It's Not the Absolute Worst, But the Honda Clarity EV's Range Won't Wow Anyone

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

No one likes worrying about running out of charged particles while driving through a sketchy neighborhood late at night. If you’re a green car aficionado and hold this fear above that of spiders, death and public speaking, you’d best look somewhere other than Honda for your next battery-powered vehicle.

A report states that the all-electric version of Honda’s upcoming Clarity, which will forever live in the technological shadow of its fuel cell-powered sibling, sports an embarrassingly short range.

According to Automotive News, when the Clarity EV goes on sale this spring, it’s not likely to be snapped up by buyers with exurban commutes or those who like long, aimless drives in the country. That’s because the Clarity packs just 80 miles of range. Very retro.

While it doesn’t have the worst range in the EV marketplace — that distinction goes to the cartoonish Mitsubishi i-MiEV, which sold a total of zero units in January — the Clarity ties with the upgraded-for-2017 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive as the second-lowest-ranged EV. Unlike that model, the Clarity at least has a proper backseat. Still, venerable EV nameplates like the Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus Electric now sport 100 miles or more of range, while the Chevrolet Bolt manages 238 miles.

So, what’s the deal with the lackluster driving radius? It all comes down to the limitations of the vehicle’s architecture, explains the automaker. The vehicle’s platform was built with a fuel cell powerplant in mind (as well as a plug-in hybrid variant), leaving precious little room to place an expansive battery pack.

Not only that, but the vehicle’s advanced composition, coupled with a bigger battery, would create a unpalatable price gap between it and its competitors. The estimated price of the Clarity EV is $35,000 before tax credits.

“A pillar of the Honda brand is affordability, and if Honda came out with some obscenely priced long-range electric car, what does that do for the brand?” Steve Center, vice president of environmental business development at American Honda Motor, told Automotive News. “Most of our customers would not be able to acquire it.”

The Clarity is larger than its low-end and mid-range competitors, which, coupled with the price, makes Honda believe that buyers will still consider the vehicle on their EV shopping lists. Maybe thumbing your nose at range anxiety will become the newest form of brawny American machismo.

[Image: Honda]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Flipper35 Flipper35 on Feb 28, 2017

    80 miles would work for my work commute in April and September. How much of a hit in range do you take when it is below zero and the windows frosted over, or rain is freezing on the windows?

  • SimRacingDan SimRacingDan on Feb 28, 2017

    Having just bought a 2015 Nissan Leaf 2 weeks ago, I concur that this is kind of crazy. I mean, the official 87 mile range of the Leaf is perfect for my daily commute and errands, but I also only paid $10500 for it, so my expectations are set appropriately. The other thing they don't tell you about EVs is that their batteries degrade over time, and that range diminishes significantly in winter and bad weather, and highway speeds. So your 80 mile range might actually be 40 miles on a snowy day in January. Again, I love my Leaf and highly recommend it to people who have another car available to them.... But for $35k before tax incentives you can do a whole lot better than this Honda.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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