Just purchased a used 2018 Clarity Touring with right on 36,000 miles. After 3 weeks and several hundred miles I am loving the car and learning a lot from this forum. I have about 1000 questions but will keep reading before I start asking them.
New Owner in Texas
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Is that a PHEV?
Yes
Here’s one. Is there a way to start the ICE while the car sits in the driveway in Park? I want to hook up an OBD2 and check things without having to drive around.
Here’s another. Can you buy an extended HondaCare warranty after the factory warranty expires?
The PHEV version is the only Clarity that has ever been for sale. The fuel cell and EV versions were lease only, when the lease ends they revert back to Honda and are not sold so presumably they are all scrapped. If they sold even one car they would have to maintain parts and service as long as the factory warranty is in effect.
Interesting. I wasn't aware (obviously). I guess the $58k MSRP was used as the basis for the lease costs? I always assumed that it was the sale price. You know what they say about "assume"...
My Vol
My 2011 Volt fired up the ICE automatically, when you opened the hood, with the car on. That was a pretty handy feature.
So far, I haven't read anything that shows that the Clarity PHEV does the same thing. I'd suggest going for an EV-only drive to bring the battery below 30% or so, then pull into your driveway, and enabling HV Charge mode. HV Charge should turn on the ICE, to bring the battery to roughly 60%, then revert to HV mode. Invoke HV Charge by holding the HV button down for a few seconds.
My 2011 Volt fired up the ICE automatically, when you opened the hood, with the car on. That was a pretty handy feature.
So far, I haven't read anything that shows that the Clarity PHEV does the same thing. I'd suggest going for an EV-only drive to bring the battery below 30% or so, then pull into your driveway, and enabling HV Charge mode. HV Charge should turn on the ICE, to bring the battery to roughly 60%, then revert to HV mode. Invoke HV Charge by holding the HV button down for a few seconds.
The Clarity EV (officially known as Clarity Electric) was only available for lease in California and Oregon. The Clarity FCV (officially known as Clarity Fuel Cell) was only available for lease in California because that is the only state that has publicly accessible hydrogen refueling stations.
Clarity Electric was discontinued last year, so the last of the three-year leases will start ending in a couple of years. Although owners apparently are given an option to extend an additional year at the same $199 per month, so in theory at least some Clarity Electrics might be on the road for another three years.
The Clarity Fuel Cell will soon end production if it hasn't already (along with the PHEV) however I notice that Honda still has the FCV listed on their website at $379 per month so presumably they will continue leasing them until they run out.
Ah yes. Just like the ol' EV-1s in '97-'02. They were lease-only as well, in very limited markets.
We leased three of them. (Two at the same time.) Great cars. Waaaaaay ahead of their time. It was the '97 EV-1 that started us on our EV journey. Put up PV in '99, too. We've had a half-dozen or so EVs continuously, since.
Being an EE, I've always had a soft spot for electric propulsion.
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I looked at the FCX and then the Murai when I was still working in So. Calif. We had an H2 fueling station 1.5 miles from home and another 3 miles from my work. I ended up with a Prius Prime (range anxiety). I do see that the lease returns on the Murai are now being sold by Toyota for about $17,000 (depending on mileage) and that includes a $15,000 fuel card.
Wow! $2k net for a used Mirai is unbelievable. If I didn't already have a '21 Bolt, I'd buy one.
The $15,000 hydrogen credit will get used up in about 50,000 miles depending on driving conditions, and I think the credit expires in three years regardless of mileage. After that it's on them to purchase hydrogen at around $30 for every 100 miles. These costs can vary quite a bit based on the type of driving. There is hope that the price of hydrogen will come down somewhat in the next few years but that is not a given. But also their situation of being close to a hydrogen fueling station is unusual because there aren't that many even in Southern California. Depending on where they live and work someone could easily have to drive ten or fifteen miles in L.A. traffic every time they need to fill up. I guess what I would do is make a late-night In-N-Out Burger run whenever it's time to fill up the car.
The Prius Prime that they bought will have very low fuel and electricity costs, so the $15,000 hydrogen credit cannot really be thought of as money in the pocket.
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Do you live in Ontario? Because the H2 fueling station is less than a mile south the the In N Out Burger at Vineyard and I-10.
There's an H2 station about five miles from me.
Paying thirty cents a mile for fuel after three years is a non-starter for me. At ~6,000 miles per year on average, I'd never see anything close to 50,000 miles. That would make the value of the $15k for fuel be less than two grand. Never mind.
Paying thirty cents a mile for fuel after three years is a non-starter for me. At ~6,000 miles per year on average, I'd never see anything close to 50,000 miles. That would make the value of the $15k for fuel be less than two grand. Never mind.
No I don't live in California anymore. But when I fly into LAX I like to go to the In-N-Out Burger on Sepulveda Blvd which has a great view of planes landing. You won't believe this but many years ago I was on an America West flight from Ontario to LAX in a 737. Obviously not a scheduled flight, what happened is we were late leaving Phoenix and lost our landing slot at LAX. After circling over the desert for half an hour the pilot decided to land at Ontario where America West had some gates and we waited there until there was an opening. We took off from Ontario to the west and climbed a few thousand feet up to the LAX glide slope then started descending, no turns needed. The flight lasted twelve minutes.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the room when the decision-makers made that call. So many tangible cost variables to consider (additional fuel, tire wear, FAA sanctions, etc), weighed against such intangibles as passenger comfort. Then again, a manager may have just said "Send the [email protected] thing to Ontario", without giving it a second thought.
Although obviously off-topic, here's a little more detail about it since you brought it up. After about thirty minutes of circling we straightened out and headed west again, so I assumed that we were now on the way. But then the pilot came on and said that air traffic control is telling us that we have at least an hour more to wait, the pilot said we don't have enough fuel to circle for an hour so we are going to land in Ontario and wait there. They always have to maintain fuel reserves and I'm sure there was enough fuel to circle for another hour, so I assume what he meant was there isn't enough fuel to circle for an hour and then fly to LAX and still have required fuel reserve.
When we arrived in Ontario he said we will not be deboarding during the wait, although he said if anyone wants to get off the plane in Ontario you can, however if you have any checked luggage it will go on to LAX we can't unload it here. A couple of people did get off the plane in Ontario, I assumed they just had carryon and they figured they would get to wherever they were going faster by getting off in Ontario. Although I'm pretty sure the airline would have delivered checked luggage to someone's home or hotel if they requested it, but obviously they didn't want to advertise that, but I think if someone asked they would have. But I doubt if any of the passengers thought of asking about that, otherwise maybe a few more would have gotten off in Ontario if that would get them wherever they are going faster.
The pilot said that while waiting in Ontario we will be taking on more fuel. I'm pretty sure there was enough fuel for the twelve minute flight, so they probably added fuel in Ontario to reduce their turnaround time once they got to LAX, since I'm sure the lateness of our flight affected whatever subsequent flight needed our plane.
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