Re: Eisenhower tunnel anyone
I'm a 2007 Prius owner and I took a road trip to Colorado and did a lot of driving around the state. I went through the Eisenhower tunnel and the 50MPH trouble isn't a very valid. The battery does die pretty fast going up the hills but once it does the gas engine just revs up really high to provide power. I still had enough power to go around overloaded pickups and other struggling vehicles; you just had to trust the computers to keep the RPMs in check. I also had the A/C on the whole time.
If you do a lot of mountain driving you'll really love the CVT found in most hybrids, in fact I wouldn't want to do driving like that without one. Going up the hill you run just as many RPMs as you need to provide the power you are asking. On the way down the hill drop it into the "B" (engine braking) mode and use the accelerator to get just the right level of RPMs to get the amount of engine braking that you need, all while not burning an ounce of fuel or touching your mechanical brakes.
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