I keep noticing that while braking (charging battery braking, not full mechanical braking) if I hit a few bumps in the road, the slip indicator light flashes and I have a momentary loss of brakes. At least I think it is the slip indicator light. It flashes a couple times and I don't have a lot of time to see it. What is going on here? The brakes always work again in a second but it is always unnerving when I feel like I don't have any brakes. Here's what I have found in the manual... pages 185 and 222. http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om/OM52A87U/pdf/sec_2-2.pdf http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om/OM52A87U/pdf/sec_2-4.pdf
It is my belief that you switch from Regen to friction brakes (to protect transmission/engine parts) and they have different 'feel', you never have no brakes, just different brakes. Oddly if you are braking hard, the difference is slight, and you notice it more the less you are braking.
I was sitting in my brother's Ford F150 thinking how poor the A/C worked at idle, and it occurred to me that in that case, the Prius emulation of a real car was better than the real thing. My next thought was that the brake feel emulation must be MUCH harder as you can tell the difference so easily. I wish you could turn off the 'engine braking when coasting' emulation, but it would sure scare folks you loaned the car to.
While that certainly would be an advanced feature not for newbies, it would be an epic feature for regular Prius drivers. It will never happen though, for the same reason we must all now suffer inadequate OEM driver's floor mats.