Electric vehicles are heavier, which means they must spend more brake pads to stop. But they also use regenerative breaking, which reduces pad wear. So I'm not sure if they make it worse or not.
* I'm hard on brakes in general, but have over 70k miles on the original pads. Regen braking reduces brake use a LOT.
* Regen does NOT bring the car to a complete stop, the brakes are blended in below something like 5 MPH. The rotors are not going to rust away, they see action every time you drive. (Some surface rust is fine and normal, EV or no.)
* EVs can be heavier than ICE cars, and most are. There are many things I dislike about Tesla, but the Model 3 is a feather weight in the category. A comparison I like to make is to the AWS Dodge Charger, which is heavier by a couple hundred pounds. I won't even talk about trucks and SUVs.
But I know what you mean from my older models
If I use the ePedal or the brake paddle, the stop is super gradual and you never feel the “grab” that you feel when using the brake. Also, I can sometimes feel/see it slightly rolling (so it’s not even truly a complete stop).
I’ve seen some people swear that the EV6 always uses friction braking at stops, but again, I’m pretty sure this just isn’t true.
A Gen2 Leaf (2018+) with "e-Pedal" mode absolutely does stop the car fully with regen.
Tire wear on the other hand... :(
I’ve had two EV’s over the last 6 years, and I have to remember to occasionally hit the brakes to keep them from rusting.
One pedal driving is just money - saves power and is just much smoother over all than old school breaking. IMO.
When you press the brakes on an EVs or hybrid, they typically use regenerative braking up to the limits of the motor and charging system, and only apply the brake pads after those technical limits are met. There are many "two pedal" vehicles that can come to a complete stop, or close to it, with regen.
It doesn’t work completely like that obviously for reasons, but it does work like that for gentle accel/decel.
Once you’re used to it, you dose your deceleration by focusing on how much you release the throttle.
And the only situations where you have to hit the breaks are the unexpected events - e.g., a car coming at the last moment and which you should give priority to.
I could not get my partner to brake hard enough to really engage the brakes. They just would not do it, would not brake hard enough to actually use the real brakes, no matter the prompting & even knowing how critical it was that we start to de-rust these rotors.
What I found out is: if you put the car in neutral, there won't be regenerative braking, & the car will use the actual brakes. That's the only way I could get my partner to use the actual brakes.
Are there any that work that way?
Think of it like playing a console game. When you hold the right trigger, your car goes faster. When you let off of it, it naturally slows down. Unless you opt in to harder difficulties, most racing games don’t make you brake much.
Driving an EV is just like that. You only really brake for an immediate stop.
The regenerative breaking is applied as you let off the "gas" pedal. It's kind of like driving a stick, but slows you down faster.
There's also one-pedal operation, akin to driving a golf cart. Where you feather the accelerator pedal to slow, and it will engage much more aggressive regen braking if you let off the accelerator pedal. Some folks like this. I do not. I still drive other ICE vehicles and find the transition between them too jarring for my liking.
On conversed, usual practice to limit torque of motor to be less than on ICE original, because of regulations (which exactly state, electric motor should not exceed ICE torque), and this mean, they are just not powerful enough for 100% regenerative braking.
From technical view, modern electric engine could easy exceed brakes.
I'm member of Ukrainian EV activists group, and we there mostly talk about conversions. Unfortunately, conversions are not so cool as new EVs, but to be honest I don't know details of other countries regulations, they could be less restrictive.
In the 90s I drove a Dodge Spirit from Florida to NY using cruise most of the way - the cruise adjustment was incredibly responsive.
If your one pedal driving doesn’t save power, then I would suggest a driver mod.
Unless you’re concerned about the energy usage in your ankle when maintaining pressure on the gas with your foot?
Coasting with no acceleration or deceleration except that provided by rolling resistance and the road gradient is so unlikely to be the exact acceleration you actually want - there’s no particular value in privileging ‘zero motor power’ as needing to be an easy state to achieve.
The kia I drive still roll at a couple of km/h when accelerator is fully released and will not hit 0 unless you use a paddle by the steering wheel (or use the breaks).
Anyway, they're right. Brakes on EVs are normally just for emergency use. Regenerative braking (lifting up on the accelerator pedal) is all you need about 98% of the time. Traffic lights, stop signs, parking, and other such planned stops are all handled by releasing the accelerator which brings the car to a gentle stop while feeding the kinetic energy back into the battery. That's what they mean by "regenerative braking".
There is a lot of variance EV to EV. Some have strong regen, some not so much. Some use 1 pedal driving, some don’t.
For instance the Porsche taycan brake pedal is setup such that the first part of the travel uses exclusively regen braking, and as you push harder it blends in more and more friction braking too. Don’t expect this to become common though, as this primarily just benefits real performance driving. Trail braking is very hard/frustrating without this kind of feature, but driving that way on the street is certainly dumb, and probably illegal (could fall under exhibition of speed?).
e.g.: https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.corvetteforum.com-vbulletin...