[michaelwei]

Good afternoon:
I took delivery of my 2019 Clarity last Sunday, May 5th and have been truly enjoying this great car! I wonder if anyone can share some insight on charging technique to get the most of the battery and to prolong the life. I read a lot of articles on the internet and there are a lot of ideas about when you should charge the car and when you should stop. I read in the owner's manual that I should keep it fully charged to prolong the life of the battery but someone mentioned that I should let it discharge to 20% and only charge to 80%, this is the best way to make your battery last longer, even though the comments are not for the Clarity.
Sometimes, on the internet, you get more confused the more you read. I found out one time I let it discharge to 16% and then fully charge again, the EV range shows 90.2 km. I suppose it's like doing some stretching exercise for your car it can extend the EV range?
I have installed a Chargepoint Level 2 charger and it has been great, it will stop charging once the battery is full, unlike the Flo charger at the gym, it will keep on charging even though the battery is full after 5 minutes, it kept on charging for over 2 hours. Does anyone know if this is harmful to the battery? Not too mention that I could get charged for the two hours when the actual charging is only 5 minutes.
I have never owned a Honda before, but so far I am very impressed with this car. Any tips and pointers that anyone can share to get the most out of this car and how to make the battery last the longest?
The major reason that I got this car is to achieve zero emission so I can sleep better at night knowing that I am not contributing to the climate change with my car. Not to mention that the gas price is $1.69 per litre.
Thanks for listening and I am ready to learn.
Cheers!:wink:

 

[dwheat17]

I know nothing about battery technology, but what I have learned here on this forum is that you do not need to concern yourself with all these issues. The engineers have programmed everything into the car regarding all these issue so you can just ignore it.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Groves Cooke]

I charge mine completely everytime I pull into the garage. Also charge at work. Honda warranties the battery for 10 years in CA. I've never kept a car that long. Manual says to charge the battery to full.

 

[obermd]

The Clarity PHEV only uses 13.8 KWh or so of the 17 KWh battery. The difference is split roughly evenly between the high and low end of the battery. I would be very surprised if the Clarity EV doesn't have these buffers as well. The reason for this is that fully charging or discharging Lithium Ion batteries is the fastest, guaranteed way to kill their capacity. Your cell phone would last a lot longer if you never fully charged or discharged the battery. The Clarity's charger tracks this for you so you don't have to remember to unplug the car.

The second fastest way to kill a LiOn battery is to let it get too hot or cold. The Clarity manages battery temperature, during charging and discharging with a liquid coolant loop, similar to but separate from the ICE coolant loop. I suspect, but am not positive, that the Clarity's battery coolant loop runs between the cells of the battery as smaller EV batteries get hotter during charge/discharge than larger EV batteries due to the faster battery cell charge/discharge speeds.

The Nissan Leaf is a perfect example of why the car needs to manage the battery SOC (State of Charge) and temperature for you. Nissan has had to replace so many batteries under warranty they added language to their owners manual to tell owners not to fully charge or charge when the battery is too hot or too cold. Nissan also recommends you don't use DCFC when driving long distances or that you plug in until the car has cooled down after getting home. Watch this Weber University 8 minute video of the difference between the Leaf and Bolt battery management.

It appears Honda has taken the same route as Chevrolet and Tesla when it comes to battery management. This route allows the owner to not have to worry about this very important aspect of EV ownership.

Welcome to Clarity ownership and ClarityForums.

------------
DCFC stands for Direct Current Fast Charge. There are three competing standards for this, Tesla, CCS, and CHAdeMO. All these standards are 440V or higher as well as high current rates to charge faster. Tesla is obviously for Tesla's cars. CCS is the most common non-Tesla charger in North America and uses a plug that is a a "superset" of the J1772 plug on the L1 and L2 chargers. CHAdeMO is used heavily in Japan and has made inroads in North America via Nissan, but doesn't appear to have the ability to scale to higher voltage and amperage than it has already done. I believe Europe is going CCS thanks to VW Group. The plugs for these three standards are not interchangeable.

 

[Rangerpilot]

So here’s a thought to ponder. If I want to extend the range of battery use on my plug in Clarity by placing it in HV mode to charge the battery up to the 80% full mark while driving long distance does the LOAD on the ICE require a higher level of fuel consumption? That is will the trade off for the ICE fuel used for charging compared to the additional electric miles (approximately 32 miles) gained be awash?

 

[obermd]

So here’s a thought to ponder. If I want to extend the range of battery use on my plug in Clarity by placing it in HV mode to charge the battery up to the 80% full mark while driving long distance does the LOAD on the ICE require a higher level of fuel consumption? That is will the trade off for the ICE fuel used for charging compared to the additional electric miles (approximately 32 miles) gained be awash?

Simple physics tells us that using the ICE to charge the battery is less efficient than using ICE to directly drive the car. However, these powerplants aren't that simple and there are times where using HV Charge mode to put charge back into the battery for later use in low speed driving may actually be more efficient use of gas.

Also, I doubt you can use HV Charge mode to get to 80% battery SOC (State of Charge). Other posts here have indicated 50% SOC seems to be the limit - I couldn't find how much the car will charge the batteries in the owner's guide or manual. What you should be able to do is put the car in HV mode as soon as you hit the highway and the battery's SOC will remain the same until you take the car out of HV mode.

 

[Clarity_newbie]

The book answer is 58% max charge while in HV charge mode

Pg 17 of the owners manual has a graph showing HV max charge line...it displays ~60 percent from low charge.

Hope this helps.

 

[obermd]

The book answer is 58% max charge while in HV charge mode

Pg 17 of the owners manual has a graph showing HV max charge line...it displays ~60 percent from low charge.

Hope this helps.

The text says HV Charge will charge until 12 segments are lit. This would imply a nearly full charge from HV Charging. I agree the graph shows about 60%.

 

[4sallypat]

Yes because running the battery till empty - the last 2 bars don't count - they actually mean zero EV.....