There are very few out there, that's for sure. I've seen less than half a dozen in the New York metro area. Supposedly there were only 21,000 or so 2018 models sold in the country.
Pretty close, our moderator 4sallypat bought one of the last 2018's produced, his Clarity has a VIN number of around 23,500.
The 2018 model year Clarity was produced from around October 2017 to December 2018. The PHEV version was sold nationwide in 2018, and you could find some in every state. Although most were shipped to California.
The 2019 model was handled very differently. Honda again shipped Clarity primarily to California, but shipped them nowhere else except the other ZEV states (at the time that was Oregon and most east coast states). But even the other ZEV states only got an initial shipment in early 2019, after that Honda only shipped Clarity to California for the remainder of 2019. There were initially some decent factory incentives for the east coast ZEV states, leading to a reasonable number of sales. But then around mid-year 2019 (as best I can remember) Honda ended factory incentives except in California and Oregon. Sales on the east coast screeched to a virtual halt, and 2019 models (and even some leftover 2018 models) languished on east coast dealer lots for the remainder of the year. Oddly Honda also stopped shipping Clarity to Oregon also, even though they kept the factory incentive going in Oregon all year, long after all the cars in Oregon were gone.
In August of 2019 Honda was questioned by a member of the EV press about the lack of Clarity shipments outside of California. A Honda spokesperson admitted that they were currently "prioritizing" Clarity inventory for California, but claimed that Clarity could still be ordered in all 50 states. However in reality that was not true based on the experience of numerous people all around the country who tried unsuccessfully to order a Clarity, with most dealers claiming it was not available for order, some erroneously said it was discontinued (which they may have actually believed), other dealers simply refused to order one with no reason given.
Starting with the 2020 model Honda resumed shipping a few Clarities sporadically to some other states, very few though. And some people reported that they were now able to order one outside of California, even though it often took four months to arrive, with no ETA available during that time until the car was about two weeks out. That situation seems to have pretty much continued into 2021.
So what to make of all this? There have been many opinions and theories. My opinion is that I think that Honda can make a small profit when selling Clarity without a factory incentive. In states where they get CARB credits Honda offered dealer incentives, which makes the initial sale a loss to Honda, however the credits can make it worth it overall. For the non-ZEV states Honda shipped nationwide in 2018, in the hopes (again this is my opinion) that because of the $7,500 federal tax credit that Clarity would sell without factory incentive in reasonable, even if limited numbers, just with normal dealer discounts (i.e.$1,000-3,000). However that didn't happen and cars languished on dealer lots in states where there were no factory incentives. I think that's when Honda decided to give up on nationwide sales. And there is a theory that they also gave up on east coast ZEV states because they don't need the credits there, or they don't need them that badly, not enough anyway to take a loss on the sale. Only in California does it seem that they get enough CARB credit that it makes sense to offer a factory incentive and take an initial loss. I suspect that the cars occasionally shipped outside of California are simply excess stock, which is why it is so random.
Many people have an alternate theory, that Clarity sells in low numbers because Honda doesn't advertise it. Well sure, but why don't they advertise it? I think it's because it makes no sense to spend big advertising dollars to try and increase sales of a car that will likely be sold at a loss, in states where they don't need CARB credits. I think another reason is that it's hard to explain in a short ad what a PHEV is, to a buying public that still thinks regular hybrids are plugged in. It's sort of like they say about comedy, if you have to explain a joke it won't work. Ads appeal to the emotions, and if you have to do too much explaining in an ad, it doesn't work either. Now if more of the public was already familiar with the PHEV concept, and knew that most PHEV's only get around 25 miles of EV range, then the ad would be simple, "Buy the Honda Clarity, the plug-in hybrid that gets 47 miles of EV range". But if they tried that ad today, people would say, "What? Only 47 miles of EV range? All of the others go 100 miles or more!" and they would not read past that to learn that when you use up the electric range you can fill up at any gas station and keep going.