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Comment by samcheng | Hacker News Reader

Be careful, Tesla drivers discovered that never using the brake, particularly in areas that use salt on the roads, results in expensive corrosion. Automotive brakes haven't been designed with one-pedal driving in mind...

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/24/8500-new-tesla-model-s-...

Recommendation: consciously use the brakes in a firm deceleration once a week.

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to say i don't use the brakes is a little bit of a misnomer, as i use them at stoplights in order to activate the rear brake lights for other drivers. two more bits of trivia: the brake lights activate during regen for more than .2g of deceleration, and the brake rotor metal is formulated not to rust.

I'm pretty sure taking your foot entirely off the gas pedal when in "L" mode actually activates the brake lights.

It does on the Tesla.

And anything with regen because of this:

UN Regulation on Stoplight Activation:

http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/...

Electric regenerative braking systems as defined in paragraph 2.17., which produce a retarding force upon release of the accelerator control, shall generate the signal mentioned above according to the following provisions:

<= 0.7 m/s/s The signal shall not be generated

> 0.7 m/s/s and <= 1.3 m/s/s The signal may be generated

> 1.3 m/s/s The signal shall be generated

It's made of metal, its going to corrode in some way - I don't think stainless steel has the properties you'd want in a brake rotor, either.

Well, it could be ceramic, which is what some competition cars use, and that wouldn't rust. But I doubt it.

There are <$100k cars that have had ceramic brakes as a factory option, but it's not a good option.

Ceramic brakes don't work well when they're cold, so you don't want to use them on a car where the main use case is a cold panic stop.

He said 'metal' that implies not ceramic.

Which was second-hand information, and light on details, and thus possibly mistaken. As I stated, possible, but I didn't think it likely.

That wouldn't be a problem for me, the way most people drive and cut in front of me I would easily have one firm deceleration a week.

When I wash my cars I intentionally spray a little fresh water on the pads and rotors mostly because caked on brake dust can wear rotors unevenly or cause grinding/slipping of breaks. I've never lived where they salted the roads, but I imagine rinsing them off periodically would help, too.

If you read the article, the owner didn't go in yearly to have things inspected. One thing they do at every yearly inspection is to look at the brakes.

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