Steep hills and 36C weather

bredekamp · 03-06-2008, 09:43 AM

I work in the Cape Town, South Africa,CBD. It's hot here now and where I work I have to drive up a road on the side of Table Mountain. Every day for a week now my poor HV battery just bottoms out to two purple bars.

I get in the hot car in the parking lot and leave the gate with the aircon on. I immediately turn and start going up a long steep road. After about two minutes the battery bottoms out and now I'm still going up this steep road with the aircon on and the poor engine screaming to power me up the hill, recharge the battery and power the aircon. Shoe! Oh yeah I usually have the radio thumping away too. All that power still has to come from only one place and may I say the Prius handles it just fine.

Fortunately I get a nice looong regen at the other end.

PriConvert · 03-06-2008, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bredekamp

Steep hills and 36C weather

Oh crap...never mind. This isn't what I was hoping it would be

wyounger · 03-11-2008, 09:06 PM

Just two bars?

I've managed to get mine down to one purple bar a few times, but under different circumstances. If there's a wreck in downtown Atlanta and the traffic jam is especially bad (worse than the usual wreck downtown scenario) and things go from stop and go to a mere crawl, it will go down to 2 bars before starting up the ICE to charge, and sometimes even down to one bar. This is in air conditioning season, not heating season- in that scenario the cabin heat cools off the ICE and the ICE starts running just to keep warm.

I haven't gotten to go anywhere in my Prius that has hills significant enough to count for anything. Not like some of the mountain passes out in California and Colorado where you can floor it for 45 minutes and not reach excessive speeds!

03-06-2008, 09:43 AM	#1
bredekamp Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Somerset West, South Africa Posts: 328 My Car: 2006 Prius Package: #6 Touring Nominated 0 Times in 0 Posts TOTM Awards: 0 Friends: 0	Steep hills and 36C weather I work in the Cape Town, South Africa,CBD. It's hot here now and where I work I have to drive up a road on the side of Table Mountain. Every day for a week now my poor HV battery just bottoms out to two purple bars. I get in the hot car in the parking lot and leave the gate with the aircon on. I immediately turn and start going up a long steep road. After about two minutes the battery bottoms out and now I'm still going up this steep road with the aircon on and the poor engine screaming to power me up the hill, recharge the battery and power the aircon. Shoe! Oh yeah I usually have the radio thumping away too. All that power still has to come from only one place and may I say the Prius handles it just fine. Fortunately I get a nice looong regen at the other end. __________________ My Prius.co.za Hybrid vehicle information for South Africa

03-11-2008, 09:06 PM	#3
wyounger Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 55 My Car: Package: Nominated 0 Times in 0 Posts TOTM Awards: 0 Friends: 0	Re: Steep hills and 36C weather Just two bars? I've managed to get mine down to one purple bar a few times, but under different circumstances. If there's a wreck in downtown Atlanta and the traffic jam is especially bad (worse than the usual wreck downtown scenario) and things go from stop and go to a mere crawl, it will go down to 2 bars before starting up the ICE to charge, and sometimes even down to one bar. This is in air conditioning season, not heating season- in that scenario the cabin heat cools off the ICE and the ICE starts running just to keep warm. I haven't gotten to go anywhere in my Prius that has hills significant enough to count for anything. Not like some of the mountain passes out in California and Colorado where you can floor it for 45 minutes and not reach excessive speeds!