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The basic idea behind a hybrid is that you can store energy in the battery and then use it when the load is light with the ICE shut down. An ICE becomes increasingly inefficient as the load drops towards zero. Hills also store energy - potential energy. You get it back when you go down. So, in effect, you now have a much bigger "battery" to work with. My test run that gave 72.7 mpg (see the 50+ MPG thread) included a fairly long stretch where the road gently climbed a couple of hundred feet. Going back down it was amazing to see the car just go on and on with the kW meter hardly even registering at all. It seems counterintuitive but I do think you really want to charge the battery and climb hills at the same time. When the ICE is running, it needs to work fairly hard for best efficiency. Has anyone been able to compare flat runs to those with gentle hills where you can have the ICE run only when going up hill?
