Coming back from December break I hadn’t driven my EV since December 22nd. I’ve driven our Ford Hybrid many times since Dec 30, but the Equinox sat in the driveway. I jumped in today and it took me approximately 60 seconds to be back in one pedal mode. The feedback you get when you take your foot off the accelerator snaps you back into one pedal mode very quickly.
The worst part of one pedal for me is tight parallel parking. I switch it off for that.
A while back I did some quick searches asking if my BMW i3 lit the brake lights under regeneration and the answer was “yes”. But recently I was following another i3 and their lights weren’t coming on when I expected them to. I did some more searching today and found a Consumer Reports article saying “The European Union has a regulation that requires EVs to illuminate their brake lights anytime the regenerative-braking system’s deceleration rate exceeds 1.3 meters per second squared, or about 0.13 g.” so that’s probably what I was seeing.
Same in the UK and Ireland. And in Ireland it’s mandatory to take 13 lessons before your first test drive.
In the UK, the very first part of the test (and the only one the tester will end right off and walk away) is the ability to read a tag (plate) from 20 yards away. I went and got glasses.
With EV’s and mini-SUV’s (commonly auto) the manual is losing ground in the UK. I think it’s 3/4 (at least test-wise now).
My friend (in the U.S.A.) learned to drive on a car with a non-synchronous transmission, and he figured he was thereby prepared to drive anything. But that was then.
I may have managed this in the past but I set out today to commute to work without touching the brake pedal. I may drive a bit more conservatively to ensure that I didn’t need to emergency brake but it wasn’t hard to make it through stop and go traffic in the rain.
Sorry for this near zombie, but I’ve noticed that twenty-somethings these days don’t touch their screens much anymore, and voice recognition is starting to get to where it’ll understand you even with a mouthful of tuna sandwich.