On Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:20:28 +0000 (UTC), "DannyD."
wrote:
I always wondered how much of that lost fuel mileage you
get back on the downhill drive, which is done essentially in
neutral for the entire 5 miles.

I realize it won't exactly cancel out, but, essentially you
get 100mpg (or whatever) on the downhill drive; while you
probably get something like half your city mpg on the uphill
climb.

You get very little of it back. Drive any car with a continuous
mileage readout and you'll be astounded how low the uphill mileage is.
You might be lucky to get 1/10 uphill as on a level. Of course it
depends on the slope.

In your case, you are hauling a lot of weight uphill and not taking it
back down, so there's no chance at all the reclaim the energy you put
into raising the weight.

Even without that, most of the energy you gain going downhill goes
into heating the brakes and the air, depending on slope, speed limit,
etc.

Edward