My Nissan Leaf Forum

Per IEVS, Jan. U.S. Clarity sales:

Clarity BEV: 77
Clarity FCV: 1
Clarity PHEV: 1,192
Total: 1,271

Apparently the FCEV is just starting production again.

IEVS:

Report: Honda Clarity PHEV Sales Now Limited To Only California

https://insideevs.com/news/363526/honda ... alifornia/

ABG:

2020 Honda Clarity Fuel Cell gets better cold weather performance
The hydrogen vehicle is still only available to lease in California

https://www.autoblog.com/2019/12/18/202 ... fuel-cell/

Honda won’t sell many Clarity Fuel Cell cars, but the hydrogen-powered Honda is getting a minor update in 2020 all the same. As a quick reminder, the Clarity is only available for lease in California. The going rate these days is $379 per month, and it’s available for purchasing from 12 select Honda dealers in the region. To say it is niche would be an understatement.

The updates for 2020 may not have you clamoring to find a dealership, but they are worthwhile improvements. Honda says it has “improved cold-weather startup performance.” We’ve asked Honda for details on how it’s improved, but just know it’s better than before for the time being. One other cold weather nicety Honda included in the update is heated outside mirrors. Residents living in California (the only place one can buy a Clarity Fuel Cell) probably won’t be in a position to take advantage of these cold weather improvements, but we’re not going to complain about them either.

Honda has also revised the Clarity’s color scheme. In addition to white and black, a new Crimson Pearl color is available for ordering. This red replaces the Bordeaux Red offered in 2019. The white Claritys will also come with a brown interior as opposed to the all black interior from last year. . . .

Having chosen my 2003 Forester partly because it came with heated outside mirrors, I take exception to the above statement. Anyone who regularly skis or who lives in the Sierra can benefit from them, not to mention those who regularly encounter heavy fog, common along parts of the coast and endemic to the Central Valley in winter.

GRA wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 18, 2019 6:53 pm

Having chosen my 2003 Forester partly because it came with heated outside mirrors, I take exception to the above statement. Anyone who regularly skis or who lives in the Sierra can benefit from them, not to mention those who regularly encounter heavy fog, common along parts of the coast and endemic to the Central Valley in winter.

We already know that your use case is pretty much in the extreme. How many people are driving their FCEV Clarities into the mountains to ski? Can you even make those trips with the current state of H2 fueling infrastructure? Most people are buying these cars to commute in while making a statement. I'd wager that the vast majority will never leave the LA basin. And those are the people who will never need the winter package.

GetOffYourGas wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2020 8:35 am

GRA wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 18, 2019 6:53 pm

Having chosen my 2003 Forester partly because it came with heated outside mirrors, I take exception to the above statement. Anyone who regularly skis or who lives in the Sierra can benefit from them, not to mention those who regularly encounter heavy fog, common along parts of the coast and endemic to the Central Valley in winter.

We already know that your use case is pretty much in the extreme. How many people are driving their FCEV Clarities into the mountains to ski? Can you even make those trips with the current state of H2 fueling infrastructure? Most people are buying these cars to commute in while making a statement. I'd wager that the vast majority will never leave the LA basin. And those are the people who will never need the winter package.

No idea how many are doing so, but there are plenty of skiers here in the Bay Area and Sacramento areas, and it stands to reason that people who do so are more likely to care about air pollution than the general public. I've seen my share of BEVs in Yosemite, including a Model X in the same overnight wilderness trailhead parking area (at a downhill resort) I left my car in on my most recent trip.

FCEV Claritys are sold in Northern California as well as Southern California, and you can certainly drive them to Tahoe to ski, as there are stations in Sacramento as well as Truckee. Getting from the Bay Area to Yosemite and back remains very difficult for an FCEV - a Nexo and probably a Clarity could do it with a lot of care, a Mirai no. As I usually go towards Yosemite and almost never to Tahoe anymore, it's not surprising that I haven't seen any Claritys in the mountains. As for SoCal, there are ski areas within round-trip FCEV range of L.A.

GRA wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:24 pm

No idea how many are doing so, but there are plenty of skiers here in the Bay Area and Sacramento areas, and it stands to reason that people who do so are more likely to care about air pollution than the general public. I've seen my share of BEVs in Yosemite, including a Model X in the same overnight wilderness trailhead parking area (at a downhill resort) I left my car in on my most recent trip.

FCEV Claritys are sold in Northern California as well as Southern California, and you can certainly drive them to Tahoe to ski, as there are stations in Sacramento as well as Truckee. Getting from the Bay Area to Yosemite and back remains very difficult for an FCEV - a Nexo and probably a Clarity could do it with a lot of care, a Mirai no. As I usually go towards Yosemite and almost never to Tahoe anymore, it's not surprising that I haven't seen any Claritys in the mountains. As for SoCal, there are ski areas within round-trip FCEV range of L.A.

From my empirical experience, I disagree. Skiers care disproportionately about having AWD, not so much what comes out of their tailpipe. This is based on the large numbers of SUVs, Trucks, and Subarus in the parking lots.

Teslas are in a different categories. Skiers also tend to have more discretionary budget than others (the sport is not cheap!). Those same people often buy Teslas for a statement and not for clean air.

GetOffYourGas wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:08 pm

GRA wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:24 pm

No idea how many are doing so, but there are plenty of skiers here in the Bay Area and Sacramento areas, and it stands to reason that people who do so are more likely to care about air pollution than the general public. I've seen my share of BEVs in Yosemite, including a Model X in the same overnight wilderness trailhead parking area (at a downhill resort) I left my car in on my most recent trip.

FCEV Claritys are sold in Northern California as well as Southern California, and you can certainly drive them to Tahoe to ski, as there are stations in Sacramento as well as Truckee. Getting from the Bay Area to Yosemite and back remains very difficult for an FCEV - a Nexo and probably a Clarity could do it with a lot of care, a Mirai no. As I usually go towards Yosemite and almost never to Tahoe anymore, it's not surprising that I haven't seen any Claritys in the mountains. As for SoCal, there are ski areas within round-trip FCEV range of L.A.

From my empirical experience, I disagree. Skiers care disproportionately about having AWD, not so much what comes out of their tailpipe. This is based on the large numbers of SUVs, Trucks, and Subarus in the parking lots.

AWD certainly looms large for frequent skiers, and is one of the major reasons that we haven't seen greater adoption of ZEVs by them (myself included), but it's not a requirement for everyone. If I didn't insist on it, a Kia Niro (PHEV or maybe even BEV) would work for me and many others. Unfortunately, neither the Outlander or the Crosstrek PHEVs provide enough of an advantage to cause many people to opt for one of those.

GetOffYourGas wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:08 pm

Teslas are in a different categories. Skiers also tend to have more discretionary budget than others (the sport is not cheap!). Those same people often buy Teslas for a statement and not for clean air.

True to an extent so far, although I have high hopes that the RAV4 Prime will start to move the income distribution downwards, as long as they keep the base MSRP below $35k, and preferably as close to $30k as they can get it - the RAV4 Hybrid's base MSRP is $28,100, so hopefully the Prime will be no more than $32K. Not all skiing is downhill; the skiers who are more likely to care about environmental issues are X-C types, and we need AWD as much as the people visiting downhill resorts. I do see Teslas at areas frequented by backcountry types, although as the latter demographic tends to value jobs that give them as much free time as possible more than those that generate lots of income, ZEV numbers in such places are still much lower than the demand. This tends to be the Subaru demographic (of which I'm a member), and Subaru, as a relatively small company, is moving slowly (too slowly IMO) and carefully to meet it - GCR:

Subaru aims for dramatic CO2 cuts: All hybrids and EVs by mid-2030s

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/11 ... -mid-2030s

2020 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid returns to California, other states by order
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/11 ... s-by-order

On this note, I remember looking under the hood of the PHEV vs. BEV version of this at an auto show over a year ago. IIRC, the PHEV had a pretty full engine compartment while the BEV had a hilariously large gap (empty area) between the BEV components and the radiator. I guess it's not too surprising given the minimal effort spent on this car and that there were 3 versions: BEV, PHEV and FCEV.

I just checked https://automobiles.honda.com/clarity and the BEV is gone. Did it get discontinued?

I neither said nor implied that all skiers are downhill skiers. I also enjoy cross country skiing, and the same comments / observations apply. At XC locations, they too have parking lots full of SUVs and Trucks. I do see the occasional Tesla, but almost always the Dual Motor (aka AWD) variant.

And then you look at the people on the trails - their clothing gives them away. Far more of them are making a statement than are being practical. And the amount of trash they leave behind betrays the fact that they aren't highly motivated to preserve the environment.

GetOffYourGas wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 8:50 am

I neither said nor implied that all skiers are downhill skiers. I also enjoy cross country skiing, and the same comments / observations apply. At XC locations, they too have parking lots full of SUVs and Trucks. I do see the occasional Tesla, but almost always the Dual Motor (aka AWD) variant.

And then you look at the people on the trails - their clothing gives them away. Far more of them are making a statement than are being practical. And the amount of trash they leave behind betrays the fact that they aren't highly motivated to preserve the environment.

Guess we ski in different places. Sure, the lots are full of (smaller) AWD CUVs/trucks, because those are the cars that can get you where you want to go, haul your friends and gear and can (easily) be slept in. I also see lots of Priuses at such sites here. We're only just starting to see affordable AWD BEV/PHEV CUVs, and trucks are still a ways out; there are still no AWD FCEVs. But believe me, at least in California the interest is there, and there are lots of people waiting for the opportunity to switch. The RAV4 Prime and maybe the ID.4 will be likely be their first realistic opportunity to do so; maybe the XC40 will squeak in there too.

Re trash, I've always found that's a function of distance/elevation from the road - within an easy day ski or hike are the casual users, and beyond that are the ideologically-aware ones, who would no more dream of littering than they would of using pack stock, and who walk along picking up the casual users' trash. You get the occasional longer-distance exception - I still remember how furious reading some sections of Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" made me - but in general I find the relationship holds. The same thing applies to "Fishermen who backpack" versus "Backpackers who fish" - I recall my amazement and anger watching a couple of "Fishermen" in Little Yosemite Valley (ca. 7 miles in, sort of the inter-tidal zone for the two groups) chasing a bear cub through camp and up a tree while whipping it with their poles - It had run off with some of their catch. Without going into my usual rant, let's just say that the two groups have a very different attitude to being out in the natural world