After reading hundreds of posts and trying to learn how best to drive efficiently, I laughed out loud yesterday when I tried to go up a friend's steep and icy driveway.
I'm not sure how much my overall MPG will suffer, but the 30 second of wheel spinning couldn't have helped. I watched the MPG needle vary between 0 and 1 MPG.

I instinctively switched to "B" mode, but that didn't help.

(yes, I rocked between R and D)

Where are the low gears when you need them?

For the record, while I love the Camry, I was unimpressed with it's ability to tackle a tough driving condition. I know my Avalon has a more powerful engine, but it never had these problems with his driveway.

Sort of a Catch 22...the hybrids will slow the onset of global warming, but will polute more as they try to handle the increased ice and snow.

 

CVT drive. No lower gears to use.

 

If your wheels are breaking traction, then you definitely would make things worse with a more powerful engine.

I have to believe that low rolling resistance tires, perhaps inflated to a high pressure, with a narrow profile are at the root of this problem.

Driving uphill in 'B' mode will do nothing but aggravate you further.

I have noticed a very carefully programmed 'creep' when I release the brake. whether I am on flat terrain, or going uphill from a stop the electric motors are driven in such a way that the car moves forward at about the same rate.

Did you try just staying off the gas and let the electric torque pull you? I wonder if bringing the ICE online too soon or too aggressively compounded the problem.

How about your Traction Control/VDIM? Was it on and working? Even when I occasionally lose traction in water the car never lets me lose control.

Here is another idea.... MOVE! I left the midwest in 1986... between December and April, I won't even go back to visit

 

If anything you want higher gears in order to minimize wheel slippage. In an automatic, you would be told to start off in 3rd. In a manual, same deal.

You probably need snow tires. CVT will eventually go to a higher gear as wheel speed goes up, you just need to release the accelerator to give the car a chance to track over snow.

But if it's icy, you have no chance unless you had a good set of snows on.

 

I ran into a similar situation this morning, and also laughed out loud, but for a very different reason. Everyone around me was going off the road, and couldn't climb the hills, but I just sailed right on up.
I found the trick is to just press the pedal a little bit, and be patient. After several seconds of the wheels spinning, the traction contrl seems to figure it out, and starts gripping intermittently at first, and then smooths right out and carries it on up. Giving up too early and taking your foot off the pedal, or getting frustrated and trying to push too hard seem to be what causes problems. Slow and steady seems to work best.

 

I have Michelins from the dealer set at the pressure they set when I bought the car three weeks ago
Yup!
I tried slow acceleration, but the ICE was on
Don't know what that is
I am waiting to find a Long Distance mover that uses hybrid trucks, the fuel efficiency of the current generation of moving trucks would spoil my average MPG, I doubt I'd ever be able to overcome that one (that was intended as a joke)

 

I suspect the Bridgestones are better in the snow and maybe other inclement conditions than the Michelins. And that's perhaps their only advantage.

I have snow tires for the winter so I wish I had Michelins for all the other seasons.

 

I have a steep driveway myself and I have to say that I can't even drive my car because it won't make it up in the winter with the slightest bit of snow/ice. The slipping/stopping that the front tires does is the most annoying thing I have ever encountered! I just held down the gas and spin/stopped for at least a full minute and only made it halfway up my driveway. Even when we threw salt under the tires to melt the ice and give traction, the wheels kept slipping on the salt!

We thought we would be OK with the TCH as most people with front wheel drive can make it up our driveway no problem except for when it's really bad of course. As much as I love my TCH I'm ready to go back to a 4WD.

 

I have to say that after the snow fall this past weekend in NY and the weekend before, I am VERY happy with the performance of this car on snow covered, packed snow, and ice. As all cars it has trouble with deeper snow as you start to bottom out. My trac/VDIMM barely had to kick in due to the superior ability the fine control you have over the power. Using the electric was a savior and the B gear is the best thing for stopping on slick conditions.

I also have to say that I am very pleased with the fact that regen breaking exists because this allows you to slow with our applying friction to the wheels causing them to lock.

I had only one case where the wheels spun and this was while trying to leave a parking spot I had backed into. I was able to simply put it in reverse, move back a little, and then drive right out with no trouble. If you keep the wheels spinning it does do a sad attempted at "rocking."

Lastly, while on the highway, most cars were going 40 mph. The highway was three lanes with the third lane unplowed. After getting sick of the other drivers driving too slow (the two lanes were clear), I jumped into the third lane, UNPLOWED, and zipped right past them. No other cars were even attempting that lane. A 4x4 full-size Chevy followed me. This was also while up a steep grade and was able to accelerate from 40 to 60 with out the trac/VDIMM kicking in.

I have the Michelins.

Mike

 

I did have trouble in one spot going up a pretty steep hill. Wasn't helped by the fact some butthead behind me was riding my a$$ as I was spinning wheels. Now come on, buddy, is _immediately_ behind me really where you want to be when I'm sliding around?? Ended up deciding to turn around and go a different way after he went around me instead of sitting on the street trying to see if I could work it out. Especially as I was only about 1/3 of the way up and there was plenty of hill left.

But other than that one sticky spot I had no problems. Got out of parking spaces with minimal difficulty, helped a couple of women get their cars going... No problems other than that one hill. And if it had been a smaller hill I might have tried to see if I could work through it to figure out what would get me up it. That (and being trapped in a good inch or two of ice last winter) was about the only winter trouble I've had in the 1.25 winters I've had it so far. And no snow tires. On the Bridgestones.

Guess we'll see.