Best way to attack grades....

Actually HSD and cruise control work really good. There is no shifting involved, the ECU selects best RPM/ratio for grade.

Last year I did PA turnpike round trip in Gen III and it was doing spot on, doing much better uphill then others. This year we did it in minivan, and had to switch cruise off due to erratic shifting. There is nothing really steep on PA turnpike it is a railroad grade.

For better MPG on hills I use "constant throttle" approach: set throttle to border btw ECO and Power and let ECU figure out the rest. It is unlike driving normal car, more like riding a boat.

 

Ditto Cyclo. Set it and forget it (well, don't forget it, but you know what we mean).

 

Of you were talking about relatively short hills, a little extra speed approaching and letting the speed drop gradually towards the crest might help, but for long grade like the one you describe, just choose a speed and stay with it. Cruise control can do that.

 

That's how I approach hills as well. My daily commute brings me up a long hill that goes from approx. 200ft. To 1,200ft over the course of about 10miles. You really can't do anything but choose a speed and maintain it.

 

How you climb hills is generally tied to traffic. If you are on a deserted road, pick up some speed before the hill and then maintain a steady accelerator while letting the car slow gently on the way up. There is a certain amount of speed that you will obviously have to maintain to keep forward progress or you would slow to a crawl or even come to a stop if the hill was steep enough.

If you're in traffic, you have to maintain whatever the speed others around you are keeping. A large tractor trailer can provide cover if you don't want to obstruct traffic while moving at a slower pace during a climb. Multiple lanes give you the option to go up a hill at a slower rate when "slow vehicle lanes" are available.

Using the cruise during a climb will force your car to maintain speed, using a fair amount of power. When you hear the revs go up, fuel is being spent at a faster clip. The faster the speed you maintain while climbing, the less efficient you are going to be.

It all depends whether you're in bumper to bumper traffic or by your self on the road, single lane or multiple lanes. Hill climbs are always going to eat more energy than a flat road no matter what you try to do. How much energy you spend during the climb depends on how steep the hill is, how long and the speed you maintain.

The worst thing to do is accelerate as you go up a hill. I watch drivers doing that all the time around this area and most likely they don't even notice they are doing it. They ride the brakes (non Prius without regen) all the way down a hill and then actually pick up speed as they climb the next hill. We have a lot of rolling terrain. I try to build up reasonable speed going down the hills when possible and then lose the speed going up.

Again, this is all traffic dependent. You really don't want to slow too much in traffic, as most people behind the wheel of a car are usually pretty impatient and expect acceleration during the climbs. I've noticed a recent tendency for cars to roll along 10 to 20 MPH over the speed limit on our back roads. One of the consequences, collisions with deer are up quite a bit. You just have to try to drive as reasonably as conditions allow.