How do you drive in the Mountains ??

I rode my bike up there 20 years ago or should I say motorcycle.

 

Things must be different between your Gen II and the Gen III, 2k1Toaster...

First, maybe it's because the Gen III added a few extra horses, but I never floor it going up mountains. Not even close. It might be all the way to the right of the PWR bar in the HSI, but that's only about half power or so - there's still quite a bit of power in reserve. That said, yes, it is a good idea to keep your speed up - if you need to slow down for traffic or something, you don't have to let off the accelerator much to drop whatever speed you need to.

And second, I have never been able to shed battery charge on the way up a hill. The Gen III just doesn't want to use the battery, so I basically always crest with the battery still at 6 bars. In fact, it will even charge the battery on the way up the mountain, if you drained it beforehand. (That's something to avoid, if you can - but in general, any time you're at fairly constant highway speeds, the car will be keeping the battery pretty close to 60% SoC, so you shouldn't have to worry about it.) It'll still charge all the way up on the way down the other side and produce a fair amount of heat in the process, of course.

 

Here's my experience---
I've been wondering how my 2012 Prius Three would do in the mountains. The trip is 100 miles each way starting from essentially sea level and going over a 7400 ft summit to the 6300 ft elevation of Lake Tahoe. About a third of the 100 miles is city and level freeway driving. The most difficult up hill part is about 50 miles from about 1200 ft to 7400 ft elevation. It was a very cold day and the heater was on most of the time. There was no problem keeping up with traffic which was often above 50 mph up hill. The final mileage for the trip on the display was 52.8 mpg which means about 49 mpg actual. I was pleased with that result considering much of the trip was in the "just drive it" mode of operation.

On another day---​

You can get very high mpg on much of the downhill leg, mpg could be 70 or even 80. I live near Sacramento and make 200 mile round trips to Lake Tahoe (7400 ft elevation max, lake at 62oo ft. At the top of the pass mileage is down to 33 mpg). Going up on a good day I get about 38 mpg, returning on a good day (last week) 80.5 mpg. The round trip was 54.5 mpg. (Okay, subtract 3.7 mph average display error.)

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Regarding getting up to speed---​

The trip up to Tahoe is not a steady climb and there some 30 mph curves. So there is a lot of slowing then getting back up to 50 or 55 mph on fairly steep grades. I have no trouble keeping up with the gas burners.​

 

Thanks for posting this. This totally makes sense and if I programmed the car, I would avoid using battery while driving 80MPH uphill for obvious reasons. Maybe battery is only used when one makes panic acceleration (totally floored pedal).

 

A lot depends on what you call mountains. Will you just be driving across I-80? Or will you be driving in Yosemite on roads with 25 mph speed limits...or even up the "old priest grade" etc.?

Depending on traffic you can go across the Donner summit (I-80, ~7,200 ft) at ~65 mph.
Tioga pass road in Yosemite (10K ft)...much slower and probably not open yet in April depending on snow.

Mike

 

Here's my log for Salina, KS to Park City, UT on I-80 over the mountains.

938 miles, 69 mph avg, 45.2 mpg. | PriusChat

 

LOL WHERE WAS IT IN THE BROCHER ABOUT MOUNTAIN DRIVING AND GETTING GREAT MPG

 

I thought 54.5 mpg (displayed) for a 200 mile round trip in the mountains was pretty good. See my posting above. On trips to the coast (hills not mountains) I usually get around 61 mpg (displayed). That's more than Toyota would advertise.

 

We do Appalachians all the time, no probs but the engine works hard when the batt runs down. So I like the thought of fresh Mobil-1 oil in there. MPG takes a pretty big hit for me, as low as 35 MPG couple weeks ago (of course it was 10F in the mountains- ). Keep in mind MPG takes a pretty good whammy for each 100-lbs. I forget the exact number, but I figure my body (200-lbs) is at least -1 MPG. Heavy load like that is where I *might* consider mid-grade gaso octane, but on the other hand high altitude allows for lower octane. Be sure antifreeze level is good, as water pump leaks are common (at least in Gen2).