Well, in most vehicles if you take your foot off the accelerator you start to decelerate. It would be good if strong deceleration lit the brake lights, I agree, but that's a separate issue.
I had a rental recently that would just keep going and going when I released the accelerator. I could be going 65 mph, release, and 30 seconds later, still going ~60 mph. As someone that used to drive manuals and now drives and EV, I hated it. My typical driving style is built around the idea that the brake pedal is an evil device that converts cash into brake dust and waste heat, so I use it as little as possible and release the accelerator earlier when I'm going to need to stop. That doesn't work on a car that barely slows down at all when you release the pedal.
I don't know if this was considered a feature for this car, or if maybe the throttle cable was too tight or stuck or something, but I hated how much more I had to use the brake pedal.
Now do a front-wheel-drive of any era. Hey, guess what you get to do first? Take the wheels off, thereby exposing the brakes.
The clutch is much more difficult to replace on my car; (i've done the brake discs 2x -- track days),
If you're relatively smooth on your downshifts, each downshift should be much shorter than your average braking duration.
More generally speaking, if you're in a gear that slows you down, or downshift to it, you're more likely to avoid a full stop and start, which puts much more wear on the clutch than a series of downshifts.
... I also downshift when I drive automatics ... when I can... there are large downhills near my neighborhood (in a school zone) coming from a stop, if I switch to manual mode or short/sport mode, I can be in 3rd, at a controlled speed, and barely touch the brakes (versus others ride their brakes all down the hill)
Agreed and well-put. An attentive driver should always be noticing the frequent situations where you'll need to stop/slow ahead, and gradual slowing is far safer for everyone involved than delaying before slamming on the brakes.
Could some differences in opinion might come from the places people drive? Where I live, it's almost never safe/desirable to dial in a constant speed for an extended period. There's always traffic or a bend or something. The rare exceptions are best-solved by using the explicit cruise-control feature.
In contrast, perhaps another person is out on straight empty rural highways a lot, and they like the "it just keeps going on its own" behavior because it's basically cruise-control-lite.
1. It encourages safety through adequate following-distance.
2. Drivers doing it are more aware of upcoming hazards, rather than less.
3. Overall improvement in traffic, reducing hard-stops, reducing hard-acceleration, and encouraging zipper-merging.
4. It displaces wayyyy-worse things bored drivers might end up doing.
I’d love to rigirously test this.
I have to press the brakes _really_ hard to actually engage the brakes, and 99% of the time the brakes are only engaged to bring me to a complete stop at the end of decceleration. You can actually hear the brakes when they rub on the disks.
I like this way of driving because it's familiar. Accelerator goes, and brakes stop. I can lend the car to a friend and they can just drive without any special instructions. The car decides if actual brakes are needed or not, and it's a seamless experience.
I would be surprised if other more modern EV's dont behave the same way if you press the brakes, it's such a no brainer, and it means that a 'normal' driving style is as efficient as it can be already.
My point being for most people expected behavior is for a car to only slow down during active braking and maintain momentum otherwise, and trying to change that otherwise would bring more danger than it's worth.