Well, in most vehicles if you take your foot off the accelerator you start to decelerate. It would be good if strong deceleration lit the brake lights, I agree, but that's a separate issue.
I had a rental recently that would just keep going and going when I released the accelerator. I could be going 65 mph, release, and 30 seconds later, still going ~60 mph. As someone that used to drive manuals and now drives and EV, I hated it. My typical driving style is built around the idea that the brake pedal is an evil device that converts cash into brake dust and waste heat, so I use it as little as possible and release the accelerator earlier when I'm going to need to stop. That doesn't work on a car that barely slows down at all when you release the pedal.
I don't know if this was considered a feature for this car, or if maybe the throttle cable was too tight or stuck or something, but I hated how much more I had to use the brake pedal.
Now do a front-wheel-drive of any era. Hey, guess what you get to do first? Take the wheels off, thereby exposing the brakes.
The clutch is much more difficult to replace on my car; (i've done the brake discs 2x -- track days),
If you're relatively smooth on your downshifts, each downshift should be much shorter than your average braking duration.
More generally speaking, if you're in a gear that slows you down, or downshift to it, you're more likely to avoid a full stop and start, which puts much more wear on the clutch than a series of downshifts.
... I also downshift when I drive automatics ... when I can... there are large downhills near my neighborhood (in a school zone) coming from a stop, if I switch to manual mode or short/sport mode, I can be in 3rd, at a controlled speed, and barely touch the brakes (versus others ride their brakes all down the hill)
Agreed and well-put. An attentive driver should always be noticing the frequent situations where you'll need to stop/slow ahead, and gradual slowing is far safer for everyone involved than delaying before slamming on the brakes.
Could some differences in opinion might come from the places people drive? Where I live, it's almost never safe/desirable to dial in a constant speed for an extended period. There's always traffic or a bend or something. The rare exceptions are best-solved by using the explicit cruise-control feature.
In contrast, perhaps another person is out on straight empty rural highways a lot, and they like the "it just keeps going on its own" behavior because it's basically cruise-control-lite.
1. It encourages safety through adequate following-distance.
2. Drivers doing it are more aware of upcoming hazards, rather than less.
3. Overall improvement in traffic, reducing hard-stops, reducing hard-acceleration, and encouraging zipper-merging.
4. It displaces wayyyy-worse things bored drivers might end up doing.
I’d love to rigirously test this.
I have to press the brakes _really_ hard to actually engage the brakes, and 99% of the time the brakes are only engaged to bring me to a complete stop at the end of decceleration. You can actually hear the brakes when they rub on the disks.
I like this way of driving because it's familiar. Accelerator goes, and brakes stop. I can lend the car to a friend and they can just drive without any special instructions. The car decides if actual brakes are needed or not, and it's a seamless experience.
I would be surprised if other more modern EV's dont behave the same way if you press the brakes, it's such a no brainer, and it means that a 'normal' driving style is as efficient as it can be already.
My point being for most people expected behavior is for a car to only slow down during active braking and maintain momentum otherwise, and trying to change that otherwise would bring more danger than it's worth.
> The braking deceleration in the default state should not exceed 3m/s²
> In 2024, a new energy vehicle brand conducted a user survey, revealing that 32% of car owners had mistakenly used the accelerator pedal as the brake pedal in emergencies, with 15% resulting in accidents.
> A simulation test by Tsinghua University's Automotive Safety Laboratory also showed that drivers accustomed to the one-pedal mode had an average reaction time 0.3 seconds longer when pressing the brake pedal in an emergency, equivalent to an additional braking distance of 8.3 meters at 100 km/h.
For me the learning curve was remembering to _not_ press the brake with my left foot, thinking it's the clutch when I'm mentally downshifting or stopping. A left foot on the brake thinking it's the clutch is for sure a powerful thing!
Cruise control whenever feasible and safe is probably the most polite solution to the consequences of one pedal driving. The freeway is where this kind of driving causes the most frustration for me. I don't think it should be banned but I think drivers should really give a shit about how they impact others around them. We can make it entirely about safety if that helps. At some level being polite aligns with basic physics.
One pedal driving for me only makes sense if you keep a proper distance to the people around you, such that the limited braking force is sufficient to flow with the traffic, so that wouldn't apply to many drivers out there. Perhaps that's where the confusion comes from.
“Neutral” could be defined as zero motor power, constant speed, or something else — there’s plenty of room for experimentation.
This position will depend on the current speed and the road incline. The detent will have to move around and the driver will have to then move the pedal into this new position.
At that point you have cruise control with extra steps.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you?
Everyone I know who uses one pedal driving thinks it's intuitive enough.
I alternate between my EV with one pedal driving and my wife's automatic Mazda without issue.
You can't just take your foot off the accelerator and coast, even downhill, is that right?
No thanks
I dislike going back to the ICE setup.
Every electric car I’ve driven needs brake pedal engaged to bring it to a complete stop. Regenerative braking seems to disengage at ~5mph.
I honestly see no safety reason for this, but they’re not banning one pedal control they’re specifically saying it can’t bring the vehicle to a complete stop.
I would actually think there’s a safety argument for the reverse. In absence of an active driver shouldn’t the vehicle slow and eventually stop?
badc0ffee•4mo ago
(I had never heard of this before just now.)
cderg•4mo ago
HankStallone•4mo ago
NobodyNada•4mo ago
"Engine braking" bans usually target jake braking [0] (opening the exhaust valve at the end of the compression stroke), which greatly increases the effect of engine braking at the cost of producing a very loud noise [1] (which is why it's often banned in residential areas). As far as I'm aware, such bans do not limit the use of "normal" downshifting to decelerate.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_release_engine_bra...
[1]: https://youtu.be/z3bLqjPBlx8
barbazoo•4mo ago
It does at least in the cars I've driven.
bluefirebrand•4mo ago
What do you do if you have to stop asap rather than coasting? Emergency brake?
jcotton42•4mo ago
bluefirebrand•4mo ago
barbazoo•4mo ago
bluefirebrand•4mo ago
But then again, I'm always shocked when I've driven in the USA, Americans ride the brake pedal it's crazy
barbazoo•4mo ago
bluefirebrand•4mo ago
I mean coasting is one thing and of course you will lose speed doing that, but this sounds more aggressive than just naturally losing speed from coasting
dzhiurgis•4mo ago
beAbU•4mo ago