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Hill climbing

14K views 20 replies 11 participants last post by  deltasmith 
#1 ·
Possibly my fault, but I was in Sport mode and 6th gear when I hit a fairly steep incline. The Niro started struggling like crazy, so I tried jumping back into Drive. It kept struggling like it was not able to shift properly, and I could not get up to speed, so I pulled over at the first opportunity and shifted to Park. When I started going again, the amount of struggle to get up to speed was appropriate to the incline, but I am still concerned about the initial issue.
Only issue I have really had with the Niro so far. Anyone else experience anything like this.
 
#2 ·
Should note, though, that even with that struggle, I got about 55 mpg for that trip without having plugged in. Was at 60 mpg before that hill. So the car was doing pretty well otherwise.
 
#4 ·
I've never climbed any serious hills but I would say that the Niro is not the most muscular vehicle when it comes to inclines. At highway speeds you definitely have to give it the beans on any decent slope to keep from slowing down. I wouldn't say it was struggling really, just that it needs some encouragement to keep up. The throttle is definitely mapped for economy and that makes the car reluctant to really lay down what power it has unless you are really insistent. :D

Sport mode mitigates that somewhat, but at the end of the day you've only got 139HP and 195 torques in a car with a 3200lb curb weight. That's not a recipe for an aggressive hill climber. >:)

Add the fact that on a long incline you could easily deplete the hybrid battery to the point where the electric motor shuts off and then you're left with just the 104HP and 109 torques from the ICE. That's pretty anemic really, especially if you're near the 4100lb max loaded weight. Given that the poor little motor has max torque at a lofty 4000RPM it's going to be thrashing pretty good in those conditions. :eek:
 
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#5 ·
This was not just needing encouragement. It was losing speed and revving way too high. And when I stopped and started going again, it was better. I think it was a hiccup from me having manually shifted just slightly before. But you are right that the engine isn't really build for steep inclines, which is probably the biggest contributor. I do think you are right that electric had shut off, so I was just on ICE, which was a major factor I was not really considering.
 
#6 · (Edited)
@drewesque do you use cruise control on these hills? I'm curious if you'd have the same drop in performance and loss of speed if using cruise control?

It might also be a good idea to switch to hybrid mode when your battery is at half and leave it there until the hills are done. I've gone up almost 5000ft in elevation from Asheville, NC to Mt. Pisgah and Mt. Mitchell and using cruise control and switching to hybrid at about half battery and I haven't experienced what you describe.
 
#7 ·
I always try to save the battery if I know I will be going up long inclines at freeway speeds. (65-85 mph) Having the "extra" boost from the electric motors is a must if you want to keep pace. Others have reported that using Sport Mode let's the car "hold a gear". In your case, I would have manually downshifted a gear or two.
 
#8 ·
I don't recall whether I disabled cruise when the struggling started or had not yet enabled it, but I think that the sport mode holding a gear was the problem. I should have manually downshifted, but I thought kicking back to Drive would get it automatically shifting properly. Stopping and going again fixed it, which tells me it just did not want to properly shift on its own.
 
#9 ·
I am with TheSilverFlash. I have yet to climb a hill where the Niro (HEV FE) couldn't keep up. I never use power drive. On highways I am typically on cruise control. I visited Franconia State Park and there is 0.5mi section of I-93 graded at 6% and I was accelerating.
 
#10 ·
Like I said, it may have been that I had been in sixth and it did not want to downshift, since I was able to stop, put it in park, and get going just fine again. I had also crested this hill from the other side on my way there, though. This is 5 miles of steep grade (up to 7%, according to ITD) on ID 55, and I was losing speed while firmly in the power portion of my charge/eco/power gauge. I pulled over at the first opportunity, parked a second, started going again, and had no further troubles.
 
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#18 ·
Hi I have the same problem in my 2020 Kia Niro plug in hybrid (Canada). My car can not go above 100km/h with steep incline. I start loosing my power and my speeds get reduce until I see downhill or straight road. I recorded the video too.

One time I was driving in sports mode and no cruise control. I down shift my gear but it still didn't work out. I was the only one who was going 80-90km/hr on highway which was risky.

One day I tried with cruise control and normal drive mode but still same problem.

Lastly, even if you save your 50% of battery but you have continuous steep incline then your battery juice gets consumed and if you monitor it then mine was 2% on Battery Status.
I might be able to help you guys with that concern. I don't often use Sport Mode, but I think what follows may apply regardless.

I have a 2018 PHEV and I have a couple of places that I occasionally visit that require a steep ascent of 1000 feet or more over a fairly short distance at highway speeds. The first time I tried to visit one of those two destinations, I just let the Niro do its own thing, which meant that my EV range was near zero miles when I started to climb. I was disappointed too.

The next time I made that trip, I charged the PHEV battery full (26 mile range) and then I drove on EV for about 8 miles (I wanted to draw down the battery a little so that it would have room to absorb charge from regenerative brakeing). After that, I forced it into HEV mode (there's a switch on the console next to the gear shift that you can use to do this). I had about 18 mile EV range showing when I did this. About 30 miles later, I started climbing the steep grade, but I still had an 18 mile EV range showing on the gauge. When the car needed power during the climb, it pulled additional HP from the battery and my EV range dropped (significantly). It was a lot more peppy going up the hill because it could use both the ICE and the battery. At the top of "the hill", my EV range was really low, but over the next few miles, my EV range moved back closer to what it had been when I started the climb. That probably hurts my MPGs and you can prevent it from recharging the battery by toggling from HEV mode to EV mode once you are finished climbing if you like, but I like that whenever I toggle my PHEV into HEV mode, it borrows from the battery when it needs it, and it repays the battery when it can - up to whatever the EV range was when you toggled into HEV mode.

Try this the next time you are planning a drive with a steep climb - I hope it works equally well for you.
 
#12 ·
I live right beside the Niagara Escarpment so there are quite a few hills in our area. There is one section of road that goes up to RattleSnake Point were there is some major (almost switchback) turns going up the hill. This would be far more than 10% grade. https://www.insidehalton.com/news-s...acherous-road-in-halton-say-milton-residents/


Needless to say, my HEV doen't have any problem with the climb. I know it's only a short stretch of road. But I have also driving around the Blue Mountain area in Collingwood without issue too with much longer stretches of road but then they are not quite as steep.
 
#13 ·
It also depends on the speed you want to be at. I can climb my steep hill (12% grade) to my house at 25mph with no problem and stay on electric. A similar hill where the speed limit is 45 kicks the engine in and moves me to aggressive on the scale if I try to go up it at full speed.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Hi I have the same problem in my 2020 Kia Niro plug in hybrid (Canada). My car can not go above 100km/h with steep incline. I start loosing my power and my speeds get reduce until I see downhill or straight road. I recorded the video too.

One time I was driving in sports mode and no cruise control. I down shift my gear but it still didn't work out. I was the only one who was going 80-90km/hr on highway which was risky.

One day I tried with cruise control and normal drive mode but still same problem.

Lastly, even if you save your 50% of battery but you have continuous steep incline then your battery juice gets consumed and if you monitor it then mine was 2% on Battery Status.
 
#17 ·
Hi I have the same problem in my 2020 Kia Niro plug in hybrid (Canada). My car can not go above 100km/h with steep incline. I start loosing my power and my speeds get reduce until I see downhill or straight road. I recorded the video too.

One time I was driving in sports mode and no cruise control. I down shift my gear but it still didn't work out. I was the only one who was going 80-90km/hr on highway which was risky.

One day I tried with cruise control and normal drive mode but still same problem.

Lastly, even if you save your 50% of battery but you have continuous steep incline then your battery juice gets consumed and if you monitor it then mine was 2% on Battery Status.
How steep are we talking here? I've driven through the admittedly wimpy Appalachian mountains and had no trouble with my '18 PHEV keeping up 80 mph (130 km/h) speeds. This is with no EV range left at all, just the ICE.
 
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