Adapting to Regenerative Braking

JSteph3061

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Manhattan Beach, CA
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AGT, Cosmos Silver, 19"
From a driver’s perspective, I love the aggressive regenerative braking of the Lucid. But my daughter has already gotten car sick a couple of times as a result of the rapid deceleration when I even slightly ease my foot on the pedal. I have a heavy foot so acceleration likely has something to do with it as well. This is all while driving in Smooth and being much more cautious with my family in the car than when driving by myself. I might also need to alter the braking settings.

We also own a Tesla Model Y and have had no similar issues when I am driving.

With great power (and a child) comes greater responsibilities I guess.
 
Is my first EV and first experience with Regen. I think now I have learned it well enough (usually leave it on big Regen now) to avoid the rapid speed and slow down. The pedal is actually very responsive and I think my driving is now not too motion sickness inducing. However I have to relearn things when i now “rarely” go back to my regular ICE car.
 
Yeah it takes getting used to but my wife who is VERY prone to motion sickness can now ride in the back seat while I’m driving which she cannot tolerate in any ICE car. The accelerator pedal is like leg day at the gym, once it develops your calf muscles better, you’ll nail the imperceptible stops every time and also look silly in shorts with a much larger right calf muscle.
 
From a driver’s perspective, I love the aggressive regenerative braking of the Lucid. But my daughter has already gotten car sick a couple of times as a result of the rapid deceleration when I even slightly ease my foot on the pedal. I have a heavy foot so acceleration likely has something to do with it as well. This is all while driving in Smooth and being much more cautious with my family in the car than when driving by myself. I might also need to alter the braking settings.

We also own a Tesla Model Y and have had no similar issues when I am driving.

With great power (and a child) comes greater responsibilities I guess.
It takes some getting used to and pedal to the metal doesn't help. It's more like a balancing act. At all speeds there is a position on the pedal where you can have it as if you were driving an ICE and lifted off the pedal. That's what you need to find the feel for and any lifting off of that is braking
 
From a driver’s perspective, I love the aggressive regenerative braking of the Lucid. But my daughter has already gotten car sick a couple of times as a result of the rapid deceleration when I even slightly ease my foot on the pedal. I have a heavy foot so acceleration likely has something to do with it as well. This is all while driving in Smooth and being much more cautious with my family in the car than when driving by myself. I might also need to alter the braking settings.

We also own a Tesla Model Y and have had no similar issues when I am driving.

With great power (and a child) comes greater responsibilities I guess.
Try using Swift mode with standard regen. The regen is far less aggressive and may the answer you are looking for.
 
Try using Swift mode with standard regen. The regen is far less aggressive and may the answer you are looking for.
It may be that I am not that sensitive, but I do not notice any regen difference between the three drive modes. Has anyone seen or heard that there is a difference from Lucid?
 
Each mode offers high or standard regeneration. If you put it in Swift mode and choose standard (long press the swift button then choose), there is quite a bit less regeneration upon lifting off the throttle.
 
My question may be slightly off topic, but I am curious if anyone knows roughly how much power, on a relative basis, regeneration adds back to the battery. In a simple example, assume you are on flat terrain not needing to factor in wind nor air temperature and by accelerating the car from a full stop smoothly at a moderate pace to 60mph you consume a hypothetical 100 units of power. If you immediately let the car decelerate using regeneration (again smoothly and moderately) back to a full stop, how many of those 100 units are recaptured? thanks
 
My question may be slightly off topic, but I am curious if anyone knows roughly how much power, on a relative basis, regeneration adds back to the battery. In a simple example, assume you are on flat terrain not needing to factor in wind nor air temperature and by accelerating the car from a full stop smoothly at a moderate pace to 60mph you consume a hypothetical 100 units of power. If you immediately let the car decelerate using regeneration (again smoothly and moderately) back to a full stop, how many of those 100 units are recaptured? thanks
Interesting question. You will have losses (DC to AC conversion, resistance, motor loss, etc. ) on the acceleration. Likewise on the charging/deceleration you will have losses. This is very similar to the altitude gain and loss question when returning to the same altitude. I have heard that you lose about 20% in this situation or in your case 20 units of your hypothetical power.
 
My question may be slightly off topic, but I am curious if anyone knows roughly how much power, on a relative basis, regeneration adds back to the battery. In a simple example, assume you are on flat terrain not needing to factor in wind nor air temperature and by accelerating the car from a full stop smoothly at a moderate pace to 60mph you consume a hypothetical 100 units of power. If you immediately let the car decelerate using regeneration (again smoothly and moderately) back to a full stop, how many of those 100 units are recaptured? thanks

I'm no engineer, but what I've read tells me that there are a lot of variables at play, such as: battery state of charge (a full battery cannot accept regenerative power), road speed at which regeneration is initiated (the battery can accept more current flow from lower speed braking due to the limits in how fast the battery can absorb current), battery pack temperature, etc.

In the seven years I've had regenerative braking (and I always used the highest setting), I have never gotten the sense that it makes a huge difference in range, especially in highway driving where one does little braking. However, I have occasionally seen my percentage of remaining charge jump up a point during braking, probably because the charge level was right on the cusp. Some years ago I read a review of a climb up New Hampshire's Mt. Washington in a Tesla. The car gained 14 miles of indicated range during the drive down the mountain from regenerative braking, however it didn't quite offset the additional range consumed driving up the mountain.

All that said, I love regenerative braking and the one-pedal driving it facilitates. When I got my first Tesla in 2015, it took me all of 15 minutes to get used to regen and to become addicted to it. One of the biggest annoyances I now have when driving an ICE vehicle is having to get on and off the brake pedal in heavy traffic and having to hold the brake pedal down at a stoplight. I have never experienced any difficulty in modulating the throttle to attain smooth slowing or a smooth transition between acceleration and slowing.
 
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I'm no engineer, but what I've read tells me that there are a lot of variables at play, such as: battery state of charge (a full battery cannot accept regenerative power), road speed at which regeneration is initiated (the battery can accept more current flow from lower speed braking due to the limits in how fast the battery can absorb current), battery pack temperature, etc.

In the seven years I've had regenerative braking (and I always used the highest setting), I have never gotten the sense that it makes a huge difference in range, especially in highway driving where one does little braking. However, I have occasionally seen my percentage of remaining charge jump up a point during braking, probably because the charge level was right on the cusp. Some years ago I read a review of a climb up New Hampshire's Mt. Washington in a Tesla. The car gained 14 miles of indicated range during the drive down the mountain from regenerative braking, however it didn't quite offset the additional range consumed driving up the mountain.
There’s a stretch of road here between Nederland and Boulder with an elevation change of 2,700 ft or so where I regularly gain a percentage point or two of battery on the way down. I agree, it doesn’t completely offset the amount of battery it takes to go up, though. Still, in situations where you have prolonged downhills, it does make a difference.
 
There’s a stretch of road here between Nederland and Boulder with an elevation change of 2,700 ft or so where I regularly gain a percentage point or two of battery on the way down. I agree, it doesn’t completely offset the amount of battery it takes to go up, though. Still, in situations where you have prolonged downhills, it does make a difference.

One way to look at it is that every little bit of energy recovered from regenerative braking is energy that would be completely lost to heat (and wear and tear on brake components) in friction braking an ICE vehicle.
 
There’s a stretch of road here between Nederland and Boulder with an elevation change of 2,700 ft or so where I regularly gain a percentage point or two of battery on the way down. I agree, it doesn’t completely offset the amount of battery it takes to go up, though. Still, in situations where you have prolonged downhills, it does make a difference.
Nederland no better introduction to a discussion about ICE,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_Dead_Guy_Days
 
My first time driving an EV I got myself dizzy due to the regen breaking lol
I got used to max regen and stopping gradually by the time I drove from Millbrae to San Mateo Bridge when I took delivery and I used the default smooth mode. No one had car sickness when I was driving 500 miles so far. Perhaps my electric golf cart driving experience for years is the reason.
 
I've never quite understood the problems people report in adapting to regenerative braking. I experienced it for the first time when I got into my new 2015 Tesla Model S (with regen set on maximum). Within 15 minutes it seemed completely natural to me. At the time, I lived in a gated community and had to traverse 5 speed bumps on the road between our house and the entry gate. In our ICE vehicles, it was a matter of lifting off the throttle pedal upon approach, gauging whether I was getting enough deceleration, and then apply the brake if need be. With the Tesla, it was simply a matter of modulating the throttle to the desired level of deceleration and then accelerating smoothly away -- all with one pedal. Every trip into and out of our community afterward in our ICE vehicles became a minor annoyance.

Ever since I learned to drive over a half century ago, I have used the throttle pedal and/or downshifting (in manual transmission cars) to modulate speed both up and down. All regenerative braking does is increase the deceleration rate in pedal lift-off over what you would get in an ICE vehicle. It's not a whole different way of driving; it's just a matter of adapting to more deceleration with throttle lift-off than you used to get in your ICE vehicle.
 
I've never quite understood the problems people report in adapting to regenerative braking. I experienced it for the first time when I got into my new 2015 Tesla Model S (with regen set on maximum). Within 15 minutes it seemed completely natural to me. At the time, I lived in a gated community and had to traverse 5 speed bumps on the road between our house and the entry gate. In our ICE vehicles, it was a matter of lifting off the throttle pedal upon approach, gauging whether I was getting enough deceleration, and then apply the brake if need be. With the Tesla, it was simply a matter of modulating the throttle to the desired level of deceleration and then accelerating smoothly away -- all with one pedal. Every trip into and out of our community afterward in our ICE vehicles became a minor annoyance.

Ever since I learned to drive over a half century ago, I have used the throttle pedal and/or downshifting (in manual transmission cars) to modulate speed both up and down. All regenerative braking does is increase the deceleration rate in pedal lift-off over what you would get in an ICE vehicle. It's not a whole different way of driving; it's just a matter of adapting to more deceleration with throttle lift-off than you used to get in your ICE vehicle.
It’s much easier to complain about something new than embrace it.
 
I'm used to it now. Rarely use the brakes too. I did not drive my ICE for 2+ weeks and wondered if I'll mess up but the transition deiving between ICE and EV hasnt been a problem.
 
I've never quite understood the problems people report in adapting to regenerative braking. I experienced it for the first time when I got into my new 2015 Tesla Model S (with regen set on maximum). Within 15 minutes it seemed completely natural to me. At the time, I lived in a gated community and had to traverse 5 speed bumps on the road between our house and the entry gate. In our ICE vehicles, it was a matter of lifting off the throttle pedal upon approach, gauging whether I was getting enough deceleration, and then apply the brake if need be. With the Tesla, it was simply a matter of modulating the throttle to the desired level of deceleration and then accelerating smoothly away -- all with one pedal. Every trip into and out of our community afterward in our ICE vehicles became a minor annoyance.

Ever since I learned to drive over a half century ago, I have used the throttle pedal and/or downshifting (in manual transmission cars) to modulate speed both up and down. All regenerative braking does is increase the deceleration rate in pedal lift-off over what you would get in an ICE vehicle. It's not a whole different way of driving; it's just a matter of adapting to more deceleration with throttle lift-off than you used to get in your ICE vehicle.
I, too, wonder why it’s such a huge deal to people. I think folks have varying levels of dexterity and fine motor adjustment in their legs.

Some also just have a giant resistance to charge of any kind.

Heck, there are people still clinging to their home buttons on iPhones. They simply refuse to change over to FaceID, which makes the whole experience of unlocking your phone invisible.
 
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