More Prius Familiarization

My understanding is that some of you were unable to read the very first of these blog posts--the one posted on Saturday the 28th. But my sister discovered that by selecting and copying it, and then pasting it into some other program (e-mail, Wordpad, etc), it became readable again. I have no clue why this would work, but it did.

I wrote a blog post on Sunday but blogger.com crashed while I was working--and I had to start over. Now, I'm writing in Wordpad and I'll copy and paste it to the blog site.

Monday, January 30th....

I went to Buena Vista Monday morning to finalize my insurance coverage on the Prius. There, I happily discovered that it wasn't gonna cost me much (if any) more than my Subaru insurance has been costing. This was against my expectations, but very welcome. Makes me think that insurance costs may be driven by the liability end of things, rather than by coverage on your particular vehicle.

After breakfast out, I visited with Gary, my auto mechanic. He advised me to read my owner's manual carefully since items like oil change intervals may have no similarity with the same intervals on conventional cars. The Prius is a whole new ball game. Gary compared it to the cockpit of an F-16, relative to the computer control of things. The only thing about driving the Prius that's not computer controlled is the steering column!

Later on Monday, I drove to the top of Monarch Pass and back! The Prius fairly flew to the top, easily passing more than one gashog-type large pickup truck. I had to slow down only because of the speed limit, then more due to an icy road near the 11K+ foot summit. Gasoline engines lose a very large percent of their power at such altitudes: electric motors do not. Hence my advantage.

Speaking of electric motors, a possible explanation.... When entering my garage last night, the Prius didn't want to climb over a rather small ridge of ice near the doorway. Application of throttle didn't produce the digging and acceleration of a conventional car, and I wondered why. I had to back up and get a moving start--then I got into my garage.

Gary pointed out that electric motors that get stopped (for whatever reason) may burn up if more and more voltage is applied. Apparently the Prius, which has lots of power if already moving forward, doesn't have nearly as much torque if it isn't already moving. Moreover, the computer that controls such things probably didn't allow the application of more voltage then. It had felt as though nothing more was happening as I applied the throttle. This, then, may be another fundamental difference between the hybrid electric and the conventional gasoline vehicle.

When turning around in the parking lot atop Monarch Pass today, I had to move through some ridges of plowed snow while going gently uphill. The Prius didn't particularly like that, and sort of chattered slightly while I was doing it. There are simply some things the Prius isn't made to do, and I'm apparently discovering a few of them by driving it. It's not a snow vehicle, and it's not going to be a rough country vehicle. That's what my Toyota 4WD pickup is for!

Back down the hill, I bought 6.5 gallons of fuel in Poncha Springs and calculated only 38.8 mpg. This, I'm sure, was the price of my fast climb up Monarch Pass. I don't need to go up there fast again, but I'm glad to know the car will do it.

I like this car, and sometimes wish it were a new one. But I've got it now, rather than months from now. Over the next year or so, I'd expect the supply situation to improve and the price of a new one to drop, along with the introduction of additional makes and models. Until then, I'm very pleased with the one I've got. If I decide to replace it in a year or two, I should find a more favorable market in which to do so.

In another matter, the Library of Congress Control Number for Arkansas River Guide arrived today. Now I can plug that number in on my book's title page, and go on to the next step. I hope to have a book in just over a month, and I look forward to that.