We recently tried out a Tesla and my wife decided that she mostly hates that the car tries to slow down at a fairly hefty rate if you let off the gas any tiny amount, rather than rolling freely, as an IC car does.
Are there any hybrid or EV cars that don’t do this?
It’s adjustable on the Tesla, and many of the EVs. It doesn’t completely go away, but it’s less noticeable to those of us who are used to ICE cars.
The “Low” regen braking setting was apparently removed last year.
That’s interesting. I don’t like the high regen. But I guess I could get used to it.
Regen braking also recharges the battery and lessens wear on brake components.
I had a Toyota Camry (2008) hybrid (traded in for a Tesla). It did not regen unless you pressed the brake; press harder and the actual brake pads kicked in, but for normal stop-and-go traffic, it recaptured much of the braking energy with regen. The effect was to get highway mileage even in city driving. Not sure if they still do this. After 10 years, still did not need new brakes. At one point, it needed some front end suspension work, but otherwise both engines, CVT and battery system were flawlessly dependable.
However, the design (as I understand, similar to original Prius) was that the battery did not significantly discharge during use - to preserve the life of the battery. It was a bit odd at first, you’d back out of the garage and down the driveway, and halfway the engine would start automatically.
And yes, regen can (could?) be dialed off on the Model 3 - but braking with the pedal does not do regen on a Model 3.
As for Tesla - yes, I found it odd at first, especially being used to the Toyota and standard IC vehicles where you get up to speed, and completely release the pedal and coast quite often. With the Tesla, you continuously push the pedal just a bit, and ease off to slow down when you want to coast to a slower speed or a stop. After a while, you get good at judging where to let off the pedal so you don’t even have to use the brake when you get to a stop sign or red light. Better yet, use AP cruise control and the car will slow and stop as required with the traffic in front. (and now recognizes stop signs and red lights). The only downside to this is it starts from lights worse than your granny (but you can accelerate yourself with the pedal, still on cruise), and will brake if some idiot turns left in front of you 300 feet away. Or worse yet, thinks train crossing or crosswalk warning lights are traffic lights and will begin to stop if it doesn’t have a car in front to follow. …and will brake at green lights unless it’s following someone or you tap the pedal to tell it to keep going.
The moral of the story is that computers are damn good, but I wouldn’t trust anything 100% yet.
On my Niro you can adjust how much the regen brake slows you down. Anything from not at all to one pedal driving (that is, taking your foot off the gas will bring you to a full stop).
I have mine set somewhere in the middle since the regen brakes are a bit too strong for my taste and getting thrown forward in my seat every time I take my foot off the pedal was getting annoying.
As I read somewhere (maybe in the giant EV thread), you start to learn that there’s no ‘coasting’, you’re either accelerating/maintaining or you’re actively slowing down.
I keep wondering if my brake lights come on every time I take my foot off the pedal. It must make me look like I’m either riding the brakes, driving two-footed or tailgating someone.
I was wondering the same thing when I had a loner (ICE) VW Atlas with smart cruise control that kept me a set distance away from the person in front of me, but in doing so it meant a lot of little adjustments by accelerating and braking.
We just got a 3 year old Toyota Yaris Hybrid. It’s noticeable that when you take your foot off the gas there’s a little bit of drag as it does it’s regenerative braking thing, but it’s not so very different from our IC car. Felt a little different for the first couple of drives, but now it feels perfectly normal. To be honest, I could stand a little more drag if that improved fuel efficiency even more.
j
That’s the issue I’ve had with the smart cruise controls. It’s not really a big deal for me since I very, very rarely use CC, but what I noticed is that if someone moves in between you and the car in front of you, your car will slow way down to open up that gap again. Similarly, if the car you’re following changes lane, your car takes off at light speed until if finds someone else to follow.
We test drove the crawl option and that still seemed to be the same. We didn’t try “roll”. I assumed that it meant the car would go into a neutral-like mode after breaking the motor, not while at speed?
I’m aware, though it’s not clear why regenerative breaking kicks in when you’re not breaking. Coasting is also preserving the energy in the car, I assume it’s just more complicated to disconnect the motor from the transmission while coasting and keeping the spindle (?) turning at the correct speed to reconnect to the transmission if the driver decides to speed up again.
With modern computers though, that should all be readily doable. (It’s several levels below landing a rocket on its butt on a target.)
Braking. Fix your autocorrect. 
Yes, I’ve heard that described as “bullying” EV’s (and other smart cars). Drivers who know the other car will take steps to avoid collisions, so they drive recklessly confident that the other vehicle will back down.
However, it only takes off if the traffic is already well below the posted speed limit, so not much different than other drivers. In fact, my 3 won’t really jam on the acceleration, granny is still driving under the hood when that car in front changes lanes.
I think the brake light comes on with the Tesla 3 when you take your foot off the pedal and it regens - it’s hard to tell for sure on the little vehicle animation on the screen, but I’m told it does. Proper driving just takes a little time to get used to - keep pressing the pedal just enough. I tried turning regen off at first, but found the effect not as comfortable.
The best feature of my Tesla is the “Hold” feature. When i come to a stop, I don’t have to hold the brake to prevent creeping forward (or rolling back on a hill). It’s great when there’s a lineup on the ramp to get out of the underground parking garage
Even my BMW 328GT will do a small amount of regen to top up the battery when you coast, although not very noticeable. I’ve had this explained to me as that there are so much electronics in the vehicle, still running when the car is parked, that this was deemed a prudent measure to ensure the battery stays charged.
He was braking his car so he could write a break statement in his code. Breaking in your code is good but you definitely want to brake and not code while driving.
Break brake break brake
Looks like you can train your swipe-type if you focus on a thing.
Is there a transmission? I don’t think my car has one. I think it just has a variable speed motor directly connected to a differential (I assume). There could be some gearing in there, but I don’t think there’s a traditional transmission that would physically disconnect the motor from the wheels such that anything would have to be synced back up (like a stick shift car).
Also, remember, there’s a ‘middle ground’ between powering the motor and regen braking. If you disconnect the power, the motor should be able to spin freely and sending power to it will simply cause the rotor to sync itself up with what the windings want it to do. Think of it like spinning a ceiling fan (backwards or forwards) by hand and then turning it on. After a few seconds it’ll be at the correct speed.
I believe I read, somewhere, for some car, it has a g-force sensor and will turn the brake lights on when it’s above a certain number. Makes sense. I mean, if I hit the regen paddle, the car behind me really should know that I’m slowing down, but it might not be necessary if I take my foot off the gas and my car happens to slow down a bit faster than you might expect it to.
Recently discussed here in
Personally, I love one-pedal driving. I can easily adjust the car’s speed with a slight adjustment of my foot. No need to move between pedals.
But it’s definitely a change compared to traditional two-pedal driving, so I’m not surprised a lot of people don’t like it.
You can also “coast” on a Tesla EV by just leaving a small bit of pressure on the accelerator pedal.
Advantages of putting (high) EV regen on the accelerator pedal (as opposed to the brake pedal) are:
Enables “One pedal driving”: Most driving can be done without ever having to touch the brake pedal.
Safer/Better braking: During “panic stop” situations, regen braking starts immediately once the driver’s foot leaves the accel pedal, during the quarter-second it takes to move the foot over to the brake pedal. This quarter-second of extra braking time would otherwise be lost on a “normal” car.
More efficient/less complicated regen braking: When regen is on the brake pedal, the friction brakes have to be blended with the motor regen, in increasing levels for smooth transfer between the two. But having to blend the friction brakes in means that this energy is lost. Alternatively, you could have a “switch” point threshold on the brake pedal that transfers from motor regen to friction brakes, but this generally leads to uneven brake response.
“Coasting” requires keeping your foot on the accelerator just hard enough so that the car doesn’t go into regen. It’s possible to coast, it’s just not the default foot-off behavior.
I look at learning one pedal driving sort of like getting used to driving a manual transmission. At first it takes lots of thinking and planning, but after a while it’s just second nature. I take my foot of the accelerator and I’m amazed the car stops right where I want it to, without even touching the brake. I have to remind myself, that’s something I learned how to do, and not an automatic feature of the car.
To me, it was “hey, this is different, fun!” but not all people are me, and I can totally see somebody being put off by the Tesla’s regen behavior.
The explanation, as I recall, from Tesla is that the accelerator controls how fast the car goes, and the brake pedal controls the friction brakes only. I can’t verify this now, and I’m finding some comments that dispute it, but I think they’re wrong. I know some other EVs make the brake pedal control regen and friction brakes, but for Tesla brakes = friction.
Oh yes, this. It once saved a bicyclist that unexpectedly swerved in front of me out of the bike lane. I can’t say for sure (and this was before the camera recording), but it seemed to me like the instant decrease in speed was the difference between missing by inches and hitting him.
It’s based on the deceleration rate. If you let off the accelerator gently (as if coasting), it won’t go on. Let off completely (for moderate braking effect) and it will.
Depends on exactly what they meant. Regen doesn’t turn off when you hit the friction brakes. But aside from Autopilot mode, the friction brakes are only engaged when you hit the brake pedal. And you don’t get extra regen when you hit the brakes like some EVs.
Personally, I like the clear distinction–I’m getting maximum efficiency when I’m one-pedal driving. If I have to touch the friction brakes at all, either I got unlucky with a yellow light or I did something wrong.