Prius C in the mountains!

So I moved from Philadelphia back to where I grew up originally in Divide, Colorado. My job is in Colorado Springs, so I have a 36 mile each way commute. The commute has everything - starting on dirt roads, then single lane 40mph roads, then highway, finally the center of downtown Colorado springs at 25mph, and then out towards the east part on major 45mph artery roads.

Here's the thing - Divide is at 9,200ft and Colorado Springs is at 6,035ft. So on the way to work - I just roll down the hill to get there, and it's quite a climb to get home. This results in pure mayhem in the MFD.

I fill up my battery on every single drive to work - and regen braking stops when the battery gets above 75-79% SOC on the ScanGauge. B mode comes in handy for the very last part to maintain the right speed - because the state patrol likes to wait at the very bottom of the hill!

When your battery is that full - the car starts doing interesting things to get it back down to the normal 60% range. It'll stay in EV even when the Hybrid System Indicator bar is ABOVE the middle eco line. It will also use a lot of electric power above 45mph - the engine is still spinning above 45mph - but indicating nonsensical numbers like 400mpg or so because it's not using much fuel.

My records screen is almost meaningless because it doesn't go above 99.9mpg

The scangauge is the only way to see MPG above 99.9. This drive was 213mpg on a 31 mile trip.

Here's my info screen - you can see I'm not using EV much at all - because the speed limit on these highways is 55mph and 60 mph.

Here's how the fuel cost screen looks now. Notice the crazy spike in November - that's when I drove the car from PA to CO. The trip itself was only $76 - the rest was other activity in November, preparation for moving and such.

My sister has quite different ideas on what is a suitable vehicle. She uses her jeep when she goes to Moab, but lives in the city!

My drive home can be interesting sometimes. Snow! I have Michelin Xi3 snow tires on 14" steel wheels. They work great.


The drive home is all uphill. My MPG for these trips is typically between 33mpg and 37mpg. Not too bad considering. The overall average of a whole tank is better than it had been in Philadelphia for me. I've been averaging around 54-57 MPG for a whole tank. Mind you this is the middle of the winter in the cold with snow tires on. That's great. I generally managed 48mpg for a tank in Philly.

Conclusion: I'm keeping the Prius C. The C is a rare sight up in the mountains, but having a hybrid in this sort of terrain is highly entertaining.

 

Here's a picture of one of the weird situations. Doing 45mph, the HSI bar is above the center, but I'm still in EV mode. This drive calculated to 231mpg for a 31 mile drive. On snow tires.