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Electric Vehicles

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theprestige said:
Do you mean like the brake pedal will eventually be seen as redundant, and deleted from future designs? Because I don't think that's ever going to happen. We're always going to want a quick stop option.

So I guess you probably mean people taking their foot off the accelerator and letting the car slowly decrease in speed, in scenarios where that's sufficient, rather than bother with the brakes. Which I kind of assumed everyone was doing already, a lot of the time, in any and every car that behaved that way.

Like, do you guys *not* do that all the time? I hate using my brakes at all, at speed on the freeway. I much prefer to manage my speed by easing up or bearing down on the accelerator. Is that not a thing for you?
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But... if you drive that way, you sacrifice the opportunity to pass a few NPC cars whenever they slow down early for a traffic light ahead, when you can swerve past them at full speed and then screech to a sudden stop at the last moment. I mean, if you aren't doing that, driving is no fun at all and you might as well take the bus.

(I have to declare the above as sarcasm, because there are obviously quite a few drivers who actually think that.)
 
Like, do you guys *not* do that all the time? I hate using my brakes at all, at speed on the freeway. I much prefer to manage my speed by easing up or bearing down on the accelerator. Is that not a thing for you?
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As I think about it, that has changed a bit over the years. When I first started driving, cars would tend to slow down fairly rapidly when you backed off on the accelerator. Then, as gas mileage became more of an issue, late 70s and 1980s cars seemed to coast when you backed off on the accelerator. So, you had to use the brakes more often. Newer cars are more likely to have a small range where backing off a bit causes them to coast then they slow down more. With late model cars, it is like the way one-pedal driving works on my EV, just not as aggressive.
 
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jadebox said:
As I think about it, that has changed a bit over the years. When I first started driving, cars would tend to slow down fairly rapidly when you backed off on the accelerator. Then, as gas mileage became more of an issue, late 70s and 1980s cars seemed to coast when you backed off on the accelerator. So, you had to use the brakes more often. Newer cars are more likely to have a small range where backing off a bit causes them to coast then they slow down more. With late model cars, it is like the way one-pedal driving works on my EV, just not as aggressive.
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Engine braking generally is good for economy, but not always good for automatic transmissions of yore, which were controlled to a great extent by engine vacuum, nor, I think, for certain issues of emission control on carbureted cars. So auto transmission cars used to have various ways to keep deceleration from snapping the carburetor shut, burning up the transmission bands, and whatnot. Newer cars, with computerized fuel injection and computerized transmissions and so forth have gone back to better engine braking, which helps economy a good bit, as well as saving the brakes. My little Hyundai, with a six speed lockup automatic, engine-brakes just dandy, has had one set of front brake pads in 110 thousand miles (and will probably never need rear shoes), and averages over 40 mpg in summer. The main difference between good engine braking and regenerative braking is that the latter gives you something other than noise.
 
The Don said:
Yes, and while we're at it why not get rid of synchromesh (takes all of the skill out of changing gear on a manual gearbox) and revert to drum brakes and crossply tyres which made stopping and going around corners so much more terrifying challenging involving for the driver.
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Of course, drum brakes are making a come back on ev's because regen braking. The id3 has them, if not others
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Of course, drum brakes are making a come back on ev's because regen braking. The id3 has them, if not others
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True, but there's a very special feeling which comes from descending an alpine pass in a car shod in crossplies and drum brakes all around once everything has got nice and warm ;)

Regenerative braking takes away all the real fun. :rolleyes:
 
Yes I'm so absolutely sure that "It's .0000002% more reliable under laboratory conditions" is really why people who put "Millennial Anti-Theft Device" stickers on their cars choose manuals.
 
The Don said:
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/... puts the motor,back into the car's batteries.
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Note that this is for the rear brakes. Even on gassers, disk rear brakes aren't always that good a choice, as they don't get used hard enough to keep the rotors from rusting and glazing, especially if you're the sort of driver who doesn't ride the brakes. Although they almost never really wear out, they're likely to need more frequent replacement than the fronts. I think in many cases, manufacturers put disks on the rear more because they are expected than because they work better.

Oh, and one other reason disk brakes are favored for rears is that it's easier to distribute braking just by brake size. Drums are self-actuating, which means they use their own internal energy to increase their pressure. A good feature in general, it can cause the rears to lock up, so disk/drum vehicles often need a proportioning valve to modulate them, an annoying complication. But it's one that an outfit like VW has plenty of experience with.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Yes I'm so absolutely sure that "It's .0000002% more reliable under laboratory conditions" is really why people who put "Millennial Anti-Theft Device" stickers on their cars choose manuals.
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If I had a sporty car it would have a manual transmission. It would also have that sticker. I am that big of a prick in real life. I know, hard to believe.

Instead I drive a truck, because Texas. I’ve driven manual trucks, both three on the tree and five speed (with a really low first). Well, I’ve also driven normal five speed trucks and an 10 speed manual dump truck, but not on a regular basis. All were interesting in their own way. Three on the tree is really good for a ranch truck. But, for day to day driving, ranging from dirt roads to interstates with 85?mph speed limits, I really prefer my current 10 speed automatic for a truck. It is fantastic by comparison.
 
Shalamar said:
1 pedal driving is a symptom of the electric motors. While it can be disabled, in EV's when you release the accelerator, the act of the car still going forward causes the motors to generate electricity to be stored in the battery. This causes resistance which also causes the vehicle to slow down.

This prevents excessive wear on the actual brakes, giving them a longer lifespan, and is very useful on steep hills.


The cars still have brakes and a brake pedal.
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I love my Nissan Leaf. it has the E-pedal option that works pretty much like a dodgem - push down to go faster, lifting off primarily applies regen braking. I can still use the brake pedal, but even that will use regen braking until you reach a certain point when it starts to apply physical braking. The only time I turn it off is when reversing as my actions can make it feel jerky. When I'm driving downhill I can flick the car into B Mode to increase the amount of regen braking, acting like engine braking on an ICE powered car.

With Pro-Pilot on motorways and dual carriageways I can chill out much more than when I was driving a petrol car. my speed is lower and under control of the car which doesn't have a nasty tendency to let the speed creep up when overtaking or having just been overtaken.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I only drive manual cars on vinyl, cooked rare, in the original Latin.
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I only drive steam cars. With crash gearboxes. And no suspension. Though I admit my current one has a built in speaker system which plays the sounds of a team of horses so I can pretend I'm a manly waggoneer.
 
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Who here can remember double-declutching, in the lower gears at least? Ah, those were the days :)
 
I've driven old MX-5s (Miatas) since before they were old and found there's a proportion of drivers who insist they always double declutch "to save wearing out the synchros". I've yet to find one who claims also to go barefoot "to save wearing out his shoes".
 
Jack by the hedge said:
I've driven old MX-5s (Miatas) since before they were old and found there's a proportion of drivers who insist they always double declutch "to save wearing out the synchros". I've yet to find one who claims also to go barefoot "to save wearing out his shoes".
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:)

My claim to driving fame is that I owned not just one but two (! at different times) Del-boy specials, Reliant Regal vans. You absolutely had to double-declutch in those heaps.
 
GlennB said:
Who here can remember double-declutching, in the lower gears at least? Ah, those were the days :)
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We here in the states call it simply double-clutching, and I sure can remember, because I've had enough used cars whose previous owners were not very good shifters, that had bad synchros even though they weren't supposed to be crashboxes. I've had a couple over the years that benefitied from double clutching on the way up as well as down.

For those not familiar: on the way down, you shift out of gear, go into neutral, let go the clutch, rev the engine, then depress the clutch and shift before the transmission's input shaft slows again - the goal being to match the internal speed of the selected gear in the box with that of the output shaft. On the way up, you shift out and release the clutch, then let the engine speed drop before clutching and shifting, again to try to match input shaft speed with output shaft. The best designed cars, with practice, could be double-clutched with "heel and toe," thus allowing you to shift down and brake at the same time.

Little known fact: the old two-stroke, 3 cylinder SAABs, which had freewheeling to prevent oil starvation on deceleration, also could be downshifted without any clutch at all.
 
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I don't think anything I've owned was older than 1969 model. In my brain, I still don't understand what the clutch release was supposed to do. Did these simply not have synchros at all?

My rabbit GTI was very nice at simply being able to throw the shifter around without clutching at all. My civic never felt right for me to do it. It *could* do it, but I found I wasn't able to feel right when I tried.
 
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