plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are a strange phenomenon theoretically they're
a great idea you plug the car in charge a battery pack and then you get to drive
a certain number of miles on electric power before a gas engine turns on and
keeps you moving the problem is that so many models of this description have
such a short electric range we're talking about in the teens of miles or
maybe the 20s and that is why when an automaker seems to have done it right
we take notice and that is the case with the Honda clarity plug-in hybrid note
that I'm talking about one type of Honda clarity there are two other versions one
runs on battery power alone and another has a hydrogen fuel cell system those
who are pretty limited in their appeal the one with more broad appeal across
the nation is the plug-in hybrid version now before we go for a ride let's talk
about the numbers which are really important
the epa-estimated electric vehicle range for the clarity is 48 miles which is
pretty good the Chevy Volt is just a little bit more at 53 miles but here's
the thing because of our driving history and the fact that the weather has been
favorable we've had temperatures in the 80s and 90s we've been seeing projected
ranges of 58.5 miles at the highest when the battery is full and we are getting
that now if you have winter weather and it's colder or you drive more
aggressively around Hills will that number be lower yes and history suggests
it might even be lower than the EPA estimate but understand that that is
going to be the case with any plug-in vehicle now key to maximizing your range
with any plugin is conditioning the cabin ahead of time which is a fancy way
of saying cooling it down or heating it up before you go driving and that is
because when you're driving an electric mode all the power for heat and air
conditioning comes from the battery and that just steals your range so it's best
to precondition the cabin when it is still connected to the charging system
and you're using grid power we were really pleased to see with the clarity
that it includes a key fob based system for turning on the air
conditioning or heat remotely and there's also a provision for it on the
app now the phone that we were provided didn't have a mobile plan so we didn't
get to test it fully but it does have a fair number of features on it actually
shows you more on it than you can see inside the car if you buy a clarity
plug-in Hybrid you are going to want 240 volt level 2 charging which is this unit
here or another one like it that's currently plugged in and I'll tell you
why partly because when you go to
precondition the cabin you're getting five times more power that way we tried
to cool down the cabin of the clarity sitting in the Sun using the provided
household voltage 120 volt system and it just couldn't cut it likewise if you are
charging using this you're adding about four to five miles of range for every
hour of charging so when the battery is empty that's up to 12 hours and that's
just not fast enough now if you get a level two system that is capable of 30
amps or higher then you will be able to charge the battery completely at about
two and a half hours you're adding about 20 miles of range for every hour of
charging it's well worth the investment overall we're pretty impressed with the
driving experience in the clarity it kind of recalls the Chevy Volt when it
is in its electric mode because it has pretty robust acceleration on electric
power alone and it's pretty linear in ways that hybrid cars often aren't with
a hybrid sometimes the gas engine turns on it turns off it's a little jerky it's
not what your average car enthusiast really wants but it is efficient now
because it can run an electric mode alone no gas it's much more natural in
linear now one difference is in the Chevy Volt even if you stand on the
accelerator it'll stay electric propulsion only in this car if you
really got it it will turn the engine on for a maximum
power for what it's worth when I said you have to stand on it to trigger the
gas engine here in the flatlands where cars calm is headquartered i drove a few
days without turning on the gas engine without even really thinking about it so
there is enough power for normal driving in electric-only mode there's actually a
section of the gauge that's gray it's almost like the red line on a tachometer
but in this case it's the grey line and if you keep the needle or virtual needle
out of that area the gas engine won't turn on there's a definite difference in
the feel of the drivetrain when you're in hybrid mode now hybrid mode means
either you've activated hybrid mode to maintain your state of charge on the
battery or the electric charge from plugging into the wall is depleted and
you've got electric and gas it's not quite as inconsistent as a regular gas
electric hybrid but it is definitely not as linear and and a natural feeling as
the car behaves when it is running on electric power alone now there are some
quirks though in this system and one of them involves the braking not the
regular braking which is actually pretty decent pedal feel not to be confused
with a normal car but when you drive a hybrid or a pure battery electric you
get regenerative braking the brake pedal feels a little spongy there's some of
that here no question the issue is with the selectable regenerative braking
which is something many electric or plug-in hybrid cars offer you where you
can change the amount that it decelerates when you lift off the
accelerator now the weird thing about this car is the way you activate a
different level of regenerative braking and that is through hitting the shift
paddle what we usually see is a shift paddle there's a negative here and a
plus here so you do this and there are up to four steps the problem is you have
to do that every time and when I say every time if you're in the regular
drive mode you are driving forward you hit it a few
times if you come to a stop or if a few seconds go by
it defaults to where it was makes no sense whatsoever I have not met anyone
that likes this system we prefer if you just were able to set it and it stayed
where you put it the only way that happens is if you
activate the sport mode in sport mode the accelerator pedal is more sensitive
and if you set that deceleration for greater regeneration it stays there but
there's a big difference between sporty driving and efficient driving at least
in the drivers mind so I'd rather be able to just set the regeneration the
way I want it in any mode not in sport regarding the handling I liked the
balance in the car the weight distribution bear in mind it has an
electric motor and a gas engine up front a big heavy battery pack in the rear
that gives it a nice balanced low center of gravity feels good the steering feel
is actually quite good but I would not call this a sports car and necessarily
even a sporty car typical of this type of vehicle the weak link is the tires
they are designed for efficiency so they don't have the greatest grip in the
world you can accidentally spin the tires on dry pavement once you get on to
wet stuff it's probably gonna happen a little bit more but by and large it's
not a bad car to drive overall we find the ride quality to be quite good in the
clarity it's not soft but it's not overly firm pretty good comfort for the
front seat and back seat occupants in our opinion the shortcomings of the
clarity are mainly about the multimedia system which we really haven't liked
that much in other Honda vehicles especially earlier ones because this
model came out technically more than a year ago it doesn't have the volume knob
and tuning knob that have since been added it's all a capacitive touch system
and it's actually pretty short on some of the neat graphics and details you get
in a lot of plug-in either plug-in hybrid or just purely
battery electric vehicles you do get very simple bar graphs like this one
there is the requisite seems a little slow stick with me the requisite vehicle
energy page so you can tell how much range you have electric versus gas and
that is repeated also in the instrument panel but by and large we're talking
about what seemed like older graphics for what is a brand-new car and to that
end there's kind of a shortage of information from the charging system as
well there's a little green dot that glows when the car is charging which is
good to have but you look at some other vehicles out there and you can tell by
the number of of indicators or the blinking or something helpful the
battery is at a glance in this car you're just looking outside you're
seeing that it's either charging or it is not you do get more information on
the app which is good but if you have a full touchscreen system like this why
not have it here too the clarity plug-in hybrids closest competitor is the
Chevrolet Volt with a V as in voltage the plug-in hybrid very priced
practically the same just over thirty four thousand dollars with destination
and eligible for a $7,500 tax credit the range is longer on the Volt but the
combined miles per gallon once the electricity is used up is the same
between the two cars at 42 miles per gallon pretty good there now I'm sitting
in the best place to see one of the great advantages of this clarity is that
it's larger it's got about two inches more legroom almost an inch and a half
more Headroom just a larger vehicle overall and ultimately that can be
useful for a family I wish the seat were a little bit higher off the ground my
knees are kind of pointing up which unfortunately is pretty common these
days and cars of all types here's one claim to fame the smartphone holder in
the seat back now that's innovation now one area where it might seem the clarity
has an advantage over the Volt is cargo volume because the specs suggest that it
has a few cubic-feet but for what it's worth the
Volt is a hatchback and there's always some inherent advantage there even
though the battery pack is a little bit high it does have folding back seats
which is good so you can extend in I'm gonna say it's probably a wash between
the two models for versatility versus overall cargo volume you can get a lot
in here it's just a kind of a strange shape there's no question the clarity
has a lot to offer especially if you want to get decent electric range in
your plug-in hybrid which let's be honest if you're going to get a car that
can be plugged in the more range you can get out of electric the better so in
that regard this plug-in hybrid makes a lot more sense than a lot of the
vehicles on the market now and a lot of the plug-in hybrids to come
you