Prius Driving up a mountain?

It's not the amount of horsepower a car develops that will get you up hills, but torque (or twisting power at the driveshaft).
The Prius develops a lot more torque than many V8s thanks to the electric motor...400 nm. If you haven't tried it on hills yet, be prepared to be very surprised!

Take the Prius, and enjoy the drive!

 

Er, yes, but it's the power that keeps you going at speed. Up a steep hill, if you have half the power, you'll have pretty much half the top speed.

So it'll definitely go up any hill, but the question is how fast?

I don't imagine the Prius will have too many problems, but expect it to be pretty noisy - lots of engine revs.

 

I think you should take the bus. Same silly post is on edmunds and priusonline. You should have bought a H3. That'll make it up the hill!!

Seriously.... try it with GOOD RUBBER BABY!!!

 

ooooh, I hadn't thought of that - I had been all excited about driving down them, because of regen brakes (we got stuck for quite a while playing hacky at a lookout waiting for the brakes on the van to cool down last year.)

I hadn't considered that I'd be that annoying car going up that can't go at half the speed limit. I do find it strange that we haven't heard complaints about them if they truly can't cut it. I tend to think the car will perform as well as my camry could - now I'm just worried if a passenger car in general can handle these steep hills easily. I've only driven in Florida, and theres nothing that even compares to that here.

I'd love to hear from someone that's spent a lot of time in the hills.


EDIT: i read it again - managed to miss the smiley - i'm just imagining things

 

No need to worry about hills. I've read many reports of owners driving in the Rockies with no issues at all. As a matter of fact, at elevation, a Prius may have an advantage that only a turbo would have (assuming SOC is 60% or so).

 

This is a copy of a post I made last summer. There were two of us and about 200 lbs of camping gear and bicycles.

Recently drove from lovell wyoming to sheridan over highway 14a. The total altitude gain is about 6000 ft in 30 miles with the last 10 miles up a 10% grade. The Prius finally ran out of battery power on the 10% grade but was still able to maintain 35 to 40 mph on the gasoline engine alone. It was 90 degrees in lovell when we left and had no heating problem. Was quite pleased with the performance. 2004 Prius with 27,000 miles.

 

I completely understand the worry - I can't think of a worse way to spend that last ski weekend, but I suppose that's your business =) If the 35-40 mph max is right, I wouldn't worry - we didn't exceed that anyway - grade of the road aside, it's the tight corners and REALLY steep grade just off to our side that acts as a speed limiter for me.

 

I have taken mine up some long steep twisty roads and have had no problems. Just go for it. The battery may get down into the pink but it will protect itself, you don't have to worry about it. As previously stated you my end up using engine power alone and you won't have as much power but that shouldn't be a problem. The battery will recharge on the way down, if not before, and most likely get into the green, that may be one of the few times you actually should use the "B mode".

Sounds like a good Prius trip, have fun.

Edit: Be sure to let us know how it works out.

 

Your Prius will drive like any other FWD car up the hills with one difference. On prolonged steep uphill stretches ( More than 2 minutes of sustained full throttle driving) you will run out of battery. That means reduced power. On my trips up to Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 I will run out once or twice on the way up. That means that I can sustain about 65 mph, but if I get behind a slow moving truck it takes a while to get back up to speed. (Now we are talking about a long, 8% grade at about 10,000 feet here) On shorter hills the battery recharges on the downhill stretches pretty quickly and you will never run out of power.

If you are worrying about traction on snow and ice, just be sure you have decent snow tires on the car. Just like any other car, the Prius won't handle a surface that it's tires can't grip.

 

took a trip through WV recently on our way up north. the prius did GREAT!!! no troubles and we got about 53 mpg on the main mountain roads.

don't recall the interstate number, but we came up from the west end of the state, up to charleston, then over to kentucky. no problems whatsoever. too many interstate numbers in my head right now :blink:

 

I recently took my Prius up into the Rockies and had no trouble maintaining good speed (~65-70 mph) going up into the mountains. Battery was drained pretty early on. Even at low speeds the car did quite well going up US 40 to Berthoud pass, which is a slow winding and steep road. Battery was smoked before I even got to the steep part.

 

There was a post on one of the Yahoo lists that talked about driving the Prius up the Mt. Washington Auto Road without any problems.