Full-battery downhill engine start is a pain!

Is the engine warm during this time? The engine starts up to heat the catalytic converter and other critical components up initially, regardless of battery state.

By the way, i have taken to going down my hill in neutral if the battery is full when I leave my house. It's the only way to stop the ICE from starting. and yes when it starts, it is running and burning fuel, unless my scangauge is lying to me about fuel flow being nonzero.

Kinda burns my butt since I don't get to recapture that potential energy, but oh well. and my brakes will wear out just a wee bit faster I suppose.

With your Scanguage, are you also seeing that the ICE starts when the SoC reaches 84% as well? On Torque, I never actually see it reach 84%. I see it go up to 83.9% and stay there for a few seconds (while regenerating) before the ICE starts. So I always just assumed 84% was the magic number. Just wondering if the Scanguage displays anything more or less.

I think I've seen greater than 85% (like 85.3%) before the ice starts. I have not driven in a few days but next time I take the car out I'll let it start and note the soc.

Not very big. Less than 200' in about 1/2 mile. And about 0.3 'miles' regen indicated. But it always starts, unless I put it in neutral.

Get a heavy duty appliance timer.

i don't see how this helps unless i am always starting from an empty battery. in any other situation i would have to calculate the amount of time needed to charge the battery to just below the "full" threshold. i could do this, since i have a scangauge but in all honesty this is the kind of thing the car's computer should do since it has all the information.