Anemic performance in the mountains

Use the entire pedal travel, that is why it is there: for hills.

 

Being apprehensive with the pedal is a common newbie behavior... hence the recommendation: Just Drive It.

My experience is going 80 mph in the rolling climbs through Wyoming and 70 mph through the Black Hills of South Dakota. Neither was an issue.

 

1.If you don't ask for full power, you don't get full power.

2. Even if you do ask for full power, you get 121 HP. It is a Prius....

 

The first rule of brute force is that if it doesn't work, you aren't using enough.

Mash that pedal flat.

 

I have an odd perspective as my Prius is the second most powerful car I have ever owned. (least powerful was 59 HP in 1977)

My Subaru Forester had 45 more HP but the AWD added quite a bit of friction that made it seem less powerful.

 

Have to get to 5200 to be at full power.

 

What you saw is normal. If you take a mustang and only give it 1/2 gas pedal it will bog down on an up hill climb too. You TOLD the car that you only wanted to go 35 MPH.

I tell newbies that the hybrid gas pedal is NOT connected to the engine. It does not make the engine go faster or slower It is not an accelerator. It's a 'speed pedal' that tells the car that you want to go faster or slower. The car then decides how much power it needs and where to get it.

The one thing that took me the longest to get used to on my first hybrid was that I could not judge my speed by the sound of the engine.

Dan

 

Yes, when passing trucks at +90 mph.

 

were you in power mode?

i feel like my pip is less powerful with mostly engine vs my gen 2, i wonder if that legacy continues?

 

For the record... I've taken my prime through hill and dale as well as over mountain ranges and up looooong inclines. No Anemic performance. ***

Dan
*** Well, the first day, I expected the acceleration would be the same on the freeway on-ramp as it was on at a traffic light. I had it in eco mode so it accelerated slowly ans smoothly. I still got up to speed well ahead of the end of the on-ramp, but was expecting it to feel as fast as it looked.

 

I don't know that power mode does any specific apportionment of power in a prime. In the regular models, it just remaps the accelerator pedal somewhat, so you don't have to push it quite as far to achieve high demand. The hybrid computer splits the duty however it normally does while responding to the extra demand.

0% is still 0% and 100% is still 100% but it's got a curve to it- now 50% pedal gives 80% result.

Looking back to the bigger picture: I'll be blunt- there's just no way that car will climb a hill like that, at speed, with a low traction battery, without that engine joyously singing the song of its people at 5000+rpm.

And that's fine, even during break-in, at least for short periods.

If anything, it's of great benefit to cycle between high rpm and low rpm during break-in.

The car was built with just enough power to handle these mountain highways, but only if you use the entire powerplant- even the loud parts.

 

WOT is WOT, no matter what the mode you have selected. I love ECO mode because, at low speeds in EV, I can accurately modulate the "go pedal" to keep the instantaneous m/kWh bar close to where I want it. PWR mode is way too twitchy at low speeds for that kind of fine control. And if I punch it, the result is the same in all modes.

 

This is an important point.

The system is well managed and has years of debugging done by now. If that car is in READY mode & D gear, nothing you do to the skinny pedal will over-rev the engine.

Feel confident.