excited today to break the 60 mile mark (61.1 to be exact) on a single charge. That is all.
    Walt R and Clarity_Newbie like this.
  2. ClarityBill

    ClarityBill Active Member

    What's your outside temperature? I was happy to break 40 this morning (41 to be exact)
    MPower likes this.
  3. 228ra

    228ra New Member

    I am in Massachusetts where it’s been in the 50s-60s F this past week.
  4. 4sallypat

    4sallypat Active Member

    Glad to hear positive reports since I was getting tired of the winter complaints from most of the country....

    Being in So Cal, I never had a reduced miles per charge but then we turn on the A/C many months earlier than the rest of the country....
    228ra likes this.
  5. Walt R

    Walt R Active Member

    Me too. 47 mile round-trip commute, so seeing (and getting) 54-55 mi on the range meter makes these days seem carefree compared to the 44-48 mi on mild winter days (not to mention the sub-40 mi range on colder days, where avoiding HV wasn't even a possibility).
  6. melklim

    melklim New Member

    What is an EV mile? Is an EV mile a measure of distance of exactly one mile or is it some kind of conversion that calculate amount of energy it takes to travel a certain distance?
  7. David in TN

    David in TN Active Member

    Speed, temperature, wind, road surface, slope of road, drafting, traffic, lights, stops, and many other factors determine how far you can actually go on the battery's charge.

    I have yet to see calculations for EV's, but ICE-vehicles there is generally a sweet spot around 45 mph where you get the best mpg. Above or below that and mpg falls.

    Sent from my SM-N960U using Inside EVs mobile app
  8. insightman

    insightman Well-Known Member

    There's a guess-o-meter EV mile and there's a mile traveled under EV power. The Clarity Plug-In Hybrid remembers your past few drives and calculates how many miles the charge in your battery can take you. That's the guess-o-meter. Then, when you actually drive the Clarity PHEV using EV power, you find out exactly (well, as exact as the car's odometer is) how many miles the charge in your battery can actually take you.

    Because the Clarity is a PHEV and not a BEV, you can take the battery down to the minimum charge the car allows (it won't let you completely discharge the battery because that would soon kill a Li-Ion battery) without suffering a loss of mobility. Assuming you have gas in the tank, you can continue on your merry way, knowing how accurate the guess-o-meter was. If your driving style is consistent and you take the same route daily, the guess-o-meter can get pretty close. If the weather gets colder, you drive faster, or you climb more hills than usual, the guess-o-meter will over-guess your EV range on that drive.
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2019
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  9. Walt R

    Walt R Active Member

    As far as I know there isn't an "EV mile" but it would be a good idea to have one. If we could agree that, say, the average energy used per mile of the EPA highway test were "one EV mile" then we could talk about how many EV miles per actual mile were used for different types of driving.

    For example, driving one mile at 35 mph might be .5 EV mile, whereas driving one mile at 70 mph may be 1.5 EV miles. We could also make statements such as "gaining 100 feet of elevation will cost you 1 EV mile in the Clarity". I know that relative to my mostly-60-mph commute, I get 1.5 miles for "free" in the last 4 miles, because there are stretches at 40 mph and 30 mph as I approach home.
  10. insightman

    insightman Well-Known Member

    Isn't that what MPGe (miles per gallon of gasoline-equivalent) was created to measure? Unfortunately, Honda provides only the gas-electric combined MPGe for the Clarity PHEV (110 MPGe). However, it could be used to measure EV-only travel.
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2019
  11. Walt R

    Walt R Active Member

    @insightman I think we're talking about different things. You are talking about comparing to gasoline consumption per mile, I think. I was merely saying that it would be useful to educate drivers that not every actual mile driven in an EV is the same from an energy standpoint, and thus from a range estimate standpoint. (Same is true for gas engines, but I think it is talked about more in EVs because they have range estimate meters expressed in miles, and people pay more attention to them.)

    By the way, what do you mean by 110 MPGe being for gas-electric combined? I assume 110 MPGe is for electric only: it is near what other BEVs get and almost identical to the Clarity EV. The 44/40 MPG rating is for when running on gas.
  12. insightman

    insightman Well-Known Member

    I apologize. I was wrong about the "combined."
    I looked too quickly at the "Elec+Gas" on the fueleconomy.gov website and didn't notice that the gas part was 0.0 gal:

    > Elec+Gas: 110 MPGe combined city/highway 0.0 gal/100mi of gas + 31 kWh/100mi

    Based on the 47-mile EPA range, you can calculate the effective battery capacity (ie, not including the top-end and bottom-end buffers):
    47 mi * 31 kWh/100 mi = 14.57 kWh
  13. Walt R

    Walt R Active Member

    Agreed, although since the EPA rounds both range and kWh/100 to integers, I would put an error bound of at least .25 kWh on that result.

    I started metering my recharges again; the first two days were from zero and were each 15.3 kWh at the wall. Using the number above that gives me 95% efficiency on 120V.
  14. PHEV Newbie

    PHEV Newbie Well-Known Member

    Tesla says their cars are most efficient at 23 mph. It gets worse from there so you can imagine that going 75 mph is just terrible for EV efficiency. I think most EVs are similar because they only have a single speed transmission, so wind resistance and temperatures are the biggest factors for range. I drive around town going 25-35 mph mostly so I can easily get 80 miles out of a single charge when the outside temp is about 70 degrees. I imagine at 75 mph, in the winter, the range would drop to 30-35 miles so the EPA estimate of 48 miles is a good average of different driving styles and weather conditions. In my type of use, I get far better EV and gasoline mileage than the EPA estimates. My ICE vehicle gets terrible mileage under the same conditions because it does best in highway cruising. The Clarity is amazing!
    4sallypat and 228ra like this.
  15. Dan Albrich

    Dan Albrich Active Member

    Even in warm weather, max EV range I see is 47. In the winter, its more like 25-38 depending mostly on temps and heater/defrost usage. Anyway, my dealer's service has been really reluctant to do a battery capacity test for me (SB-17-093). So I'm paying them their hourly rate tomorrow to do the test for me. I've asked them to print out a screen shot of the iHDS Battery Capacity amp hours value.

    Even with a printout telling what I want, I fear they'll try and bill me without giving me a numeric value. They tend to like to say "it's fine, don't worry about it."

    Anyway, here's to hoping I get the data.

    thecompdude likes this.
  16. MPower

    MPower Well-Known Member

    You are paying them to give test the battery and give you a print out. That's the deal. If they give you no printout, they have not held up their side of the deal. Tell them you are not leaving until you get what you are paying them for. Or don't pay them.
  17. Dan Albrich

    Dan Albrich Active Member

    Thank you for your note MPower. It was a long conversation to get them to accept this work. At one point they quoted me 3 hours of labor at $118.99 to try and get me to say don't bother. I politely persisted. By the end of the conversation the person at my service/dealer said they'd do it for 1 hour of labor. Then he asked me if I wanted to wait. I had already made arrangements to leave the car and pickup after work. i.e. I have no idea how much time they need. But it did strike me as I left that during the same conversation it was 3 hours of billed time, then finally, do you want to wait while we do this? (presume faster).

    Anyway, I was able to get my point across. i.e. I will pay, and they will give me a printout with the numeric AH reading.

    MPower likes this.
  18. Walt R

    Walt R Active Member

    Out of curiosity Dan, what is your commuting profile associated with your low EV range?

    If you live right off the interstate and drive 85 mph everywhere I might lose some sympathy. ;)

    If you do have battery degradation, I hope Honda reimburses you this cost. And remember, they can't hold your car as collateral for minor debts. If you get in a dispute over whether they did the work they want to be paid for, they still have to give you your car back. (IANAL)
  19. Dan Albrich

    Dan Albrich Active Member

    I live in a small town. My commute is 5 miles each way. Top speed is 25mph.
    I have experimented with leaving the heat/cooling off completely, and using only economy mode. I'm gentle on the accelerator. I *never* see the EV ranges that are routinely reported in these forums, which is part of why I suspect my traction battery may be less good. I also always get "angry bees" if I let EV go to zero miles, and my EV miles slowly go down when in HV mode (even without stopping at all). So anyway, I think I see some things others do not.

    I have reported problems to my dealers service group repeatedly. They have thus far completely refused to help me with the iHDS test, at one point claiming such does not exist and that everything that can be known is displayed on the dash of the car. They then wrote a simple "all tests pass" instead of numeric ah value when asked. This time I brought it in only for the test (no oil change or other work) and made it very clear what I want. That was met with a long discussion about how this isn't my problem and the PDI stuff is only for the dealer, yadda, yadda. So hopefully I get the printout from the iHDS showing the battery capacity. We'll see.

    Edit: oh and in my prior post. Their hourly rate is $118.99, so when they quoted me 3 hours, they were talking ~$360 for the output.
  20. Walt R

    Walt R Active Member

    I share your conclusion, Dan. With HVAC off and those speeds, you should be seeing ranges well above EPA standard.

    I have no personal experience with this, but given your experiences I would be looking for another dealer to take it to. I've seen folks mention that there are some good dealer service shops out there, enough to make it worth a drive with a problem like this. Seems like a pain, but you're potentially looking for a warranty repair worth thousands of dollars to the value of your car.
    228ra likes this.

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