On january 13, 2019 my wife and i were driving on a 1.5 hour trip on a 4-lane freeway. the outside temperature was 30 degrees. while driving at 70 mph, suddenly the internal combustion engine revved up dramatically while simultaneously the car started slowing down uncontrollably. my wife, who was driving, would push the accelerator and the engine would rev up, but the car continued to slow down. it was as if the wheels had become disconnected from the power source. fortunately, there was little traffic on the road so we were able to put on our emergency flashers and gradually ease off the side of the freeway and safely come to a controlled stop. we turned the car off, let it sit for a couple minutes, then re-started it. as we tried to accelerate back onto the highway, the car would move forward some, then the wheels would seem to disconnect again and the engine rev while she tried to accelerate, then she would let up, try again, etc., over and over again, until gradually the car began to pick up speed. this was a very dangerous and scary situation. eventually we got the car returned to full speed and drove without further incident to our destination. after the car had been parked for approximately 5-6 hours, we started the car and attempted to head back home. it got out of the parking lot fine, but as we began driving on a 2-lane road around the 20-30 mph speed the same problem re-emerged. the engine would rev as my wife pushed on the accelerator, but the speed of the car would decrease ' allowing no control of the speed of the car whatsoever. again, by slowly pushing and releasing on the accelerator the car gradually 'engaged' appropriately and eventually got up to normal speed and we were able to return home without further incident. if the same problems had occurred while on a busy freeway it would have been a life-threatening situation.
Infotainment issue: screen freezing and / or non responsive. many honda clarity owners are experiencing this and dealers are aware of owners mentioning this issue. normally, a "tech" issue is expected in this day and age but since the climate control, the rear view camera and the blind spot camera safety mechanisms rely on the main infotainment system screen any type of lag or freezing is a direct hazard to our daily drive and to others around us. it is only a mater of time before someone gets hurt. we are asking honda to proactively fix the issue of lag, freezing and unresponsiveness that the center console entertainment systemscreen regularly exhibits. randomly, when activating the camera feed, the image from the camera will stay frozen on the screen. when a neighbor walked behind my car as i was backing out of my driveway he and his dog were not in the camera feed! furthermore, the "lane watch" camera on the right hand side mirror is meant to show an image of any car or obstacle in your way. a method devised to eliminate the pillar blind spot. in a situation that you merge into a different lane or to an exit ramp a frozen image of a clear lane will resault in an accident. the image i attached is from the day i picked up my car from the honda dealership. the image was supposed to be of my reverse camera but instaed a different backgroung image was displayed. also notice the steering reverse trojectory lines were overlayed on that image. it is only a matter of time before an unfortunate situation occurs involving someone or their families lives. i pray that honda will address this issue.
The clarity phev is incompatible with public charging stations (e.g. chargepoint) that feature dual charging ports and an energy management controller (emc). the vehicle's onboard charger will shut off when it senses the charging station's emc is activated when both ports are engaged for simultaneous charging. multiple failed attempts to restart charging will result in a "total system failure" warning from the instrument panel causing the vehicle to not start and drive. owners could be stuck in a parking stall for up to 4 hours to allow the system to self-heal/recover from the total system failure before being able to start and drive the car. issue has been diagnosed by honda dealership, but no information from honda or the dealership on a future software update to resolve the problem. i think honda should perform its due diligence to issue a recall for the clarity phev and potentially for its all-electric version to resolve this major flaw.
At the time of the occurrence the vehicle had been owned for approximately 90 days and had approximately 2500 miles on the odometer. when initially started in a stationary poistion the information display provided multiple apparently spurious alarms and warnings. these warnings continued when the vehicle was in motion. turning the vehicler off and restarting the vehiclewould not clear the warnings. the display would cycle displaying *adaptive cruise control problem*,*lane departure mitigation system problem*, and *emmissions control system problem*. addtionally the brake system and lane departure mitigation system malfunction lights and check engine light were illuminated the vehicle was taken to a dealer who reset the codes using proprietary honda vehicle analysis software. the warning and codes did not re-appear. the cause for the warnings was not determined. these apparently spurious warnings present a safety concern. they provide a distraction to the driver while cycling on the informaiton display and could cause a driver to ignore valid warnings in the belief they too are spurious. the issue is such that it warrants monitoring by the manufacturer and ntsb to determine the root cause of the problem and frequency of occurrence.
I have driven the clarity for 4 months. this has happened three times in heavy traffic with honda sensing turned off and no cruise control. if i am following the car ahead closely and the vehicle ahead slows down , but not enough for an accident, the clarity stops unnecessarily quickly, scaring me and putting me at risk of getting hit from behind. it's scary. i am very capable of stopping the car on my own and do not need the car overcompensating. if i turn all the safety features off, i do not understand why this is happening.
The vehicle's computer uses past driving history and fuel state (among possibly other data) to calculate an extimated hv range so that the driver can know approximately how far the vehicle can safely travel before needing to refuel and/or recharge. this function is not working correctly on my vehicle nor on any of the numerous owner's who have posted on insideev forums in the clarity subsection. it appears to be a universal problem. it wildly presents ranges of 100s to 1,000s of miles above what the vehicle is capable of and only gets worse whenever more gas is put in the tank. this is a safety issue because at first the overstated presented range is still somewhat believable and a driver could run out of gas following it and find themselves in a potentially dangerous or life threatening situation if stranded in bad weather. this is a universal problem with all 2018 honda clarity phevs. it's obviously a software miscalculation that could easily be fixed with an update. i hope you will look into this before it causes a tragedy. if you inspect the owner's manual you will see that there is a picture of the display on the dashboard with 2,000+ miles of hv range. somehow this slipped by honda. obviously no one is going to believe that the vehicle will go 1,000s of miles between fillups/recharging, but early on when it's just overstating range by a few hundred miles, a driver could believe it and get stranded in a potentially dangerous situation (eg. weatherwise). thank you for helping keep all of us safe.