I drive a steep grade at least twice a week, doing about 45-55 depending on my mood, (for those in socal, its Hawthorne Blvd.). I feel like the engine will blow unless I back off. So the question is; is there a way to drive 45-60 up a incline for a long period of time? What power mode is best? Also will be doing Cajon Pass in a few days.
Keep to reasonable speeds, such as what you are now doing, and press the pedal. That's all you need to do. The Prius engine sounds loud, due to a lack of sound proofing, but it doesn't work very hard. If you need it, use it. The control system won't let you hurt the engine. Tom
Going up long steep hills will not hurt anything, just put your foot in it and go. Which mode you choose is completely up to you, there is no difference in the total amount of power available. The difference in modes is throttle pedal mapping, plus ECO mode operates the climate control more efficiently.
Your choice, of course, but just to be clear, power mode does not increase hill climbing ability. All the modes are equally powerful. Tom
Funny. At much lower speeds, in B.C. on the Sunshine coast, there is a road in Gibsons that is so steep Pearl made it up without too much trouble, but I wanted to turn around and go back down. Pearl didn't have enough power in "R" to back up the hill while I was turning around. On cruise, on secondary highways in Alberta, Pearl has run up to 5000 RPM going up some hills. It won't harm the engine etc., just your mileage average.
Switch to power mode when climbing hills. It won't make the engine more powerful, but the throttle response will be better and it won't feel as much of a slow-poke.
To try to avoid some of the higher RPMs you can anticipate the climbs and being accelerating ahead of time and then gently increasing pedal pressure as needed to maintain speed. If you wait until the car beings to slow or until you hit the steeper part of a climb and then press the pedal firmly you will go into Wide Open Throttle mode and it will suck gas and it will increase the RPMs proportionally. But rest assured, the RPMs are governed and you won't exceed any dangerous level...just sounds loud...turn up the stereo to compensate!!
It's not hurting anything other than mpg running high rpm. I beat the crap out of my last Prius, I couldn't break it. These cars can take a lot. I hope to start competing with this car soon and I'm very confident it remain reliable after many years.
Ahhh, up Hawthorne Blvd, that's PV. I know the area well & that long hill is hard on all cars regardless of make & model. It is especially hard on engines going uphill & brakes coming downhill. I used to run the brakes out twice as fast living up there years back. Does the police still stake out speeders in his famous hideout(emergency slideout area) that all the PV locals knowabout but still can't manage to avoid?
Man I' m reading this at the right time. I bought a 2012 Prius III last week and I'm having a blast driving it and figuring things out as I go. So let me get this straight. The only reason to use a specific mode is to experience a different amount of pushback on the gas pedal? For example, I notice that if I drive in normal mode I could still be in EV without pushing the button if i go less than 25 mpg. Am I correct? BTW, loving the Prius.
The pedal feels the same, in power mode, it just reacts sooner in the pedal travel. Hard to explain if you've never tried it before, the pedal resistance is the same in any mode, just have to push it further down in eco mode to get the same quick reaction.
The three modes, not counting EV, are Power, ECO, and Normal, you get Normal when none others are selected. The difference is the power delivered during different parts of the pedal movement. In the Power Mode most of the power is delivered during the first half of the pedal movement much the same as in a normal non-hybrid car. In ECO you get less change in power per unit of movement during the first half of pedal movement. Normal is between the two. The result is in the Power Mode when you first push down just a little you get fairly big change in power which makes the car feel like it has lots of power available but after half throttle or so you don't get much change. In ECO if you push the same distance during the first part of the pedal travel you don't get as much power so you have finer control and there is more power available during the latter part of the throttle movement. At full throttle all three modes deliver the same amount of power. I suggest trying them all and see what you like, I suspect we all learn to like the one we use most. Here is a very good writeup by Hobbit about the HSI, there is a little information and a chart which helps explain the difference in Modes toward the bottom of the article. http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/HSI/
Yes. Here's the graph to go with your explanation. I copied it off an old Forum thread. See my comments in another thread about driving with Eco Mode. (Edit) I haven't seen that article before. It's very interesting, thanks! It seems to be the original source for the accelerator graph, too.
I believe it also reacts sooner in time, if your foot is twitchy or you tend to change pedal position rapidly. ECO mode will filter out twitches. Drivers who apply the pedal slowly and steadily are less likely to notice any difference.
Thanks everyone. But this raises another question (at the risk of being redundant): what then is the point of having the buttons? More manual control?
It gives people options for how they want the car to react when they drive it. Options, that's all it is.
In Eco mode it will also operate the AC and heat in a more energy efficient mode. It also allows the engine to turn off more quickly as you glide.
