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Nissan's Single Gas Pedal/Brake?
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05-17-2018, 12:45 PM
The Prius has a brake mode. It's meant to mimic the slow-down you would get from downshifting in a normal car. It's described as being mostly useful on hills. The brake lights do not come on, but they don't when you downshift either.
05-17-2018, 06:33 PM
One of the issues that the Gen 1 Volt illustrated was the problem with regen braking and brake lights. The Gen I didn't light up the brake lights when the regen braking was active. Before you scream bloody murder, realize that for the last 100 years, when manual transmission vehicle downshifted, the brake lights didn't light either. It's functionally the same, but louder and wasetful. In the Gen II Volt and most every EV since, the Brake lights are activated when regen braking is active. Another issue that the Gen I Volt found was that people would forget to turn off the car when then parked it at home. Eventually the battery would be consumed. The problem was in the Volt when the battery was consumed the motor would start and smoke everyone out of the house. GM realized this was a significant issue and issued a firmware update that shut down the vehicle after it sat powered on in the Park for some period of time. I think it was 90min.
Thrift Store Scott wrote: Agreed. May the deity-of-your-choice forgive me for quoting my Ultra-Luddite Dad* on this: That sounds like the sort of thing that would be great as long as it works and works right, but a real pain in the butt when it stops working. For me, the big question is "When do the brake lights come on?". Do they only light up if the "Holey Schmoley" pedal is pressed? In an ideal world drivers would follow at a safe distance and pay enough attention to the car in front of them to notice if it is slowing down even if that car's brake lights never light up, but unfortunately the world we live in is far from perfect and I can foresee a lot of Leafs (Leaves?) getting rear-ended by semi-attentive drivers because they slowed down with nary a flash of brake light. *Seriously, he's trapped in 1959. He firmly believes to this day that "You shouldn't buy a car with automatic transmission, power steering, or power brakes, and especially not power windows or power door locks because they haven't worked all the bugs out of those systems yet and they quit working all the time". Probably true to an extent in 1959, no longer true by about 1969, and definitely not the case by 1979.
05-17-2018, 06:44 PM
Thrift Store Scott wrote: For me, the big question is "When do the brake lights come on?". Do they only light up if the "Holey Schmoley" pedal is pressed? In an ideal world drivers would follow at a safe distance and pay enough attention to the car in front of them to notice if it is slowing down even if that car's brake lights never light up, but unfortunately the world we live in is far from perfect and I can foresee a lot of Leafs (Leaves?) getting rear-ended by semi-attentive drivers because they slowed down with nary a flash of brake light. The first generation Volts did not turn on the brake lights when slowing in L (regen) but the second generation do turn on the brake lights when you use the steering mounted paddles to slow. I have a first gen Volt and keep my eye on following vehicles when I slow in L. I have never had anyone even come close to colliding with me. Nor have I applied the brake pedal simply to turn on the brake lights as a warning. Most of the time I only step on the brake pedal to hold the car at a stop because below five miles per hour there is no regen applied, thus my brake lights are only on when I am nearly at a stop. Of course, when a light turns red right in front of me, I brake using the pedal. People can see that a traffic light is red or that they are approaching a stop sign even if my Volt is between them and the traffic control. This also applies in bumper to bumper traffic. My VW TDI slows almost as much as my Volt when I downshift and it shows no brake lights. Big trucks do not turn on brake lights when engine braking takes place and, when bobtailing (no trailer), they can slow very quickly. In our area, it is rare that I don't have a turn lane when I am going to turn into a parking lot, etc. so I seldom have a case where I am the only vehicle that is going to slow quickly. Edit: ztirffritz beat me to it.
05-17-2018, 11:54 PM
The Nissan's eBrake is merely the gas pedal with the option of engaging regenerative braking, (or increasing it?) but not anything new or different than other eCars?
It sounded like something different. So as I said earlier this is akin to my older car's use of engine compression or engine braking. Way way back when I had driver's education in school, we were still taught to place our left arm out the driver's window to indicate we were slowing, if not actually using the brake. I don't know if it was taught 100 years ago or not. When using the ICE's brake pedal to decelerate at the same rate as using engine compression, especially when down shifting to do so, the brake light's illuminate. That happens no matter how slowly you slow your roll. So it makes sense that the brake lights should come on when your car slows more rapidly than just coasting. The idea of brake lights is to warn the drivers behind you. It's not like we'd modify the lights to illuminate only when stopping hard, just because we don't give signals when otherwise stopping. The modern day CHMSL is based on the work done by a guy who pioneered deceleration warning lights for motorcycles. The light was amber and separate from the location and function of the brake lights. It flashed at one of seven rates to warn following drivers how fast one was slowing. LOL I like the idea and put one on one of my early bikes. I'm going to do something similar for my current bike. |
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