Come to think of it, that may be the reason that the Mexican version is rated lower for horsepower. Mexico City is at about 5000 feet. If they mandate that the engine horsepower be rated by measurements taken in Mexico City, they will get a lower rating for the same engine.

 

Yeah. if you live in mexico city then you will suffer a power loss, but all vehicles will suffer the same loss due to elevation.

 

Livvie,ElanC, right, I didn't think of that;maybe Mexico requires that hp be rated for the average elevation of the country with a fudge factor included for actual vehicle density.
Every vehicle except maybe TDI's loses power at elevation. I would guess that a TDI with some sort of trickery to vary the pitch of the blades might be able to get very close to seal level peak power.
In the late 60's early mid 70's I did a lot of driving at elevation-Colorado.The vehicles-mainly rented GM V-8's-got pitiful mileage(maybe9- 10 mpg hy at 70 mph), and were so slow they could barely get out of their own way. They did 75 mph max at 4000-7000 ft! Their rated power-1975 or so-was maybe 130 hp for a 300 cu inch V-8. At sea level these same POS's would get about 15 mpg at 70 mph-they traveled about 50% farther on the same amount of gas.This was all due to carbs not being able to adj for altitude.
Now,vehicles actually get better mpg at elevation than they do at sea level. All this is thanks to electronic fuel injection with O2 sensors and air mass sensors. They automatically adjust fuel need to get max mpg which means close to 15/1 air/fuel.
We drive west-New Orleans to Flagstaff,AZ maybe once or twice a year usually in a Honda Pilot.Once we are west of Amarillo the elevation slowly increases from 1500 ft to 7000 ft. Our mpg is 5-10% better at elevation than it is a sea level.We drive~70-75 mph so normally about 65% of the fuel used would be to push the air out of the way. I've kept very good records on the 12 round trips we've done in 4 different vehicles:
Tacoma ext cab 4 cyl auto- curb wt 2700-actual wt 3500-average mpg=24
Tundra 2WD-Ext cab-V-8 auto -curb wt 4400 lbs-travel wt 5800 lbs
Pilot V-6 auto AWD-curb 4400-actual wt 5500 lbs-loaded roof basket and 2 bikes on a swing out hitch rack-15.9 mpg-the frontal area of the loaded roof basket is about 3 sq ft.
Pilot same-with a home made carrier slung under the hitch bike carrier-and 2 bikes-22.2 mpg-same load-no roof basket.
Titan 2wd automatic-V-8- curb wt 4800, actual wt 5800 lbs-loaded bed-20.9 mpg.This vehicle is 50% heavier than the mid 70's 10-15 mpg V-8 cars.It makes 2.5 times the actual power.At elevation it doubled their mpg(10 vs 20 mpg).Electronic controls, and the 5 speed lock out auto trans explain most of the difference( lower friction motors with higher compression, more turb. in the CC,unleaded gas, and electronic valve control on the 4 valve heads helps also)
Roof baskets kill mpg, but elevation without a lot of hills helps it.
Well-sorry to side swipe your thread pptudela. You have the right vehicle for hilly driving, at least you get something back after climbing those hills.In cities most hills have stop lights or stop signs at the bottom, so you lose all the energy you used to climb them in a non hybrid.
Luck,Charlie

 

Yeah, but wouldn't that horsepower loss be in the ICE? The IMA shouldn't be affected by altitude, but according to Pepe, that's where the loss is coming from.

Jeff

 

That's not what he wrote. Look at message 4 in this thread again. He quoted 93 HP @ 6000 RPM whereas the US model is 110 @ 6000.

His electric motor is 20 HP and so is ours.

 

You got stability control? Now THAT makes me mad. I almost went to the dark side (Prius ) just to get that. Man, why, oh why can't Honda give us all a crack at these options????