Report: Honda Clarity PHEV Sales Now Limited To Only California

It’s perfectly fine to have a fuel fetish or a charming automotive hobby or even an esoteric world view, right up to the point where you want to use OPM to move the merchandise.

Ever drive a normally aspirated 1.5 up a steep hill at 10000ft? Plus that heavy battery? Reminds me of my 1992 Honda civic wagon screaming up the hill in third gear at maybe 50mph.

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No…i think the highest incline was at around 8500…but let’s not pretend that is what most people do on daily basis.

Obviously we are talking regular sedans here. The question is can this Clarity replace an Accord? Ask anyone that have one (except the poster above) and will tell you YES.

Probably not daily but we do try most weekends to explore our new city/state. Going up long, steep inclines in a 2 ton car with an altitude handicapped ~80hp NA 1.5L motor is really not ideal. If you like that type of torture and putting undue stress on the tiny motor, more power to you. At some point it’s going to give up. It’s easy to advocate the Clarity is more capable than it actually is but that’s not reality and I try not to be delusional about the capabilities and shortcomings of a car. It just wasn’t going to work. For someone who lives in metro Denver and never ventures into the mountains, it may work just fine or better than fine but unfortunately that’s not our situation.

We loved the Clarity in SoCal where we didn’t pay for any electricity (solar) and commutes were 2 miles to work each way and mainly on flat roads. Electricity and gas is dirt cheap here compared to SoCal. At $0.11/kwh and $1.85/gallon earlier this year, we were not paying much to operate the car. We got a great deal on the Touring with all of the incentives ($345/month taxes included) so it would have been to our benefit to keep it IF it were a good fit – which it wasn’t any longer – given where we live and where we venture.

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I’ll have to post later when I hop on a computer. Are you referring to insideevsforums?

I’m perfectly fine with the market deciding. This is one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of vehicles I would not have.

This thread wouldn’t exist if consumers in 49 states haven’t already weighed in with a :fu: to an inferior sedan with no reliable fuel source.

Subsidizing the vehicle, the manufacturer, the fuel infrastructure, etc., for an inferior product that virtually no one wants is what gets on my tits.

Are you talking about the Hydrogen Fuel Cell version now? This whole thread is about the plug-in gas hybrid.

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I guess I am and I misunderstood, but if you strike the “no reliable fuel source” from my earlier comments, the rest still holds.

Subsidizing the vehicle or the infrastructure with public money is appalling.

Well call your Congresscritter and demand they end alt fuel vehicle subsidies and claw back all the way to your Prius’ first owner (the regular hybrids had those too once upon a time). Maybe AMP, Audi, BMW, BYD, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, CODA, EMC, Fiat, Fisker (the worst offender of bad offenders), Ford, Hyundai, Jaguar, Kandi, Karma, Kia, Land Rover, MB, Mini, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Porsche, Smart, Subaru, Tesla, VIA, VW, Volvo, Wheego, and Zenith will join your cause against Honda.

I’ll reserve my own views on tax subsidies for another Off Ramp post, except to say a thing I don’t miss about living in Columbus for 3 years was the almost daily, random outbursts from coworkers about misspent tax dollars, frequently from people who gladly consumed tax dollars to their own benefit. And I don’t just mean “not paying more than their fair share”.

About 1/8 of the US population lives in California, almost 3M more than Canada. If Honda wants to stop selling the Clarity elsewhere, go nuts. It’s by no means a compliance car.

I understand @Mark.ca’s point that it’s an almost substitute for an Accord, but as many have said not always, in all cases. I couldn’t tow anything in my CMaxes (nor can you in your Prius). Not all vehicles are all things to all people. Everything on 4 wheels makes trade-offs. :man_shrugging:t2:

Don’t get me started about the separate line item on our property tax bill for the f—ing zoo. :laughing:

Yes…if this is a design flaw there will be others with your experience. The car had all sorts of issues early on.

Not “alt”…make it “all”.

If it’s 90% of the time then it’s the rule not the exception. Maybe when Joe say phevs are not for everyone he means that they are for almost everyone in which case we agree. In LL case, any 1.5l out there would be miserable dealing with said conditions. My point is that this is not an phev issue…a 530e would fair much better.

Or the hockey arena. I pay the same taxes in CA I paid in OH except I only pay the Feds and the State: I don’t have 7 or 8 hands in my pocket.

I definitely understand this point, but the testing that any mass produced engine goes through is far more severe than this type of service.