Wait - Tesla braking isn't regenerative?

I was just checking out an older Tesla yesterday at our family Thanksgiving. The guy lives in Denver and it's great, he says, for zooming around the city and work but anytime he leaves the city he drives his Jeep...the range of his Tesla, since it's an older model, is only 150 miles.
Maybe the reason Tesla doesn't have the high-tech regen brakes like our Prius is because much of the technology is patented by Toyota and they didn't want to pay the cost for using it.

 

One of the display screens on our plug-in minivan shows energy going in or out. since I prefer the highest regenerative feature, like many, I just let off the accelerator to the point where it's tantamount to being in neutral. it wasn't a hard skill to learn as that's what we hypermilers figured out nearly 2 decades ago. Even the early Prius screen aided people in learning where that neutral sweet spot was, showing power in or out or that sweet spot right in between .... just like our plugin minivan modernly. Still - many older people find it difficult to try new things. getting used to finding a neutral sweet spot on regenerative accelerators falls into that category ..... things that are uncomfortable to learn for older people. For those of us that fall in the OCD range though - one pedal driving is not only pretty easy - it's one of those many things that is obsessive.

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Or re that light switch, how many on/off cycles leads to replacement. For the bulb, ditto. Even LEDs fail.

I'm particularly conscious of this because I have had about a dozen 3-way switches fail over a 16 year period. Many brands. Now using $$$ industrial switches.

 

These shifter paddles are mounted to the wheel since they appeared on formula race cars. This way they are always in the same position in relation to the driver's hands on the wheel. A turn tight enough to require hand over hand isn't one to be shifting in the middle of.

Tesla does have high tech regen braking. They just chose to have it all controlled by the accelerator, like a locomotive. Blending regen and friction on the brake peddle like Toyota and others do leads to a 'quirky' experience compared to friction only brakes people are use to. Tesla avoided that as a potential costumer complaint.

Tesla could implement blended braking on the brake pedal; everything is in place on the cars to do so. But why should they. There is a waiting list to buy the cars with one pedal driving or using friction brakes as the only options for increasing prices.

 

What ???
Do you really want to keep the accelerator pushed down a bit WHILE you are applying the brakes ??
One pedal is for "driving" and the other is for "stopping".
One at a time. Simple.

Note: With a fully electric drive, I doubt that you would WANT to engage "full regeneration" because that would likely feel like slamming on the brakes.

 

• cruise control
• shifter lever into "N" and back to "D" as needed

Bob Wilson

 

I can't find much to agree with in this post. After driving 50 years in dozens of car models, I can assure you that the Toyota regen on a hybrid is no more quirky than any other car produced in the the last 5 decades. You should have tried the power brakes in the 1978 Ford LTD. Big, heavy car. Power brakes that went from doing nothing to locking up with just a few pounds of foot pressure. Then there was the 1992 F150 Pickup that always felt like the brakes were fading at the end of a long commute.

If Tesla had high tech braking, there would not be a need to "rent a car" (as suggested a few posts back) to learn how to drive the Tesla. If they wanted to emulate the speed/braking controls of a freight train it should have the accelerator mounted on a hand operated lever with stops that represent predetermined speeds.

The silliest sentence in the post is this:

 

One of my Marine drill instructors said,"One grain of observation outweighs 10 pounds of bovine fecal matter any day."

That is why I ran a recent benchmark:
Benchmarking Tesla Regenerative Braking | PriusChat

The funny thing is the Tesla will regenerate to a dead stop descending a hill. None of our earlier Prius, 2003, 2010, and 2017 Prime, ever did this. The best we could do is use "B" to not accelerate so fast as to fly off the curve at the bottom of the hill yet we still had to apply the brake. The Tesla regeneration does not require application of the brake that heats the pads and wastes energy.

NOTE: I find pulse and glide impractical in traffic. Predictable driving reduces horn honks and one finder salutes. Some well armed drivers in the South have been known to move from road-rage into a firefight.

Bob Wilson

 

I think you are being purposely dense here.
You just PARTIALLY release the accelerator.......exactly like you would do with any other vehicle.

Have you actually driven a Tesla ??
Sure doesn't sound like it.

 

I already mentioned that above. also that doing so is how many of us have mastered the pulse & glide technique. but if the Tesla sweet spot for neutral ½way off the accelerator is too hard - then pulse & glide would be too difficult for someone also.

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What I like most about the HSI on the Gen 4 & Prime is that it gives you a graphical indication of how much you are pulling from or putting into the battery as you modulate the go pedal. The Bolt EUV I just got goes one better and showed it graphically and numerically. So, while I almost never see 0 kW going in or out, I often manage 0.5 or 1 kW and I'm fine with that. If I want to hyper mile, that is close enough for me.

What I like better about the Bolt than the Tesla (well, one of many things) is that I can use one pedal or normal. If one pedal is not on, the brakes work like a Prius. My wife likes this. She's not a geek. I prefer the one pedal. I am a geek.

 

it's okay to be in a minority. A handful of folks hated those new fangled cars over their buggies too. Heck - Edison even hated AC. we all have our reasons.

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Prius also begins regen as the go pedal pressure is released, and requires finding a partial go pedal sweet spot for gliding.

 

If you are doing a true, no regen coast in a Prius, then one pedal driving should not be an issue.

Then let us know when you find a liftback EV that meets all your needs.

There were plenty of questions and complaints about the brakes during the gen2's days here. My owner's manual had a section covering the new noises made by the braking system. That they were normal for drivers that had never experienced them. I'm sure plenty still went to the dealer about those noises coming from by the driver's foot.

Smooth transition between regen friction took a couple generations to achieve.

Locomotive engineers don't have to make turns.

I thought I should have cleaned that up.

Cost has nothing to do with why Tesla doesn't offer typical blended braking. The price I refer to is the price they charge for their cars. Not the cost of the braking system. If not having the blended braking some want was having a major impact on sales, Tesla could likely just apply it with a software update. Since they sell every car they make, while increasing prices, it must not be a big issue for customers.

 

That's still a pretty weak argument, but one that is often made in excusing Tesla flaws. If the argument was valid, then YOU could claim (with just as much validity) that the not yet released cybertruck does not need to be improved, or even produced! After all, they have reservations for 1,000,000 (yes, a million) of the non-existent vehicles and they keep pushing the production date out. That's your justification, right? No need to change things if people are still buying the smoke and mirrors.

https://electrek.co/2022/11/22/tesla-cybertruck-million-pre-orders-live-up-to-hype/ On the other hand, the rumors that Musk started just before the unveiling of the cybertruck did give Tesla a nice 25% boost (approximately) in stock price, so maybe the truck has already done it's job?

In the mean time, I see that there are now two Rivian pickups driving through my neighborhood. I have not seen a F150 lightning yet. If Tesla is not quicker to market, it's competitors are going to eat it's lunch.