after the suspense, the let-downdevonbreeJuly 18 2007, 00:55:39 UTC
The Prius audibly alerts you when you've hit the equivalent of E, and like most cars, there's still gas left when you get there. Unfortunately, I was expecting that was a full gallon of usable gas - about forty-five miles travel. I was asking for trouble, with that sort of calculation.
In climbing Sunset Highway out of downtown Portland, twenty miles into that last gallon, climbing up through the canyon, the fuel stopped being available to the gasoline engine. There was a sudden decrease of power, several warning lights, and an effort by the car to run on the battery. As the battery decreased in charge, the car's computer attempted to start the gasoline engine to recharge it, and that prompted another alert, as well as the 'Brake' indicator. My guess is that the car started to recharge the battery through regenerative braking -- going uphill -- which brought us quickly to a halt in the rightmost lane of traffic.
Most of the route we were traveling had no shoulder, but we did pass one fifty-yard stretch of shoulder just as the regenerative braking kicked in. We came to a stop and started rolling backwards, in traffic, down the hill in the rightmost lane. Fortunately, we'd had our hazard lights on for some time, and a cop had pulled someone over for speeding and a nearby on-ramp, so the rightmost lane was largely empty.
We rolled back down to the shoulder and called grubbybastard, whom we'd planned to meet for a late dinner. He brought us a gallon of gas (not enough to reach the tipping point) and then went away and brought us a few more. We started the engine and at last all was well again.
It really wasn't all that different than running out of gas in a regular car, except for about a minute of false hope that we might still get to a gas station, or at least an exit, running off the battery. One is strongly advised by Toyota not to do this. I'd strongly advise it as well.
In climbing Sunset Highway out of downtown Portland, twenty miles into that last gallon, climbing up through the canyon, the fuel stopped being available to the gasoline engine. There was a sudden decrease of power, several warning lights, and an effort by the car to run on the battery. As the battery decreased in charge, the car's computer attempted to start the gasoline engine to recharge it, and that prompted another alert, as well as the 'Brake' indicator. My guess is that the car started to recharge the battery through regenerative braking -- going uphill -- which brought us quickly to a halt in the rightmost lane of traffic.
Most of the route we were traveling had no shoulder, but we did pass one fifty-yard stretch of shoulder just as the regenerative braking kicked in. We came to a stop and started rolling backwards, in traffic, down the hill in the rightmost lane. Fortunately, we'd had our hazard lights on for some time, and a cop had pulled someone over for speeding and a nearby on-ramp, so the rightmost lane was largely empty.
We rolled back down to the shoulder and called grubbybastard, whom we'd planned to meet for a late dinner. He brought us a gallon of gas (not enough to reach the tipping point) and then went away and brought us a few more. We started the engine and at last all was well again.
It really wasn't all that different than running out of gas in a regular car, except for about a minute of false hope that we might still get to a gas station, or at least an exit, running off the battery. One is strongly advised by Toyota not to do this. I'd strongly advise it as well.
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