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Comment by Sohcahtoa82 | Hacker News Reader

That amount of deceleration can vary a lot from car-to-car.

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.

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A high-school friend of mine had a VW Bug, and he claimed it was easier to change the clutch than the brakes, so he downshifted to decelerate as much as possible. Maybe Bugs were special that way; on every manual shift vehicle I've owned, brakes were much easier.

The Bug's motor was in the back of the car, in a very accessible spot.

When I was a pro mechanic, I watched someone drop the engine on a Bug in like 15 minutes. For that car, clutches are easy.

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.

My original clutch is at 197k miles, and I downshift to decelerate until i use the brakes the last 10-20'.

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)

It is shocking how much driving you can do without using the brakes. And, often I wonder about these quirky mini-games people play while driving (optimizing metrics other than safety seems bad), but if you really try to minimize brake usage you are forced to maintain a really generous following distance.

Yeah, IMO it's excellent "mini-game" more drivers should be playing.

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 feel tesla adjusts regen so you always stop exactly at the line on intersection. It’s a little bizarre. You don’t feel it but I noticed it way too many times.

I don't get that from my Tesla at all. I'm always having to keep giving it a little throttle to make it to the line.

Hmmm, that’s opposite of what I’m trying to say. My point is it never overruns the line, but it’s all just a speculation.

I’d love to rigirously test this.

My 2019 Hyundai Kona EV drives like a normal automatic. I can set the regen level when I let off the accelerator, but the great feature it has is engaging in regen when I press the brake pedal.

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 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.

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.

I hate when people write 'in a country I visited' or 'I had a rental EV' or 'I paid good price' or some other useless comment without saying exactly what was the car brand.

My word choice was deliberate because I actually can't remember the car I had and couldn't be fucked to go look it up.

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