Adapting to Regenerative Braking

[maractwin]

I had no problem adjusting to one pedal driving, but I hate not having the home button on my iPhone. Bad analogy. Part of what love about the Lucid is the number of physical controls that they have retained.

 

[noobzilla]

I had no problem adjusting to one pedal driving, but I hate not having the home button on my iPhone. Bad analogy. Part of what love about the Lucid is the number of physical controls that they have retained.

home button gone I got used to but Im still annoyed (likely for the rest of my time) that top new phones don't have headphone jacks anymore.

 

[joec]

home button gone I got used to but Im still annoyed (likely for the rest of my time) that top new phones don't have headphone jacks anymore.

Look on the bright side: getting rid of the headphone jack means you can now drop your phone into the toilet (or swimming pool, puddle, etc) and not have to replace it.

 

[Tex_Lucid]

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 takes a bit of getting used to it. I find the regen okay for me while driving in Swift mode, still working on the getting comfortable with in in Smooth mode. But, I love the one leg driving.

 

[Mawashi Geri]

Regen….i can not imagine not having it. I transitioned in microseconds. What I do not like about it is that my little Hyundai Kona does not have it. I had to drive into the city yesterday. No way am I going to take the Lucid to this SHI-HOLE. I took the Kona. While still on my block I gradually backed off the accelerator pedal. I was still moving. I had to aggressively brake. Guess I am fully transitioned. Each day I drive the Lucid I am becoming more of an EV believer. Its a great ride.

 

[LucidNJ]

Anyone have situations on high Regen where you take your foot off the accelerator and nothing happens? I see the needle move over to the charging side but my car does not significantly slow down. This only happens at higher speeds and only once in a while.

 

[MHDave]

Anyone have situations on high Regen where you take your foot off the accelerator and nothing happens? I see the needle move over to the charging side but my car does not significantly slow down. This only happens at higher speeds and only once in a while.

Is your car either charged to ~100% SOC or do you have the blue battery warning? In either case, regen may not be available.

 

[Keith_SF]

I'm still getting used to this (<100 miles on my car) but the biggest problem I have is with interfacing with the cruise control, in two situations:

1) with cruise active if you decide to override the cruise with the gas pedal, if you do it slowly, it seems to disengage the cruise while the pedal is in the regen range, resulting in a slight dip in acceleration until you've pressed the pedal to the point where acceleration is greater than what the cruise was dictating

2) if you cancel cruise with your foot off the accelerator pedal, you get sudden deceleration, which is not what I want! I just want acceleration to neutralise.

Any tips welcome!

 

[LucidNJ]

Is your car either charged to ~100% SOC or do you have the blue battery warning? In either case, regen may not be available.

No this was at 60-70% SOC and no battery warning.

 

[Adnillien]

I'm still getting used to this (<100 miles on my car) but the biggest problem I have is with interfacing with the cruise control, in two situations:

1) with cruise active if you decide to override the cruise with the gas pedal, if you do it slowly, it seems to disengage the cruise while the pedal is in the regen range, resulting in a slight dip in acceleration until you've pressed the pedal to the point where acceleration is greater than what the cruise was dictating

2) if you cancel cruise with your foot off the accelerator pedal, you get sudden deceleration, which is not what I want! I just want acceleration to neutralise.

Any tips welcome!

For overriding the ACC, I have not noticed it disengage prior to accelerating. Becasue of the power and torque of the car, acceleration when overriding ACC feels a bit jerky.

For canceling ACC, it takes practice to get the right amount a pressure at the right time on the electron pedal to make it smooth. I have had my car 11 months and still every once in a while I cancel ACC or HA and get that rapid deceleration. I think the driver behind me must wonder what the heck is wrong with me. It will get easier with practice.

 

[joec]

I'm still getting used to this (<100 miles on my car) but the biggest problem I have is with interfacing with the cruise control, in two situations:

1) with cruise active if you decide to override the cruise with the gas pedal, if you do it slowly, it seems to disengage the cruise while the pedal is in the regen range, resulting in a slight dip in acceleration until you've pressed the pedal to the point where acceleration is greater than what the cruise was dictating

2) if you cancel cruise with your foot off the accelerator pedal, you get sudden deceleration, which is not what I want! I just want acceleration to neutralise.

Any tips welcome!

Canceling HA or ACC is definitely a learned skill. But it makes sense. With 1-pedal driving, lifting your foot off the accelerator completely will cause the car to decelerate until it stops. With no foot on that pedal when you cancel, the car does what it would do if you lifted your foot off completely while driving at that speed.

So the trick is to start, despite intuition, by pressing down on the accelerator until you get to the point where you would need to be in order to achieve your current speed. Or at least have it down far enough that the initial regen will be minimal. Then press the X button on the steering wheel. Then slowly lift off the pedal again, as you normally would.

It’s not that hard, once you get used to it. Becomes second nature, like downshifting a manual transmission. But if you are used to disengaging cruise control via the brake pedal, it’ll be a bit of a learning curve.

 

[girolamo]

I have noticed that if you look at the square "adaptive cruise" sign above the cruise indicator on the dash, it will go from bright to dark when your foot gets the accelerator within about 5 mph of the set speed. Once you are there, deactivating cruise control is fairly smooth.

 

[Steveinarizona]

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.

Your prior cars didn't have "autohold"?

 

[hmp10]

Your prior cars didn't have "autohold"?

Not our ICE cars, the most recent of which is a 2018 Honda Odyssey. All three of our EVs did/do.

The Honda has an engine shutdown feature to conserve gas when stopped in traffic, but it disengages when you take your foot off the brake pedal -- and sometimes even if you inadvertently reduce pressure on the pedal while still holding it down. As a result, it's a feature I usually deactivate as soon as I start up the car.

 

[Steveinarizona]

Not our ICE cars, the most recent of which is a 2018 Honda Odyssey. All three of our EVs did/do.

The Honda has an engine shutdown feature to conserve gas when stopped in traffic, but it disengages when you take your foot off the brake pedal -- and sometimes even if you inadvertently reduce pressure on the pedal while still holding it down. As a result, it's a feature I usually deactivate as soon as I start up the car.

Then you are comparing apples to oranges. My prior BMWs had autohold. Lucid is a luxury car so the comparison should be to BMW, MB, Audi, Genesis, etc.

 

[Lucken]

Your prior cars didn't have "autohold"?

Even my wife's Sonata Hybrid has auto hold.

 

[hmp10]

Then you are comparing apples to oranges. My prior BMWs had autohold. Lucid is a luxury car so the comparison should be to BMW, MB, Audi, Genesis, etc.

More like comparing Granny Smith apples to Honeycrisp apples. Keeping my foot on the brake pedal at a stoplight is only one of the several reasons I prefer regenerative braking over ICE braking.

However, this discussion did prompt me to investigate whether my 2018 Odyssey has an auto hold feature. Turns out it does . . . I just never noticed it. Live and learn.

But I still much prefer regenerative braking over friction braking.

 

[Steveinarizona]

More like comparing Granny Smith apples to Honeycrisp apples. Keeping my foot on the brake pedal at a stoplight is only one of the several reasons I prefer regenerative braking over ICE braking.

However, this discussion did prompt me to investigate whether my 2018 Odyssey has an auto hold feature. Turns out it does . . . I just never noticed it. Live and learn.

But I still much prefer regenerative braking over friction braking.

If I had a Lucid (or Tesla) I would also. For many other EVs with blended braking systems it is a tradeoff between regen on one hand and coasting on the other hand. Like many things it is not a one size fits all and driving style has to be considered when selecting a car.

 

[joec]

More like comparing Granny Smith apples to Honeycrisp apples. Keeping my foot on the brake pedal at a stoplight is only one of the several reasons I prefer regenerative braking over ICE braking.

However, this discussion did prompt me to investigate whether my 2018 Odyssey has an auto hold feature. Turns out it does . . . I just never noticed it. Live and learn.

But I still much prefer regenerative braking over friction braking.

This is the crux of it for me. I keep getting lectured on what's more efficient, what saves more energy, blah blah. Who gives a crap? It feels better to use regen with 1-pedal driving for me. Why would I want to move my foot back and forth over two different pedals when I can just modulate the pressure on one?

If others prefer using their brake pedal, go for it. Don't let me tell you what to do. But I highly encourage anyone who has never tried 1-pedal to give it a few days.

 

[hmp10]

Even though I am a "spirited" driver, I take great pains not to tailgate. So even in heavy stop-and-go traffic with intermittent accelerator punches when I can, I usually make my Lucid and Tesla trips without ever once touching the brake pedal, even when pulling into a parking space or my garage. I find it very easy to modulate one-pedal driving that precisely in either car. (It may be that the car sometimes transitions to friction braking, but I cannot sense it.)