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Regenerative Breaking

15K views 25 replies 15 participants last post by  JTK44 
#1 ·
My MME will be my first EV. I've read a little about "one pedal driving" and frankly I'm confused. Does taking your foot off the accelerator apply the breaks or just use the electric motors to slow you down? How does that work if you are just coasting down a highway hill and don't actually want to break? How would that work with cruise control when you don't have a foot on the pedal? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just super excited!
 
#2 ·
Regenerative braking uses the generators on each wheel. When you remove your foot from the accelerator pedal (or possibly ease up subtaitally) the generators engage to recharge the battery. Generators also have a rather large amount of drag when engaged. That drag will slow you down. It's actually a fair bit more delatiled and complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. Using one pedal driving your actual brakes will last far longer as you'll be using them substantially less.
 
#4 ·
I would disagree: The feature to vary the amount of regenerative braking seems to be ubiquitous on high end BEV, of which the MachE certainly is. I would be shocked if the MachE does not have variable regenerative braking.

My MME will be my first EV. I've read a little about "one pedal driving" and frankly I'm confused. Does taking your foot off the accelerator apply the breaks or just use the electric motors to slow you down? How does that work if you are just coasting down a highway hill and don't actually want to break? How would that work with cruise control when you don't have a foot on the pedal? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just super excited!
If you have every driven a standard transmission, the effect of regenerative braking is like down shifting. It is not "down shifting" as the axels are turning: the more resistant the greater the effect. The brakes are not actual used.

As Kamuelaflyer correctly posted, the regenerative braking charges the batteries. That is why BEV get better mileage in stop and go city traffic for example than on the open road. This is of course just the opposite of an ICE.

Regenerative braking does not work when you are not using cruise control- except when it is "adaptive" and the car in front of you slows down and your car slows down as well. That "slowing" is also done by regenerative braking.
 
#6 ·
When you are on cruise control, unless you have adaptive cruise control, you foot is off the accelerator and the cruise control maintains your speed. The brakes are not engaged. If you apply your brakes cruise control is dis-engaged.

With adaptive cruise control, a space is maintained between you and the car in front of you. If the car slows down with adaptive cruise control, you slow down. If the car stops you stop. When the car resumes, you resume.

In an ICE this slowing down and stopping is done by your brakes. But again this is automatic - you do not touch the brakes. If you do touch the brakes adaptive cruise control is dis-engaged.

In an BEV with adaptive cruise control, instead of using the brakes, regenerative braking is used to slow down and if necessary stop your car.

In both an ICE and BEV with adaptive cruise control, you do not touch either the accelerator or brake pedal.
 
#11 ·
First of all: Congratulations! Deciding to buy a fully-electric vehicle - or BEV (battery electric vehicle) - deserves respect an recognition! (y)
Aside from the ecological impact driving a BEV makes fun in every aspect! Acceleration (!), noise, technical aspects, TCO and of course the recuperation! Your batterie is filled up whenever the car recuperates. Try this with an ICE! Never heard of an ICE that fills up gasoline when it runs down a road or brakes for a red traffic light !:ROFLMAO:
I found an informative Video that shows how regen works:

Recuperation in a Mercedes B250e

I have this optional recuperation paddles and use the "D-" mode (strongest recuperation).
Some cars have automatic recuperation (e.g. Porsche Taycan), some have paddles (Audi, KIA, Hyundai), some optional paddles (Mercedes, Skoda) and Tesla let you change regen modes in the configuration menu. I prefer the paddles because you can change regen mode on the fly.
But as Al your Pal said: don´t worry about it! It doesn´t take long to get the feel for this unique feature of a BEV! You will love it!

And again: In comparison to any car with a combustion engine ("ICE") driving a BEV feels like being James.T. Kirk on the Enterprise!
 
#16 ·
NO: A friend of mine has the Model 3. He came up to stop light and the person next to him said his brakes must be broken as they never came on.

On an ICE car with adaptive cruise control as the car slows down in front, the brakes are applied and the the brake lights do come on.

I suspect that in the future brake lights will come on for regenerative braking but so far no on the Tesla: No one yet knows about the MachE. Hopefully the brake lights will come on for regenerative braking.

.
 
#23 ·
It's a misnomer to refer to the accelerator pedal as a gas pedal. I'm beginning to realize it may also be a misnomer to think of the decelerator pedal as a brake pedal.

Particularly on a vehicle like the Mach-E, which supports blended braking. If you depress far enough, you'll definitely be getting mechanical braking applied. Even if all the electronics and computers go haywire.

But if you press softly, the car is deciding how to best blend energy recuperation with friction braking.

When you enable "one pedal driving," you're just shifting pedal inputs so that the accelerator ("go") pedal is ALSO taking over a significant input range of what would have been decelerator input.

On Mach-E, Ford provides "true" one pedal driving, meaning that the car will decelerate down to a complete stop (zero velocity) when 1PD is enabled. In order to accomplish this, they are blending in friction brakes as velocity gets closer to zero, and holding the brakes once at zero, until the driver presses the go pedal again.

Cool stuff. To get to @JTK44's thought about coasting versus braking down a steep decline... That is really interesting! I don't know, but my guess is that it would be most efficient to try and keep speed where you originally wanted it and not let the gravity coaster accelerate the car too much, since wind resistance has such a powerful impact on fuel efficiency, plus the extra tire wear it would cause.
 
#24 ·
The Adaptive Cruise control on my Fusion Energi is the greatest thing since fermented grape juice (wine). There's two small buttons on the steering wheel to adjust the distance between you and a vehicle in the lane in front of you. I've literally driven across the Las Vegas valley without touching my brakes. Standard cruise control was inconvenient when it was necessary to tap the brakes and then resume the setting each time you approached a slower vehicle in the lane. Unlike standard cruise control, the denser the traffic the better Adaptive Cruise performs.
 
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