Is riding the brake OK?

I know I know. I've gotta cancel my ripoff extended warranty and then I'll have about $700 to play with. Gonna get CAN-View. The rest will probably go towards paying down principle on the car loan. ACK! I HATE debt! Maybe I should spend the left over money on lotto tickets so I can pay the car off. Yeah, that's the ticket (pun intended).

Seriously though, doesn't B only push up to about 30 AMPs into the battery? I seem to remember that D is more efficient for energy recovery... until your battery is stuffed like a x-mas goose.

 

Evan are you saying here that when in B mode the brake regen does not work because B mode is already taking priority?
If so, do they do friction instead until they are released like you say, by accelerating just a bit?

 

Sources of braking torque are all allocated dynamically on the fly,
depending on your foot pressure. First of all, forget B mode
unless you really need it. Check out the older threads that people
pointed to, and read them carefully. B mode is really *only* for
long downhills where you *know* you're going to top out the battery
before reaching the bottom -- using "D" with well-controlled and
well-planned braking is the most efficient approach. I wrote all
this up in some depth a while back ... not exactly sure where it
went now, although http://priusonline.com/viewtopic.php?t=5943 has
some detail. Search engines are your friend. I got a lot of the
info from the "new car features" documents at techinfo.toyota.com,
which despite costing a nominal day's download fee, are an awesome
read. As are the relevant patents, if you can stay awake that long.
.
_H*

 

Held back is such strong language. I would suggest that I was trying to broaden horizons. I have been down some very big hills, but on a day to day basis that is not true. The hills in question will max out the battery. What I would suggest is that went you get to the last blue bar or the first green you switch to B. If the known hill is large enough you might do it at the top? Thankfully I do not have to deal with hills like that on my daily commute.

 

Yea, I've read a bit about B mode, but I was just wondering how the regen is tied in.....
He was complaining of this brakes being 'VERY" hot when running downhill in B mode. there was some speculation that all the heat could have been built in the last few minutes rather than the whole trip.
But I was wondering if B Mode had the regen dominated, maybe the brakes in fact could be friction braking causing all that heat?