Hi VX-Mike:

___First off, welcome to the Greenhybrid forum. With your fuel economy piloting skills, it won’t be long and you too will be added to a particular special list of members

___Now back to your climbing suppositions. There is only one problem. Unless you can figure out how to drive one way round trip, how do you get back home?

___I have seen past posts with much more extreme conclusions … I remember one about someone climbing mountains in their fathers SUV and receiving 10 up and had > 20 overall or some other such thing? Let’s take a Chevrolet Suburban up Pikes Peak and it receives an average of 6 mpg. On the way back down, we shut down the ICE and coast all the way down receiving an infinite mpg over that 35 mile or so segment. Impossible I know as I have driven that in our MDX but for the purpose of this exercise, it will do. What is the average? A lousy 12 mpg. You might have ¾ to 1 mile of coasting from 90 mph or what ever terminal is on a 2 - 3 % grade for a Suburban but it will still be darn close to an average of just 12 mpg round trip.

___And what does this all have to do with “Driving w/ Load”? Nothing really. Driving with load is a technique to trade off Kinetic for Potential and it works for hills of maybe 50’ to 70’ or less. Given the climbs being discussed here, you do not have nearly enough Kinetic to accomplish the trade off. Once you reach a minimum velocity, it is you and your cars frictional drag (of all types) vs. the Potential gained. Unfortunately, it is going to be one very painful climb because no matter how good your car’s aerodynamics and low friction components, there is never as much Kinetic energy gained on the downhill as the amount you lost in Potential on the way up.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net