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Crazy FE with a full green battery

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Fuel Economy' started by Mondrin, Jul 29, 2008.

  1. Mondrin

    Mondrin Junior Member

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    I finally got my first 50+ tank doing a 180 mile trip over the coast range in Oregon to my mother in laws. I didn't know what to expect going over a small mountain range and was impressed. The one crazy experience I had to share was after getting a nice full green battery going down a very long hill. I've had a few full green batteries but this one hit all green bars and I still had a ways to go down. After hitting the bottom I found myself going up a slight incline in electric mode (yellow arrows) at 60MPH for at least a minute at 99MPG. I don't remember how long it took to bleed the battery back to blue but even at the top of the next hill I was still getting around 70 MPG with the standard blue bars. During the full battery incline I even tried accelerating to get out of electric mode and found that I had a good deal of power and could actually accelerate while still in yellow bars.

    Anyone else seen similar results? Wish I had a bigger battery if a full battery can give you performance like that.
     
    #1 Mondrin, Jul 29, 2008
  2. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    That is normal for a big hill. While the long run in electric was nice, remember that you previously paid for that full battery by burning gas on the uphill side.

    Tom
     
    #2 qbee42, Jul 29, 2008
  3. JimboK

    JimboK One owner, low mileage

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    Yep, several times descending the Appalachians. In fact, if you do enough downhills like that you might see the second piece of what seems like a paradox: The ICE shuts down easily when you give it a little go-pedal, but it spins up when you let off. Down a long incline with substantial regeneration, it is easy for the battery's maximum state of charge (~80%) to be reached, as you've seen. Once it is reached, the car pulls some of that charge back out to spin up the ICE and to help slow itself instead of allowing more regeneration -- behavior that's very similar to using "B." All part of protecting the battery from overcharging.
     
    #3 JimboK, Jul 29, 2008
  4. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    You are simply seeing the effects of going downhill. :)

    If i drove from Truckee to Sacramento (effectively down hill) I could get over 100mpg I'm sure. I just have to conveniently forget to add the 35-40mpg I go going from Sacramento to Truckee (uphill). lol
     
    #4 F8L, Jul 29, 2008
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