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Comment by aaron_m04 | Hacker News Reader

If you have an EV and you care about health and the environment, use regenerative braking as much as humanly possible.

Hint: driving fast or tailgating both increase the odds you'll have to use the friction brakes.

The comment you replied to mentioned EV tire wear, not brake dust. The heavy weight of EVs due to the batteries is always going to cause more tire pollution.

E.g., Ford F-150 Ford Lightning has a curb weight of up to 6,500 lbs, which compares to the regular F-150's curb weight that ranges from anywhere between 4,021 lbs and 5,014 lbs. The Rivian R1T is 7,148 lbs.

That's more an argument against SUVs and heavy pickup trucks than against EVs, though.

Well yes, but even the Renault Zoe at 3,236lbs is much heavier than the Renault Clio (2,161–2,361lbs) it is based on.

Heavier weight alone however doesn't necessarily cause more tire wear though. The Toyota Prius came with hard-compound tires (good for low fuel consumption and high mileage, not for racing).

Interesting, my 2011 F150 is about 6200 pounds. Didn’t they switch to aluminum bodies in 2015 or so?

I like how much the EV interfaces gamify using the regenerative braking to encourage its use: regen indicators, miles per kw per trip, etc.

FWIW, I took my EV in for a maintenance interval (waste of money BTW - this thing is indestructable), and the mechanic remarked that the brakes looked new. It's 1.5 years old, with factory brakes.

Single-pedal mode does the rest. Not only does this make the car easier to drive, but you can hit a sweet spot where you never really use the brakes.

This. I treat it as a failure if I have to brake. My original tires are still good after 3 years as well

Also regenerative breaking exerts force which leads to particle emissions from the tires. Breaking earlier and slower also helps when you otherwise would have stayed in the range where you can break regeneratively.

I always assumed EVs use regenerative braking as much as possible on their own.

They do. But if you brake too agressively, they switch to friction brakes. It pays off to avoid this: more mileage, marginally lower charging expense, lower cost on brake maintenance and fewer complaints from passengers.

"It pays off to avoid this: more mileage, marginally lower charging expense, lower cost on brake maintenance and fewer complaints from passengers."

Regen braking wears the hell out of your battery. That few hundred you saved on brake changes just cost you a tens of thousands of dollars on a premature battery replacement.

Source for your ridiculous claim?

I'm not sure why they think regenerative breaking is worse than any other charging modality.

It's an added charge cycle on the battery. A guy in San Diego does full EIS and more for EV cells. His data shows multiple shorter recharge cycles wear the battery down faster, no matter what range you try restricting the recharging to. Same data shows that the batteries are better when conditioned harder on their first charge, gaining much better cycle performance and count, at a minimal sacrifice of capacity.

And this exact same thing coincides DIRECTLY with my lithium-powered portable lighting, so I'm pretty up-to-date on very top-level research, because I hire this same person.

His name is Luke. You'll see him all over the globe doing lithium EV research and testing.

Most EVs will not use regenerative braking when the battery is over 80% which is where the damage mostly happens

Really curious about this, since regen braking is Standard on all EVs

A charge cycle is a charge cycle, regardless. The wear and tear that occurs during is cumulative and doesn't just magically disappear when restricted to a certain level of battery depletion.

Apparently you need to use the friction brakes now and then so they don’t degrade early, which could be a safety issue. I think as long as you’re using the car frequently it’s incredibly unlikely to be a problem though.

Not sure about all EVs and hybrids, but for Prius the friction brakes were used below a given speed as then regeneration becomes inefficient (as does stopping power). If you pay close attention, you might notice the transition.

Yup. I only use my car infrequently and it sits there with the handbrake on, when I do take it out often the rotors have rusted just slightly, meaning I get a "thunk thunk thunk" until I brake hard a couple times.

I think it's fine, in an EV just give your physical brakes a good test/try out when starting a journey in the car, especially if it has been sat for a while.

I imagine there to be a sweet spot with friction breaks where it grinds the hardest, I imagine it to be when one breaks gently.

Most don’t. Not all have heatpumps either. In fact anything outside Tesla is still garbage.

No experience with EVs, but Toyota hybrids use regenerative braking a lot. They also teach me to accelerate gently. Quite the opposite of Tesla with their "ludicrous mode" encouraging extreme acceleration. But I have no idea how well those brake.

The problem is that not all cars correctly illuminate the brake lights when regenerative braking is in effect.

This is why Tesla’s are best selling EVs. Only cynics and idiots buy anything else. Either way I am deeply sorry for them.

Thanks for your deep sorrow for this idiotic cynical nissan leaf owner. Love you too

Same here. To be fair, we do have to put up with charging compatibility shenanigans. But that aside, I love this thing.

Leaf would've been decent if not battery health issue and crazy charging port. Cleary Nissan doesn't want it so succeed. I nearly bought one as my spare EV for short trips nearby (they can be had for 1.5k NZD here). But minivan is just more useful for short trips, and doesn't break a bank either.

same problem on my manual transmission (and there aren't many of those left in north america)

I doubt that this is really the case (brake lights will be connected to brake pedal, regardless of mode).

For motorcycles (not using regenerative braking, but engine braking which is quite effective there) this however is a problem. Every once in a while I woke a sleepy tailgater with that. Fortunately all sleepy tailgaters did wake up in time.

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