Thinking of getting a prius

Fizzbin.

Come on guys. Move on.

- Piper

Answered.

Bob Wilson

You two fellers oughta get married.

Answered how?

Rosie O'Donnell's tv brother Elmo is OTR again. "I don't understand so you must not have explained well." Proof that people who won't wave are stupid.

Plenty of parked cars running at you, Elmo?

Wave.

I have to say I'm kind of fascinated by this subthread. How long can two guys continue going back and forth, trying to get the last word on something no one else cares about, all the while saying absolutely nothing in the process?

Come on, Mike; you've been on usenet long enough to know that the answer is "years, if not decades".

Soon.

Bob Wilson

Is that AFTER you put on your Holly dress for the weekend, or before?

Bob Wilson

Nope, you're just trying to cover your the obvious mistake. Google map or mapquest shows route 68 connecting:

Parkersburg, WV Belleville, WV Morgan, WV

There is a section of I-68 in WV between:

Hazelton, WV Brookhaven WV

Google map has excellent satellite images showing on some sections, three lanes climbing a hill while on the other side, just two lanes descend. Trucks are clearly in the outside, climb lane and these are my pace vehicles. As posted earlier, they tend to climb at about 55 mph and one of the best ways for a Prius to climb these hills is behind one of the trucks.

&om=0

Not so big considering the highest point per Google Earth in WV is at:

39 39' 19.41" N 79 46' 19.47" W 683 M.

But if you head on I-68 to Maryland, you can find one point at 853 m., considerably higher. But that doesn't matter.

As Google shows, there are three lane sections headed up the hills with semitrailer trucks in the outside, climb lane. Had I been under the camera when they took the picture, you'd have seen my Prius following the trucks at a safe distance matching the speed. Climbing hills at 55 mph, as I'd posted, works quite nicely.

Bob Wilson

You've never been on that piece of road, have you.

I can answer that for you: no, you have not.

Your statement that trucks "tend to climb at about 55mph" while talking about this specific piece of road shows that you don't have a clue how the world works.

Frankly, my guess is you're housebound but want people to think otherwise.

As originally posted, I follow trucks up climb lanes, usually around 55 mph although I've seen them as low as 45 on I-75 between Knoxville TN and Lexington KY.

Regardless, Google Earth clearly shows you have confused I-68 in WV with the significantly higher sections in Maryland. You've been caught again.

Bob Wilson

I've been wondering about your fixation on I-68 versus Rt. 68, what you'd originally posted. After a little Google clicking, I discovered that your fixation is probably on "Sideling Hill Cut," a Maryland, not West Virgina feature and marvel of engineering. It is the man-made equivalent of the Grand Canyon in the Appalacians:

One of the earliest photos from this web site shows the three lanes climbing the grade to "Sideling Hill Cut." The best Prius was to approach Sideling Hill would be in the right most lane at 55 mph or behind the slowest truck ascend in the climb lane.

What this does is put the ICE in as efficient of a high power mode as possible so you are getting excellent conversion of gasoline into potential energy, altitude. Literally, just keep on truckin' up the hill.

In 1974 after returning from Okinawa, I drove a 66 VW MicroBus from Coffeyville KS to Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington DC. It is very likely that I would have taken parts of I-68 and the "National Freeway" to avoid having to drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I vagley remember a lot of construction but that was a long, long time ago and another vehicle. I came into the DC area from I-70 and had to figure out the Pentagon maze.

Fortunately, the same practices that worked with the VW MicroBus work even better with the Prius. Curiously, the VW also had a 1500 cc engine and had about as much power as my Prius ICE.

Bob Wilson

been a dipwad all your life.

We know, Bob/Holly. We know.

Nope. Not at all.

See, there's a VERY big hill--mountain--on I-68 in WV. The road is a few miles long. Trucks go up it very slowly.

And you insist that the trucks go up it at 55mph.

You're a dipwad. You've never been there, you've never been on a mountain, yet you continue to make these claims.

The slower the better when going up a hill. An efficient Prius driver simply follows the slow traffic of choice. Interesting, it appears that some trucks, probably the empties, handle hills rapidly while moving vans appear to be the slowest. In fact, I look for moving vans, which makes a lot of sense that they would be relatively slower.

The ride in a truck trailer is fairly rough between the stiff springs and 90-100+ psi tires. I've had equipment ripped from the rails in a rack during shipping. Given household moving companies have to pay for breakage, it makes sense for them to moderate their speeds and minimize vibration leading to efficient Prius climb speeds.

When trip plannning for a Prius, knowing the heigths along a route allows making choices between different routes. For example, Google Earth has a feature that allows you to move the cursor along a route and read out the heigth:

I-68 in WV highest point on highway: 683 m

39 39' 19.41" N 79 46' 19.47" W

I-68 in MD has a highest point: 853 m

39 41' 23.46" N 79 14' 59.38" W

These are lattitude and longitude in degrees, minutes and seconds. Both Google and Google Earth allow you to put these coordinates in to read out the altitude. Topozone works well too. Just use -79 for the longitude degress for western hemisphere.

When I drove to NC to pickup a spare Prius battery, I drove to Knoxville and I-40 at a higher Prius speed to get detailed engineering data. Speeds of 70 mph on the flats with climbs of 55-60 mph on the mountains gave 50 MPG. On the way back, I took the Interstates to Altanta, doing an 'end run' around the Smokies at a speeds of 65-68 mph with a fuel economy of 54 MPG.

BTW, here is some hill climb data that shows the relationship between climbing speed and efficiency on a 6% grade:

As a general rule, stay below 65 mph on Interstate climbs since they are typically grade limited to 6%. A 6% grade can be handled all day long without draining down the battery.

As speeds increase over 65 mph, more and more power is drawn from the battery and the battery capacity is limited. Once the traction battery is too low, the Prius will automaticly slow down the car and there are reports of speeds even lower than 55 mph.

Bob Wilson