This morning, I decided to take a trip through the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel on I-70. My Mother went with me, so we made it into a lunch stop in Silverthorne. When I left the folks house in Aurora, CO., I was showing a paltry 31.9 mpg on the hybrid computer, primarily due to the short cold no warm up driving. We made our way to westbound I-70 and set the cruise to 55 miles per hour, which has become my standard cruising speed. The FEH has no idea what a hill is. Any grade is simply met with an increase in engine RPM to add a bit of power. The highest RPM I saw with the criuse control set the whole way, was 4000 rpm. The vehicle never varied in it's speed one bit. On the big downgrades, I used the "L" position at times to help hold the car back, as it seemed more willing to pick up speed than the Prius used to be. Just like my old 2003 Prius, the FEH actually charged the battery on the grades.
Upon arriving in Silverthorne for lunch, I showed exactly 32 mpg on the hybrid computer. We had lunch at the Sunshine Cafe, and then walked Office Depot to let my Mother stretch her legs before heading back into the city. Coming down the eastern side of the tunnel, I saw my first "perfect" screen - solid green all the way across. Using the "L" position as liberally as I did on the grades, seemed to really put the charge into the HV battery, as when we would see slight uphill grades, the computer chose to use the electric motor to maintain speed, instead of revving up the engine. On the way home, the mileage computer kept climbing steadily upward. After a couple of brief slowdowns from the early vestiges of rush hour traffic, we pulled off of the interstates, and made our way back to the house. I pulled into the driveway with the computer showing 39.6 mpg.
It feels awesome to see those numbers again after the nasty drive up here. In a couple of days, I get to head back to Texas.
At least the weather is supposed to be substantially better than when I came up.
A day in the mountains
