Whoa, inconsistent brake feel? That's kind of terrifying. You'd think Chevy would calibrate the brake feel across states.
this weird feel is one of the problems that halted tesla's collaboration with toyota on electric rav4 drivetrains.
Toyota’s rejection of Tesla’s proprietary regenerative braking system, as it enabled the system upon release of the accelerator which Toyota felt was too abrupt and disconcerting for their customers. Any adjustment meant opening up and sharing either Tesla or Toyota’s “code” – of which neither was willing to do
What there is is that, if the battery is completely full, the energy has nowhere to go. So the car does not use full regen. This could be mistaken for a "warmup".
As another poster commented, this changes the accelerator feel, not the brakes.
Muscle memory is very important, and having the car behave unexpectedly is bad.
I've heard that the Tesla's regen is so aggressive that it will even turn on the brake lights. In that case then, I agree.
How low are we talking about here? I'm thinking this is nitpicking :)
I doubt it's that alarming. When you let off the accelerator in a manual transmission vehicle, it's more of a "test the water" type of thing, and then you can change gear from there.
It's not like people are going to rely on engine braking to come to an immediate stop.
It's still a bad surprise, but you can tap the brakes if you want to slow down.
If you're in B mode, it will use compression braking (and if you're stopped, it'll bleed off energy by spinning the engine without any gas), but that doesn't change when you actually press on the brake pedal.
I rented a 2009 Prius once, and was surprised by the brake pedal being completely electronic. When the battery was completely full, I noticed the brake pump noise occurring immediately upon touching the brake, instead of partway down the travel like it usually does when regeneration is working.
My mom's Leaf also has a fully electronic pedal, but I've never driven it down a very long hill with a fully-charged battery, and there's no telltale brake pump noise, so I don't know if it changes its behavior with the battery filled to capacity.
Maybe I just haven't noticed the change in brake feel or it is a UK specific feature.
You can hear this by starting at the top of a hill with a full battery and in `D` mode. Then, as you roll down it, you can hear a noise from the engine as it is being turned over as it uses the regen energy.