Attached a pic I took from the MFD after going a very steep and *long* downhill in Austria the other day. I have never seen *6* 50wh cars since owning the Prius... The "descent" is between Seefeld and Zirl in Austria.
I use B when going down hill and don't regen much at all, nor do I use any gas...in fact climbing and descending a mountain usually nets near 0.
We've filled the tank at a station that happens to be at the start of a long downhill drop. Resetting the trip meter at that station can result in some insanely good mileage by the time we reach the bottom, a real ego boost, LOL.
I live on a mountain so that happens everyday as I descend down into town, and then I get 8mpg to 18mpg on the long climb back up.
Yeah but it sucks a lot less than anything else. The RX gets single digits and gains nothing on the way down. The RX hybrid gain a bit on the way down, but again single digits on the way up. And by mountain I mean mountain. Steep steep grades, twisty road. The old VW love bug doesn't have enough power to get up the hill even at slow speeds.
Welcome on board. I just wanted to start similar thread after visiting Italy... very step hill, B-mode. I have seen this pic on the road at least 10 times within a week, and at least 3 times in a row on the one road in Tuscany. B-mode is interesting. It starts engine but below 50 kmh it barerly runs until battery get topped (topped = 8 bars for longer period of time). After that it starts revving up engine very high. After that ECU does everything possible to get rid of the 8th bar. On the flat road or uphill ICE didn't start until either battery lowered to 7 bars or HSI went to PWR zone. It was very enjoyable drive with EV mode off, 8 bars and going uphill with 2/3 of the HSI hybrid zone and engine off. I had also a 10 to 15 minutes trip going 60 kmh (sligh downhill + flat, suburban areas) with ICE off, running only from 8 bars of battery. I liked it. Despite of 27 - 30 degrees Celsius outside battery fan didn't run at enormous speeds. I was able to hear it but it wasn't much louder than A/C running at 2 bars speed. On the other day driving from Brenner to Innsbruck down with B-mode I have filled battery and then I was running with 0 l/100km at 100kmh for some time (until 8th bar didn't gone), even uphill.
