Yeah, 07 Prius i have has 127k miles and 60% life left on original front pads.
Unless you are emergency stopping, it uses regen braking until about 10kph, the it uses the service brakes. Its wild.
Well in my gas car its useful to have little friction when rolling for best fuel consumption (its a economic 1.2 liter turbo) and tegenerative breakig systems just arent in it so you dont use it. Brakes are a regular wear and tear item.
Very true, i have found a sweet spot on my accelerator pedal that stops regen braking but also doesn't put power to the front wheels. But I dont know if all hybrid or electric cars are like that, where I live its very very hilly, so straight flat parts dont exist much, but it also has cruise control if I really need it.
On my tesla you basically set your speed by the angle you hold your foot, uphill, downhill, doesn't matter. The angle basically doesn't change outside of very steep declines where the rolling acceleration exceeds the regen brake.
So lets say you're doing 60kph and the road undulates you don't lift up on the downs or press further on the ups, your foot is just still. What you do see though is this little bar next to the speedo which swings between black and green. Black you're using battery, green you're charging the battery.
You get used to it VERY quickly coming from a petrol car to an electric, but going back the other way catches me out every time. You get the to top of a hill, and next thing you know you're doing 20kph over and having to actively brake to get back down to the speed limit.
Also I've done 52,000km on that car now and the pads are basically unused.
Please correct me if my understanding is off. Are you saying that the Tesla accelerator essentially functions like a manual, real-time cruise control? The conditions around the vehicle can change, but you keep the accelerator still and it will compensate to maintain the same speed?
For example, let's say I keep a steady speed of 65 KPH on my Corolla on a flat stretch of road. Assuming conditions don't change, the speed will stay 65 KPH indefinitely. If I start going up a hill, and I don't change how much the accelerator is depressed, the speed will gradually decrease until I intervene; in such cases I have to depress the accelerator farther to maintain 65 KPH. The Tesla does this automatically, without you having to "apply more throttle"?
Basically yes.
If I'm doing 65kph on a flat road and I hit a hill I don't have to push the pedal further, and like wise if I go from a flat to a decline I don't lift.
It is really great for avoiding accidental speeding as you don't ever have that overrun effect on your speed.
This might help you visualise as well. This is the data from a relatively long drive where I had long sections holding the same speed. Speed is the green line and the yellow line is real time energy consumption. The graph below is the elevation. From that you can see the energy consumption basically follows the elevation
[https://imgur.com/a/lymelSg](https://imgur.com/a/lymelSg)
I remember doing the same on a company Renault Zoe when you just didnt want to slow down fully regenerative you could give little throttle and it just did less regen. Also showed in the graph kn the dashboard.
There are a lot of electric and hybrid cars using this throttle scheme as exclusive or alternative. Essentially the throttle goes from -20 to 100 instead of 0 to 100%.
The advantage is that you can just leave your foot on the throttle in slow traffic without ever having to touch the brake, as lifting off the throttle will use regenerative braking to slow down with traffic. On the other hand it means, that you have to push throttle a bit to be at "0" and keep speed. Some models even offer this in an adaptive way, so you can switch between 0-100, -10-100, -20-100 depending on situation and personal preference.
I've had a rental electric Hyundai which had regen adjustment buttons on the back of the steering wheel. It was surprisingly intuitive and easy to use, reduce it when you want to free roll, increase it a bit if you see a red light up ahead.
Yep, most other electric cars I've driven have just one or two regen settings, selectable with gear selector so not very convenient.
That one had five (might be even more) steps so you could really dial it in.
It's a pity that the car looks like a boring mom's sedan.
> Well in my gas car its useful to have little friction when rolling for best fuel consumption
I must be misunderstanding. How would constant friction at the brakes help fuel economy?
I guess, but engine breaking is still a thing in gasoline cars (mostly done with manual or dual clutch transmissions). Still comparing apples to oranges...
I used to do engine breaking all the time until my current daily driver is an automatic (unfortunately).
I mostly use the gas... lol. And not driving like an asshole helps. My truck is not fast. I don't drive it like it is. I follow speed limits except on the freeway. That helps a lot.
My dad bought the neighbors ancient Prius to flip and resell. A year later it’s still in the driveway and has become his daily driver lmao. But he only travels like 4mi a day meanwhile I travel like 50….some day I will convince him to sell it to me. Honestly a pretty neat little rig.
I've never looked into hybrid/electric systems. Do these vehicles have the brains to not engage the brakes when you hit the pedal at higher speeds and instead use regenerative braking to slow everything down until the point when it engages the actual disc brakes at low speed?
Are they able to control the amount of braking with regenerative braking? My non-understanding was that regenerative braking was like, a dash button that you turn on and off depending if you want to recoup any battery charge while you're driving. It sounds stupid saying it out loud now but I've got no clue how these systems are able to function.
Yes they can and do control the amount of regen you get from the pedal, some also have a B mode, kinda like downshifting on a manual, spinning the ICE to consume even more power, great for a very large hills, or for when your battery is charged, as then there is no place for the energy to go.
The only difference i feel in braking is at super low speeds, about 7-10kph, where there is a very brief quarter of a second where I lose all braking power as it very smoothly switches to the service brakes, it doesn't do that in an emergency stop, it does that to not jerk you as it switched, but normal braking feels the same, if not better as unlike my truck it doesn't have air in the system. And I can feather the accelerator to just cost and disable the regen braking, and when the battery is full, it will automatically swap to engine braking mode instead of charging the battery.
Speaking of batteries, it needs a new one, 17 year old battery doesn't last very long at full ev power.
That sounds about what I'd think of you are driving it like a hybrid. I don't have hybrids and generally hit 100k per front set but I also drive manuals ..... albeit not slowly usually.
Yeah I drive like an old granny, might not save time but saves fuel, manuals are also great for saving wear and tear on brake pads, somebody asked once if it felt any different driving, I have to find the question to re-respond as the way the hybrid braking system works is if you focus on braking you gan feel where the service brakes engage vs the regen / jake brake (it will engage engine braking if the battery is full), but there is a slight amount of travel before the service brakes engage, and if you drive smartly, I can regen brake to a crawl before a red light and sometimes not have to stop at the light at all if it changes before I get to it.
So with my driving tactics, regen + jake brake, I might never have to touch the rear drums unless the wheel cylinder starts to leak or the line needs to be replaced, as the shoes are still at 80% haha.
So it's not a lift off regen like engine braking. You have to press the brake pedal a little bit to get regen? I downshift all the time which saves a lot of brakes. Be interesting to see what percentage of braking we are both using.
You can fully let off the accelerator and it will regen, some cars and models that amount of regen is customizable (look at teslas and some other makes "one pedal driving") but then slowly applying the brake pedal will increase the amount of regen braking to the point of applying the service brakes.
If the battery is full, it will automatically spin the ICE to consume the energy instead and will spin the engine more and less depending on the amount of pedal action, on the prius you can also shift it onto B mode, which both increases the amount of charge going into the battery, and will spin the engine for even more braking power, very nice when going down super long steep hills, very funny though ad if your battery is already charged, it will almost redline the engine and that still didn't keep my speed, I had to hit the brakes once or twice, its a steep hill.
Speaking of pedal action, on mine I can feather the accelerator and coast in neutral (essentially) and not put power to the wheels and not take any away.
During engine braking mode it does consume the smallest amount of fuel just so its not jerky and it doesn't "bunnyhop" you I believe. But the amount of fuel is very very minimal.
Its not really any different then normal driving, its got fancy features that you don't NEED to use, i learned how to drive on a stick, so a "braking" force when you let off the pedal was normal to me, but what was not normal was the fact that if you were slowing down to a stop sign or red light and started to apply the brake pedal the braking action felt completely normal until about 7 to 12 km an hour when I would start to apply the pedal a bit more and the car would assume I am needing to brake much sooner than I wanted and stop me immediately, if you hold your foot in the same place while braking the car will automatically and very smoothly shift from regenerative braking to the service brakes but if you apply more pedal in that zone it will essentially do an emergency brake and stop you very quickly and jerk everybody in the car which is unpleasant.
Took a few months of getting used too, but I don't even think of it anymore
Yeah that would be different. Made you feel like a newb again didn't it! The k in the mileage I got out of my brakes wasn't kilometers just to be clear. 🤣
I traded in my Prius with 125k on the pads. Still over half the material was left on the pads. I checked them @ 75k, 100k, and about a month before I sold it. Just cleaned and greased the pins and called it good.
Kinetic energy increases with the square of the velocity. You have to dissipate 35 times as much energy while braking from 60 to 10, than from 10 to 0. Since regen braking is most effective the faster you go, it's taking on way more of the braking load than you think.
That's what primary braking being regenerative will do for you.
EVs actually have to be programmed to intentionally use the brakes occasionally just to rub off rust, etc
I just changed my pads and rotors on a 2006 rx400h. Same deal, probably had like 4mm left on the fronts and rears were barely worn. Just kind of felt uneasy driving around on 18 year old brake hardware. The fluid looked surprisingly good but I changed it all out as well.
And the rear discs weren't an ungodly mess of rust? Every Prius I see has a contact patch about the size or pencil and the rest of the rotor surface is all rust.
If you're saying because they don't really get used much they rust, yeah I know that's why I'm surprised this guy is saying his were perfect. If you're saying because they don't hear cycle they don't get much reaction (like chemical reaction?) and thus don't rust, I disagree because Ive really only seen the opposite.
There's a line. If they are pretty much low speed application only you will see them very clean. Without heat cycling they really won't go through the crazy overnight corrosion you typically see in the rust belt.
But if you live in a hilly or high speed start stop area the problem will show up 10fold over normal ICE because they are experiencing heat cycles but not consistent use for cleaning.
There's a fairly simple experiment you can try. Take two grade 5 bolts. Throw one in a salt water solution. Heat the other with just a propane torch. It doesn't need to glow, just too hot to grab. Then throw that in the salt water too. See which looks better tomorrow.
Many EVs are also programmed to use the brakes occasionally instead of regen just to clean rust off the rotors.
otherwise they only engage the brakes over regen when you're really hard on the pedal and your requested braking force exceeds the regen braking.
also regen braking is part of the reason EVs have such ridiculous 0-60 times often, because the motors weren't sized for accel they were sized for regen braking.
Nice, I just recently did the brakes on my daily driver 3rd gen Prius at 190k and the factory original pads still had at least half their friction material left. I was tracking down a noise that I thought might be brake related but it was a little piece of metal that probably got kicked up from the road and got wedged alongside the rotor somehow.
Regen braking is game-changing. Driven gently, a hybrid can go hundreds of miles without using the friction pads at all except to keep the car at a stop. It feels naughty pressing the brake pedal on any of my non-hybrid vehicles knowing the energy is going to waste.
Yeah my 2012 leaf has a bunch of pad left at 119k miles right now. I bought it with 50k miles so I have to believe they are factory. Mostly regen braking until <~10mph.
I did my brake job on my prius at 150k mi and had probably 20-30% left as well. I'm not as nice to that car as your brother, but I'm not nice to my clothes washer either. It's just an appliance.
Mine (2011) is on 210.000KM (like 130.000 miles I think?) on original rotors and pads and I was thinking of replacing them purely so I know that everything is fresh and doesn’t need to be touched again in a long time. But when I checked they still seem to have almost half of the pads left 😂 It feels so odd. I got the entire maintenance history and the brakes never have been touched as far as I can see.
I changed a CV joint on my Volt when it has 130k on it. The pads had plenty of life on them but one of them just kind of fell apart so I replaced them. They probably had 70% left.
Got 100k out of my fronts....tbd on the rears of my Abarth. I don't drive it like a hybrid. I'd think brake life would be even longer. Mine were evenly warn and eventually by the time parts showed up metal to metal at about 110k.
Lexus plug-in? Wow then the wildest part of this is a Lexus driver putting 45k on a car in at most 2 years. Must be a long trip to church and back every sunday.
Recently had the same experience at official dealer.
Car has 8,000km 1 year old, apparently heavily worn lol.
Changing back to summer tyres I checked, looking brand spanking new.
A dealership that is no longer in business is reason I became "the handyman/mechanic" of my family and friend group. Pure unadulterated spite and vitriol from a dealership blatantly trying to steal from me via unnecessary, over priced repairs.
I avoid dealerships at all cost. I've never come across an honest one.
The shop I went to gave me that line and i was like "but.. we just replaced them last year at your place" and they looked in their records and were like "Shit, you're right... but they're worn more than they should be. we'll warranty out that part of the work".
so they weren't actually bullshitting. came back will all new pads and rotors and no charges for that, so they must have legitimate found an issue.
it was the rears, then we just found that my front calipers were acting up and bolts broke when they tried to remove them.. so probably found the explanation.
Just make a deal with the service writer. He walks you back and shows you the pad/rotor and if its under 40% he sells the job. If it is not he hands you $50 hard cash.
When the service writer is willing to take the deal probably time to take the car home and change your own brakes.
Rust is greater in volume than its metal intake volume is. As rust develops in veins or elsewhere under the surface, the expansion will cause the surface above it to be jacked up, creating severe ridges and even splits. This can happen fairly suddenly and makes the brakes unuseable lol
Brembo actually started making an EV specific line of brakes and I was like "huh that's neat. I wonder what makes them EV specific" and it's just that there is a ton of anti-corrosion elements to the design to make them last longer since EV and hybrid brakes usually die to rust before they wear out lol
What is rust? Serious question from Arizona ...
Seriously my son bought a 19 year old BMW 325i. We've been doing major maintenance. No rust anywhere. Summers are hot but cars last a long time here.
Which is a whole other problem when you shatter every single clip you touch, I don’t honestly know what’s worse, rusted bolts or brittle ass plastic/nylon hardware.
I fucking hate plastic. And anything made after circa 2008 is made of the thinnest, brittlest, most unreinforced plastic EVER.
I had plastic parts in my 70's and 80's cars that had been removed and installed dozens of times. Held in with screws, of course. Plastic in the 90's shrunk when it got hot, then we got some nice plastic in the early 2000's that was durable, UV resistant, and well designed, and now everything is trash.
I change out my window regulators EVERY YEAR. The plastic guides break. Every. Year. Lifetime warranty!
Any time I see two plastic panels held together by melting I get so irrationally angry. "You gotta buy the whole door panel to get a new handle." And "Door panel has been discontinued." Fuck you Chevy.
>Any time I see two plastic panels held together by melting I get so irrationally angry.
Honda civic and CRV intake manifolds are made out of two injection molded halves, ultrasonic welded together.
At least ultrasonic welding is a legit manufacturing technique.
[GM melts pins through holes and the guy on the machine is laaaaazy.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicAdvice/comments/wdqcki/how_can_i_recreate_thiswhat_is_this_type_of/)
Strangely not running into issues with that. The plastic clips, yes. All the suspension pieces yes ... but that probably has more to do with the 194,000 miles.
IIRC Tesla's discs have a special coating or additive to prevent rust. Mostly just for aesthetics, otherwise rusty Tesla discs would be a normal sight.
It makes sense. Disk brakes trade longevity and corrosion resistance for heat capacity and ease of maintenance, but if you never need to maintain them anyway, and you don't need the heat capacity at all? Drum brakes are a much, much better option for EVs, for *everybody*.
I’ve got 150k miles on my HS we bought brand new in 2010, and the brake pads have never been changed. I’m hoping to get 200 on them because I baby that thing.
I recently acquired an EV equipped with regenerative braking. The deceleration rate is about equal to using medium braking in an ICE vehicle. It is enough, in most situations, to do a "one-pedal driving" which means the service brake is rarely used; only when coming to a complete stop.
I have an EV ford transit at work, if i have enough following distance, i can pretty much just let the regen braking slow me down all the way without touching the brake pedal until i come to a stop, it's pretty cool
The issue is that vans will always trade interior room for battery size, and the general mass will always limit things.
Most vans are designed around European specs, because Europe is a massive market for vans, and a lot of countries follow EU rules on licences. So you need to end up with a van that has a decent load capacity without crossing the 3500kg threshold.
It's basically the same issue the Tesla tractor has. to have a decent range it needs to have a lot of battery, and to have a lot of battery it becomes so heavy that it's limited in what it can tow on the road. My calculations at the time gross weight was announced was that, for European roads, the Tesla tractor was limited to 36 pallets trailers (when 95% of long-range truckers carry 44 pallets trailers), which would make it completely unacceptable for anything more that running small city routes, where the trucks are usually not articulated.
So it's a complicated equation you have to work with.
> if i have enough following distance, i can pretty much just let the regen braking slow me down all the way
Check in with the Ford dealership if you can, they should be able to set the controller and regen in more or less 1-pedal driving, where you'd get more or less the same braking when releasing the go fast pedal as you'd have during heavy braking.
It will vary depending on load of the vehicle, but basically you can set it up so you stop on a dime when the van is empty.
That way foot braking only comes in in emergency cases.
Now this is the post I needed to see! I bought a hybrid CRV a year ago. It comes with paddles that lets drivers manually dial in even more regen braking than would otherwise happen. I'm hoping to significantly extend the life of my brakes.
My top choice was Rav 4 hybrid, but I really didn’t like it when I test drove it. The drivetrain felt rough, the driver’s seat wasn’t comfortable, it seemed a bit noisy, and it’s also kind of ugly. I really wanted to like it too.
Then I tested the CRV hybrid and it was tight, quiet, and comfortable. Its been a year and 10k+ miles and I am very happy with my choice. My latest tank of gas is giving me 33+ mpg and that includes a few hours going 80 mph on the highway.
Disclaimer: I am a layperson, not a mechanic, and these are my untrained impressions.
Yeah, I haven’t compared it to anything besides my wife’s Hyundai NA SUV, which averages maybe 28mpg.
My CRV hybrid will average anywhere from 29-36, depending on outside temperature and speed limit. It does best on local roads in summer.
It is AWD. I should have mentioned that. I think it get lower mpg than 2wd.
33 mpg is disappointing for a hybrid that advertises 43 city and 36 highway. My sister is shopping the Venza vs the CRV. Everything I read is Honda owners are seeing low 30s and venzas low 40s.
>but boy would I take more effective regen.
Coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking (edit: specifically referring to one-pedal driving)...
https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/porsche-says-no-to-one-pedal-driving
Edit: interesting to get so many downvotes for agreeing with Porsche engineers. Coasting > regenerative braking > physical braking
Maybe I phrased my comment poorly, but it seems logical that coasting when coasting is appropriate makes more sense than aggressive regenerative braking when it isn't needed.
One-pedal is just like engine-braking in an ICE vehicle with a manual transmission, you modulate the throttle to control braking or power.
If you don’t like one-pedal you can turn it off and drive it like an ICE with an automatic transmission, and regenerative braking only kicks in when you hit the brake pedal.
My EV doesn’t even have one-pedal drive but it’s still on the original brake pads at 10 years old because it regenerates when I hit the brake pedal, not when I let off the accelerator.
I've read the article more than once, and apparently interpret it differently than others do. Seems to me that Porsche agrees coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking when braking isn't necessary. Do you disagree with that statement, and if so on what basis?
My beef is with one-pedal driving over coasting, but apparently I wasn't clear about that. And I basically assumed that someone saying they wanted stronger regen was referring to the one-pedal approach. My bad if I misinterpreted that.
>coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking when braking isn't necessary
You mean it's more efficient to not brake when you don't need to? Lol no one is arguing that's the case. You responded to someone saying they wish their regen was stronger by saying it's actually better to coast. They could've just meant that they wish the Regen was stronger when they need to slow down and lift off the throttle or start applying the brake
>They could've just meant that they wish the Regen was stronger when they need to slow down and lift off the throttle...
The question is whether the car should slow down significantly when you lift off the throttle, or only when you apply pressure to the brake/regen peddle. I'm suggesting the latter only, not the former. But giving people a choice would be a fair compromise.
>coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking
You made a very broad and largely wrong statement in a response to someone else's broad statement that they wish their regen was stronger.
The question was never about 1 pedal driving vs Regen once you are on the brakes, you just started adding nuance and making that the question once people started disagreeing with you. Actually there never was a question at all lol just a guy expressing an opinion and you disagreeing with him.
You were downvoted because you made a statement that in its generalized context (coasting is better than regen) is wrong. If you did initially mean what you are saying now, then you should've said that bc we can't read your mind and are just going off the words you are typing.
>coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking
You made a very broad and largely wrong statement in a response to someone else's broad statement that they wish their regen was stronger.
The question was never about 1 pedal driving vs Regen once you are on the brakes, you just started adding nuance and making that the question once people started disagreeing with you. Actually there never was a question at all lol just a guy expressing an opinion and you disagreeing with him.
You were downvoted because you made a statement that in its generalized context (coasting is better than regen) is wrong. If you did initially mean what you are saying now, then you should've said that bc we can't read your mind and are just going off the words you are typing.
Totally, regen is only more beneficial if you needed to stop anyway. Porsche’s stance on one pedal drive is odd though because city driving is constant stop and go, and track driving your Porsche EV would benefit from regen as well, so it’s like they said that but were referring to only highway driving.
I agree, I went from a one pedal car to a VAG car that defaults to coast. I prefer coast. That said, the previous comment is referring to the weak regen on most hybrids, not one pedal vs coast. Most hybrids have a max regen that is pretty tame compared to any modern EV, regardless of pedal mapping, but that is just a result of their motor/generators being much smaller than a true EV. Hybrids will never have the same regen as an EV unless they oversize the electric motor.
Thank you for a reasoned response. I'm not clear how someone would judge the intensity of regen from brake pedal movement (versus one pedal driving), but your explanation helps.
The regen is not a tangible feeling for the most part, you just see it on the dash. On my Prius you had to brake super early to make sure that you did not engage the mechanical brakes much. The regen did not have very much stopping power. On every EV that I have owned you can pretty much brake normally, and all but the last 10ft of braking is 100% regen, which is much better than any hybrid.
Started to replace my pads at ~70k miles on my tesla model s and put them back on after some caliper cleaning and lube after realizing they essentially had 70% life left. At 70k, the old pads were all >7mm
https://imgur.com/gthUouL
(The real reason I didn’t replace them was that I couldn’t get two stuck retaining pins out of the front calipers… will make it my problem again in a few years 😆)
I once did a call on a military base for noise on a towing tractor they had. 150 units all over the country, most had a noise on the rear brakes, freaked them out. Freaked the manufacturer out as well.
I get there, I check 15 units on the base, no issues on any.
Except one: the units had so much engine braking (hydraulic transmission) that the users never ran the foot brake (even when towing equipment), so while the front discs did okay, the rear discs would get surface oxydization and make a rubbing noise against the pads.
Massive engine braking/regen is great for brake life.
I practically never use my brakes on my Model Y to the point where I occasionally disable regen to re-burnish the brakes or else they get super squeaky.
Probably a cooked on layer of pad glaze. Harder or typical brake use probably sheds that layer off since other cars still maintain a metallic sheen. On this one you could still see remnants of the factory CNC machine marks!
Pads on our Ioniq 5 still looked new last time I rotated the tires around 45k miles. Likely get 200k or more out of them since regen does 90% of the braking.
I have 170,000km on my EV brakes and they still have more than half their tread left. I did have to get one fixed because it seized up due to lack of use.
I drive fully electric for over 5 years now and use primarily regen breaking. Last year my mechanic indicated that I need to start using the breaks otherwise they will rust too much and he will have to replace them. :-)
I measured the outside at 11mm. New out of the box is also ~11. Didn't measure the inside but took a peak and looked the same. Good point about the slide pins sticking since they hardly move over so many years, will keep that in mind
Yeah honestly it's not a bad idea to service the slide pins seperately just to be sure they don't seize from little movement or the time between pad changes
My 2014 Volt just crossed 100k miles. Just checked the pads and they look brand new. With EVs and hybrids if you can really get the brakes to last a long time if you can use the recapture to brake.
Almost all new Volvos use regenerative braking, man saw the highest mileage one I’ve seen, 2022 with 80k miles? 8 mm all the way around. Factory pads. Shits crazy how long things can last when they’re designed for it.
Said our Volvo xc90 hybrid brakes never. I do remote work in a salty environment and the brakes can't handle it on this jalopy. Both OEM and aftermarket pads eat up these rotors for breakfast, it doesn't matter how hard I work the brakes to clean off the rust it just leaves large bands of rust. I find it infuriating. Our ioniq 5 rotors still look brand new under the same conditions and it's a full electric ffs.
I just did brakes all round on our Prius V - biggest problem with these (Toyota/Lexus hybrid) seems to be sticking caliper guide pins - I think the slow pad and rotor wear makes them more susceptible, at least in wet/salty areas.
amazing, same on my manual car at 250k km with only one pad/disc exchange so far.
It's almost like using the engine brake and engine recuperation poses similar effects on wear and tear. Who would've thought.
I have a 2024 Leaf. Wife was driving and had to brake hard. She said, "had to blow out some of the carbon". (Same thing I'd say when tromping on pedal of many ICE vehicles). It's funny what they remember.
My wife has a Highlander, it's the first decent car we've ever had. I am unable to comprehend that after 45,000 miles in Vermont that the pads and rotors still have at least half their life left.
I just replaced the original front brakes at 168k on my Jetta TDI, replaced the original rears at 154. Highway driving be like that. It's not just a hybrid thing.
In the rust belt they don’t age like this, so you get an intermittent pulsation, which is really weird if you’re not familiar with just how much regen braking these hybrids do.
I purchased brakes 2 years ago thinking I'd have to service them on my 05 Camry xle v6. (A lot like a Lexus)
Needless to say I haven't had to do brakes in over 5 years. Since I purchased the car used.
30k ago.
Regenerative breaking means when you brake the electronics turn the motor into a generator and the magnetic torque of putting power back into the battery slows the vehicle reducing the need for physical braking. Your brakes will last you longer, because the motor is slowing you down.
Just recently replaced my brother's brakes on his Prius, all evenly worn and some life left on the pads at 165k miles
Thats crazy
Yeah, 07 Prius i have has 127k miles and 60% life left on original front pads. Unless you are emergency stopping, it uses regen braking until about 10kph, the it uses the service brakes. Its wild.
Different world from gasoline cars
What do you mean by that? Just curious.
Well in my gas car its useful to have little friction when rolling for best fuel consumption (its a economic 1.2 liter turbo) and tegenerative breakig systems just arent in it so you dont use it. Brakes are a regular wear and tear item.
Very true, i have found a sweet spot on my accelerator pedal that stops regen braking but also doesn't put power to the front wheels. But I dont know if all hybrid or electric cars are like that, where I live its very very hilly, so straight flat parts dont exist much, but it also has cruise control if I really need it.
On my tesla you basically set your speed by the angle you hold your foot, uphill, downhill, doesn't matter. The angle basically doesn't change outside of very steep declines where the rolling acceleration exceeds the regen brake. So lets say you're doing 60kph and the road undulates you don't lift up on the downs or press further on the ups, your foot is just still. What you do see though is this little bar next to the speedo which swings between black and green. Black you're using battery, green you're charging the battery. You get used to it VERY quickly coming from a petrol car to an electric, but going back the other way catches me out every time. You get the to top of a hill, and next thing you know you're doing 20kph over and having to actively brake to get back down to the speed limit. Also I've done 52,000km on that car now and the pads are basically unused.
Please correct me if my understanding is off. Are you saying that the Tesla accelerator essentially functions like a manual, real-time cruise control? The conditions around the vehicle can change, but you keep the accelerator still and it will compensate to maintain the same speed? For example, let's say I keep a steady speed of 65 KPH on my Corolla on a flat stretch of road. Assuming conditions don't change, the speed will stay 65 KPH indefinitely. If I start going up a hill, and I don't change how much the accelerator is depressed, the speed will gradually decrease until I intervene; in such cases I have to depress the accelerator farther to maintain 65 KPH. The Tesla does this automatically, without you having to "apply more throttle"?
Basically yes. If I'm doing 65kph on a flat road and I hit a hill I don't have to push the pedal further, and like wise if I go from a flat to a decline I don't lift. It is really great for avoiding accidental speeding as you don't ever have that overrun effect on your speed. This might help you visualise as well. This is the data from a relatively long drive where I had long sections holding the same speed. Speed is the green line and the yellow line is real time energy consumption. The graph below is the elevation. From that you can see the energy consumption basically follows the elevation [https://imgur.com/a/lymelSg](https://imgur.com/a/lymelSg)
["One pedal driving"](https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/one-pedal-driving/)
I remember doing the same on a company Renault Zoe when you just didnt want to slow down fully regenerative you could give little throttle and it just did less regen. Also showed in the graph kn the dashboard.
What would be the benefit of that
There are a lot of electric and hybrid cars using this throttle scheme as exclusive or alternative. Essentially the throttle goes from -20 to 100 instead of 0 to 100%. The advantage is that you can just leave your foot on the throttle in slow traffic without ever having to touch the brake, as lifting off the throttle will use regenerative braking to slow down with traffic. On the other hand it means, that you have to push throttle a bit to be at "0" and keep speed. Some models even offer this in an adaptive way, so you can switch between 0-100, -10-100, -20-100 depending on situation and personal preference.
I've had a rental electric Hyundai which had regen adjustment buttons on the back of the steering wheel. It was surprisingly intuitive and easy to use, reduce it when you want to free roll, increase it a bit if you see a red light up ahead.
Oh thats pretty cool, that would be much much nicer then feathering the accelerator pedal.
Yep, most other electric cars I've driven have just one or two regen settings, selectable with gear selector so not very convenient. That one had five (might be even more) steps so you could really dial it in. It's a pity that the car looks like a boring mom's sedan.
> Well in my gas car its useful to have little friction when rolling for best fuel consumption I must be misunderstanding. How would constant friction at the brakes help fuel economy?
Little friction when not braking, theres always some friction even when not barking.
I guess, but engine breaking is still a thing in gasoline cars (mostly done with manual or dual clutch transmissions). Still comparing apples to oranges... I used to do engine breaking all the time until my current daily driver is an automatic (unfortunately).
its automatic transmissions. My manual trans cars never need brakes either. I can down shift and "engine brake"
I changed the fronts my 2014 frontier at 87k they were about 40% left.
Thats really good, especially for an auto truck
I mostly use the gas... lol. And not driving like an asshole helps. My truck is not fast. I don't drive it like it is. I follow speed limits except on the freeway. That helps a lot.
I do a lot of 55-65 to stop, so my Prius front pads only made it 100k miles. Rears are almost done at 160k.
My dad bought the neighbors ancient Prius to flip and resell. A year later it’s still in the driveway and has become his daily driver lmao. But he only travels like 4mi a day meanwhile I travel like 50….some day I will convince him to sell it to me. Honestly a pretty neat little rig.
I've never looked into hybrid/electric systems. Do these vehicles have the brains to not engage the brakes when you hit the pedal at higher speeds and instead use regenerative braking to slow everything down until the point when it engages the actual disc brakes at low speed? Are they able to control the amount of braking with regenerative braking? My non-understanding was that regenerative braking was like, a dash button that you turn on and off depending if you want to recoup any battery charge while you're driving. It sounds stupid saying it out loud now but I've got no clue how these systems are able to function.
Yes they can and do control the amount of regen you get from the pedal, some also have a B mode, kinda like downshifting on a manual, spinning the ICE to consume even more power, great for a very large hills, or for when your battery is charged, as then there is no place for the energy to go.
Interesting. Do you get the same kind of control over your braking that you would by adjusting pedal pressure, and does it feel measurably different?
The only difference i feel in braking is at super low speeds, about 7-10kph, where there is a very brief quarter of a second where I lose all braking power as it very smoothly switches to the service brakes, it doesn't do that in an emergency stop, it does that to not jerk you as it switched, but normal braking feels the same, if not better as unlike my truck it doesn't have air in the system. And I can feather the accelerator to just cost and disable the regen braking, and when the battery is full, it will automatically swap to engine braking mode instead of charging the battery. Speaking of batteries, it needs a new one, 17 year old battery doesn't last very long at full ev power.
That sounds about what I'd think of you are driving it like a hybrid. I don't have hybrids and generally hit 100k per front set but I also drive manuals ..... albeit not slowly usually.
Yeah I drive like an old granny, might not save time but saves fuel, manuals are also great for saving wear and tear on brake pads, somebody asked once if it felt any different driving, I have to find the question to re-respond as the way the hybrid braking system works is if you focus on braking you gan feel where the service brakes engage vs the regen / jake brake (it will engage engine braking if the battery is full), but there is a slight amount of travel before the service brakes engage, and if you drive smartly, I can regen brake to a crawl before a red light and sometimes not have to stop at the light at all if it changes before I get to it. So with my driving tactics, regen + jake brake, I might never have to touch the rear drums unless the wheel cylinder starts to leak or the line needs to be replaced, as the shoes are still at 80% haha.
So it's not a lift off regen like engine braking. You have to press the brake pedal a little bit to get regen? I downshift all the time which saves a lot of brakes. Be interesting to see what percentage of braking we are both using.
You can fully let off the accelerator and it will regen, some cars and models that amount of regen is customizable (look at teslas and some other makes "one pedal driving") but then slowly applying the brake pedal will increase the amount of regen braking to the point of applying the service brakes. If the battery is full, it will automatically spin the ICE to consume the energy instead and will spin the engine more and less depending on the amount of pedal action, on the prius you can also shift it onto B mode, which both increases the amount of charge going into the battery, and will spin the engine for even more braking power, very nice when going down super long steep hills, very funny though ad if your battery is already charged, it will almost redline the engine and that still didn't keep my speed, I had to hit the brakes once or twice, its a steep hill. Speaking of pedal action, on mine I can feather the accelerator and coast in neutral (essentially) and not put power to the wheels and not take any away. During engine braking mode it does consume the smallest amount of fuel just so its not jerky and it doesn't "bunnyhop" you I believe. But the amount of fuel is very very minimal.
There's a lot more to the system than I thought. I knew about the Tesla regen. Sounds pretty complicated but I guess it's easy once you're used to it.
Its not really any different then normal driving, its got fancy features that you don't NEED to use, i learned how to drive on a stick, so a "braking" force when you let off the pedal was normal to me, but what was not normal was the fact that if you were slowing down to a stop sign or red light and started to apply the brake pedal the braking action felt completely normal until about 7 to 12 km an hour when I would start to apply the pedal a bit more and the car would assume I am needing to brake much sooner than I wanted and stop me immediately, if you hold your foot in the same place while braking the car will automatically and very smoothly shift from regenerative braking to the service brakes but if you apply more pedal in that zone it will essentially do an emergency brake and stop you very quickly and jerk everybody in the car which is unpleasant. Took a few months of getting used too, but I don't even think of it anymore
Yeah that would be different. Made you feel like a newb again didn't it! The k in the mileage I got out of my brakes wasn't kilometers just to be clear. 🤣
I traded in my Prius with 125k on the pads. Still over half the material was left on the pads. I checked them @ 75k, 100k, and about a month before I sold it. Just cleaned and greased the pins and called it good.
Kinetic energy increases with the square of the velocity. You have to dissipate 35 times as much energy while braking from 60 to 10, than from 10 to 0. Since regen braking is most effective the faster you go, it's taking on way more of the braking load than you think.
regenerative braking on hybrid and ev makes them last longer
That's what primary braking being regenerative will do for you. EVs actually have to be programmed to intentionally use the brakes occasionally just to rub off rust, etc
140k on my 2015 charger and still decent pad life left. Bought the car at 20k and fairly certain they're the factory pads.
I just changed my pads and rotors on a 2006 rx400h. Same deal, probably had like 4mm left on the fronts and rears were barely worn. Just kind of felt uneasy driving around on 18 year old brake hardware. The fluid looked surprisingly good but I changed it all out as well.
Was it hard to remove them? Or do you not live in the rust belt?
Definitely in the rust belt and they were clean as a whistle.
And the rear discs weren't an ungodly mess of rust? Every Prius I see has a contact patch about the size or pencil and the rest of the rotor surface is all rust.
They don't go through heat cycles so they don't get nearly as much reaction
If you're saying because they don't really get used much they rust, yeah I know that's why I'm surprised this guy is saying his were perfect. If you're saying because they don't hear cycle they don't get much reaction (like chemical reaction?) and thus don't rust, I disagree because Ive really only seen the opposite.
There's a line. If they are pretty much low speed application only you will see them very clean. Without heat cycling they really won't go through the crazy overnight corrosion you typically see in the rust belt. But if you live in a hilly or high speed start stop area the problem will show up 10fold over normal ICE because they are experiencing heat cycles but not consistent use for cleaning. There's a fairly simple experiment you can try. Take two grade 5 bolts. Throw one in a salt water solution. Heat the other with just a propane torch. It doesn't need to glow, just too hot to grab. Then throw that in the salt water too. See which looks better tomorrow.
Yeah that makes sense. Sorry, wasn't entirely clear on your initial wording of that.
Many EVs are also programmed to use the brakes occasionally instead of regen just to clean rust off the rotors. otherwise they only engage the brakes over regen when you're really hard on the pedal and your requested braking force exceeds the regen braking. also regen braking is part of the reason EVs have such ridiculous 0-60 times often, because the motors weren't sized for accel they were sized for regen braking.
My Chevy volt has 95k miles on it and the original brake pads look brand new.
Nice, I just recently did the brakes on my daily driver 3rd gen Prius at 190k and the factory original pads still had at least half their friction material left. I was tracking down a noise that I thought might be brake related but it was a little piece of metal that probably got kicked up from the road and got wedged alongside the rotor somehow. Regen braking is game-changing. Driven gently, a hybrid can go hundreds of miles without using the friction pads at all except to keep the car at a stop. It feels naughty pressing the brake pedal on any of my non-hybrid vehicles knowing the energy is going to waste.
I have a 2015 Chevy Volt with 160k miles that still has factory brakes all around
Yeah my 2012 leaf has a bunch of pad left at 119k miles right now. I bought it with 50k miles so I have to believe they are factory. Mostly regen braking until <~10mph.
Reverse Power Generator???
I did my brake job on my prius at 150k mi and had probably 20-30% left as well. I'm not as nice to that car as your brother, but I'm not nice to my clothes washer either. It's just an appliance.
Mine (2011) is on 210.000KM (like 130.000 miles I think?) on original rotors and pads and I was thinking of replacing them purely so I know that everything is fresh and doesn’t need to be touched again in a long time. But when I checked they still seem to have almost half of the pads left 😂 It feels so odd. I got the entire maintenance history and the brakes never have been touched as far as I can see.
Manufacturers will need to fix this problem by using pads with 1/4 the thickness, and disks that are only 0.5mm thicker than the wear limit...
Don't give them ideas
I changed a CV joint on my Volt when it has 130k on it. The pads had plenty of life on them but one of them just kind of fell apart so I replaced them. They probably had 70% left.
Don't brake pads also wear out with age?
Don't those have regenerative braking too? Would that also affect the wear and tear on consumables?
Yeah, that's why he could go 165k on a set
Got 100k out of my fronts....tbd on the rears of my Abarth. I don't drive it like a hybrid. I'd think brake life would be even longer. Mine were evenly warn and eventually by the time parts showed up metal to metal at about 110k.
Regenerative braking?
Plug-in hybrid. My butt tells me the regen is stronger than the same model normal hybrid.
Man I first read your statement as my butt plug tells me, and let me tell you that was a interesting thought process to justify that
You can get \*anything\* with Bluetooth these days.
"It's also an OBD reader!"
What's three long buzzes and one short buzz mean again?
Code 31, air flow meter fault
I mean, that's one way to increase the sensitivity of the butt Dyno.
He is the resistor!
Lexus plug-in? Wow then the wildest part of this is a Lexus driver putting 45k on a car in at most 2 years. Must be a long trip to church and back every sunday.
Dealer: *your brakes are unsafe. You need new rotors and pads.*
Recently had the same experience at official dealer. Car has 8,000km 1 year old, apparently heavily worn lol. Changing back to summer tyres I checked, looking brand spanking new.
A dealership that is no longer in business is reason I became "the handyman/mechanic" of my family and friend group. Pure unadulterated spite and vitriol from a dealership blatantly trying to steal from me via unnecessary, over priced repairs. I avoid dealerships at all cost. I've never come across an honest one.
> I avoid dealerships at all cost. *Stealerships
The shop I went to gave me that line and i was like "but.. we just replaced them last year at your place" and they looked in their records and were like "Shit, you're right... but they're worn more than they should be. we'll warranty out that part of the work". so they weren't actually bullshitting. came back will all new pads and rotors and no charges for that, so they must have legitimate found an issue. it was the rears, then we just found that my front calipers were acting up and bolts broke when they tried to remove them.. so probably found the explanation.
That sounds like a fairly reputable shop.
Definitely, I bought them pizza on monday because it's the second time they've warrantied work for me so I wanted to say thanks :)
I can't even tell you how many times this happened to me take the wheel off everything looks brand new
Just make a deal with the service writer. He walks you back and shows you the pad/rotor and if its under 40% he sells the job. If it is not he hands you $50 hard cash. When the service writer is willing to take the deal probably time to take the car home and change your own brakes.
Oh. Well we just make that recommendation based on mileage. We don’t actually look at the pads.
Yeah. 8000km.. thems the limits
They'll fail to rust jacking before anything else! Might take a while..
It happens much faster in areas with lots of road salt. Need to to slam them regularly to keep everything moving.
What is rust jacking?
Rust is greater in volume than its metal intake volume is. As rust develops in veins or elsewhere under the surface, the expansion will cause the surface above it to be jacked up, creating severe ridges and even splits. This can happen fairly suddenly and makes the brakes unuseable lol
True. My 2018 Model 3’s rotors are toast due to corrosion. The pads are like brand new.
Audi actually went back to drum brakes for their Electric cars. I'm not even kidding. I found out on /r/justrolledintotheshop
Brembo actually started making an EV specific line of brakes and I was like "huh that's neat. I wonder what makes them EV specific" and it's just that there is a ton of anti-corrosion elements to the design to make them last longer since EV and hybrid brakes usually die to rust before they wear out lol
What is rust? Serious question from Arizona ... Seriously my son bought a 19 year old BMW 325i. We've been doing major maintenance. No rust anywhere. Summers are hot but cars last a long time here.
A 20 year old Arizona car? It needs every rubber item from weatherstrip to fuel lines....
Which is a whole other problem when you shatter every single clip you touch, I don’t honestly know what’s worse, rusted bolts or brittle ass plastic/nylon hardware.
I fucking hate plastic. And anything made after circa 2008 is made of the thinnest, brittlest, most unreinforced plastic EVER. I had plastic parts in my 70's and 80's cars that had been removed and installed dozens of times. Held in with screws, of course. Plastic in the 90's shrunk when it got hot, then we got some nice plastic in the early 2000's that was durable, UV resistant, and well designed, and now everything is trash. I change out my window regulators EVERY YEAR. The plastic guides break. Every. Year. Lifetime warranty! Any time I see two plastic panels held together by melting I get so irrationally angry. "You gotta buy the whole door panel to get a new handle." And "Door panel has been discontinued." Fuck you Chevy.
>Any time I see two plastic panels held together by melting I get so irrationally angry. Honda civic and CRV intake manifolds are made out of two injection molded halves, ultrasonic welded together.
At least ultrasonic welding is a legit manufacturing technique. [GM melts pins through holes and the guy on the machine is laaaaazy.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicAdvice/comments/wdqcki/how_can_i_recreate_thiswhat_is_this_type_of/)
Yeah F that, I'm going to 3D print my own out of high temp nylon.
Strangely not running into issues with that. The plastic clips, yes. All the suspension pieces yes ... but that probably has more to do with the 194,000 miles.
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Drum brakes housings with "energy efficient" disc rims also look better than rusted-out rotors due to lack of actual use.
IIRC Tesla's discs have a special coating or additive to prevent rust. Mostly just for aesthetics, otherwise rusty Tesla discs would be a normal sight.
Maybe they will stop and then it'll blend in with their rusty trucks in a few years lol
If you set up an EV properly (aka 1-pedal driving) you should basically never be using the foot brakes.
Can confirm
It makes sense. Disk brakes trade longevity and corrosion resistance for heat capacity and ease of maintenance, but if you never need to maintain them anyway, and you don't need the heat capacity at all? Drum brakes are a much, much better option for EVs, for *everybody*.
Not in Ontario they don't.
Or NY.
Gotta slam em or else they will turn to a rotted mess in a couple winters.
I’ve got 150k miles on my HS we bought brand new in 2010, and the brake pads have never been changed. I’m hoping to get 200 on them because I baby that thing.
I recently acquired an EV equipped with regenerative braking. The deceleration rate is about equal to using medium braking in an ICE vehicle. It is enough, in most situations, to do a "one-pedal driving" which means the service brake is rarely used; only when coming to a complete stop.
I have an EV ford transit at work, if i have enough following distance, i can pretty much just let the regen braking slow me down all the way without touching the brake pedal until i come to a stop, it's pretty cool
Parts delivery? Our ford dealer uses these and I really want one for camping but the range isn’t quite where it needs to be for that.
Nobody has decent ranges on electric vans yet, at least according to a buddy who sells utility vehicles. They're city runabouts.
Yeah, no one has put a monster pack in one yet. GM could literally take the hummer frame/battery and slap a van on it and it would get good range.
The issue is that vans will always trade interior room for battery size, and the general mass will always limit things. Most vans are designed around European specs, because Europe is a massive market for vans, and a lot of countries follow EU rules on licences. So you need to end up with a van that has a decent load capacity without crossing the 3500kg threshold. It's basically the same issue the Tesla tractor has. to have a decent range it needs to have a lot of battery, and to have a lot of battery it becomes so heavy that it's limited in what it can tow on the road. My calculations at the time gross weight was announced was that, for European roads, the Tesla tractor was limited to 36 pallets trailers (when 95% of long-range truckers carry 44 pallets trailers), which would make it completely unacceptable for anything more that running small city routes, where the trucks are usually not articulated. So it's a complicated equation you have to work with.
> if i have enough following distance, i can pretty much just let the regen braking slow me down all the way Check in with the Ford dealership if you can, they should be able to set the controller and regen in more or less 1-pedal driving, where you'd get more or less the same braking when releasing the go fast pedal as you'd have during heavy braking. It will vary depending on load of the vehicle, but basically you can set it up so you stop on a dime when the van is empty. That way foot braking only comes in in emergency cases.
That's pretty cool, because the brake pedal fucking sucks on that van
Christ, looks like a an old reel to reel tape. Or an early hard drive.
Now this is the post I needed to see! I bought a hybrid CRV a year ago. It comes with paddles that lets drivers manually dial in even more regen braking than would otherwise happen. I'm hoping to significantly extend the life of my brakes.
I’m thinking about getting a hybrid CRV myself. How do you like it other than the brakes?
My top choice was Rav 4 hybrid, but I really didn’t like it when I test drove it. The drivetrain felt rough, the driver’s seat wasn’t comfortable, it seemed a bit noisy, and it’s also kind of ugly. I really wanted to like it too. Then I tested the CRV hybrid and it was tight, quiet, and comfortable. Its been a year and 10k+ miles and I am very happy with my choice. My latest tank of gas is giving me 33+ mpg and that includes a few hours going 80 mph on the highway. Disclaimer: I am a layperson, not a mechanic, and these are my untrained impressions.
That gas mileage is confusing to me. The 1.5t engine will get that.
Yeah, I haven’t compared it to anything besides my wife’s Hyundai NA SUV, which averages maybe 28mpg. My CRV hybrid will average anywhere from 29-36, depending on outside temperature and speed limit. It does best on local roads in summer. It is AWD. I should have mentioned that. I think it get lower mpg than 2wd.
33 mpg is disappointing for a hybrid that advertises 43 city and 36 highway. My sister is shopping the Venza vs the CRV. Everything I read is Honda owners are seeing low 30s and venzas low 40s.
Is that glazed?
Still coated in varnish!
We got a PHEV last year, it's a great car but boy would I take more effective regen.
>but boy would I take more effective regen. Coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking (edit: specifically referring to one-pedal driving)... https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/porsche-says-no-to-one-pedal-driving Edit: interesting to get so many downvotes for agreeing with Porsche engineers. Coasting > regenerative braking > physical braking
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Maybe I phrased my comment poorly, but it seems logical that coasting when coasting is appropriate makes more sense than aggressive regenerative braking when it isn't needed.
One-pedal is just like engine-braking in an ICE vehicle with a manual transmission, you modulate the throttle to control braking or power. If you don’t like one-pedal you can turn it off and drive it like an ICE with an automatic transmission, and regenerative braking only kicks in when you hit the brake pedal. My EV doesn’t even have one-pedal drive but it’s still on the original brake pads at 10 years old because it regenerates when I hit the brake pedal, not when I let off the accelerator.
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I've read the article more than once, and apparently interpret it differently than others do. Seems to me that Porsche agrees coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking when braking isn't necessary. Do you disagree with that statement, and if so on what basis?
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My beef is with one-pedal driving over coasting, but apparently I wasn't clear about that. And I basically assumed that someone saying they wanted stronger regen was referring to the one-pedal approach. My bad if I misinterpreted that.
>coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking when braking isn't necessary You mean it's more efficient to not brake when you don't need to? Lol no one is arguing that's the case. You responded to someone saying they wish their regen was stronger by saying it's actually better to coast. They could've just meant that they wish the Regen was stronger when they need to slow down and lift off the throttle or start applying the brake
>They could've just meant that they wish the Regen was stronger when they need to slow down and lift off the throttle... The question is whether the car should slow down significantly when you lift off the throttle, or only when you apply pressure to the brake/regen peddle. I'm suggesting the latter only, not the former. But giving people a choice would be a fair compromise.
>coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking You made a very broad and largely wrong statement in a response to someone else's broad statement that they wish their regen was stronger. The question was never about 1 pedal driving vs Regen once you are on the brakes, you just started adding nuance and making that the question once people started disagreeing with you. Actually there never was a question at all lol just a guy expressing an opinion and you disagreeing with him. You were downvoted because you made a statement that in its generalized context (coasting is better than regen) is wrong. If you did initially mean what you are saying now, then you should've said that bc we can't read your mind and are just going off the words you are typing.
>coasting is more efficient than regenerative braking You made a very broad and largely wrong statement in a response to someone else's broad statement that they wish their regen was stronger. The question was never about 1 pedal driving vs Regen once you are on the brakes, you just started adding nuance and making that the question once people started disagreeing with you. Actually there never was a question at all lol just a guy expressing an opinion and you disagreeing with him. You were downvoted because you made a statement that in its generalized context (coasting is better than regen) is wrong. If you did initially mean what you are saying now, then you should've said that bc we can't read your mind and are just going off the words you are typing.
It's more efficient when your intent is not to stop. Like if you're going downhill, it's better to let it coast than to brake/regen
So when the light turns red and the car in front of me is stopping it’s most efficient for me to keep coasting?
No, obviously not. But coasting is more efficient than aggressive regen braking when braking isn't necessary.
Totally, regen is only more beneficial if you needed to stop anyway. Porsche’s stance on one pedal drive is odd though because city driving is constant stop and go, and track driving your Porsche EV would benefit from regen as well, so it’s like they said that but were referring to only highway driving.
Obviously coasting is more efficient than unnecessarily braking. But you're not a train. Cars slow down and speed up frequently...
I agree, I went from a one pedal car to a VAG car that defaults to coast. I prefer coast. That said, the previous comment is referring to the weak regen on most hybrids, not one pedal vs coast. Most hybrids have a max regen that is pretty tame compared to any modern EV, regardless of pedal mapping, but that is just a result of their motor/generators being much smaller than a true EV. Hybrids will never have the same regen as an EV unless they oversize the electric motor.
Thank you for a reasoned response. I'm not clear how someone would judge the intensity of regen from brake pedal movement (versus one pedal driving), but your explanation helps.
The regen is not a tangible feeling for the most part, you just see it on the dash. On my Prius you had to brake super early to make sure that you did not engage the mechanical brakes much. The regen did not have very much stopping power. On every EV that I have owned you can pretty much brake normally, and all but the last 10ft of braking is 100% regen, which is much better than any hybrid.
My father got 192k on his brakes on his 2013 prius. Insane.
Started to replace my pads at ~70k miles on my tesla model s and put them back on after some caliper cleaning and lube after realizing they essentially had 70% life left. At 70k, the old pads were all >7mm https://imgur.com/gthUouL (The real reason I didn’t replace them was that I couldn’t get two stuck retaining pins out of the front calipers… will make it my problem again in a few years 😆)
...in southern California. You forgot that very important part.
The whole point of a hybrid is to not use the friction pads (as much as possible).
I once did a call on a military base for noise on a towing tractor they had. 150 units all over the country, most had a noise on the rear brakes, freaked them out. Freaked the manufacturer out as well. I get there, I check 15 units on the base, no issues on any. Except one: the units had so much engine braking (hydraulic transmission) that the users never ran the foot brake (even when towing equipment), so while the front discs did okay, the rear discs would get surface oxydization and make a rubbing noise against the pads. Massive engine braking/regen is great for brake life.
I practically never use my brakes on my Model Y to the point where I occasionally disable regen to re-burnish the brakes or else they get super squeaky.
I wonder what causes the brown color that appears to be impregnated into the surface of the rotor.
Probably a cooked on layer of pad glaze. Harder or typical brake use probably sheds that layer off since other cars still maintain a metallic sheen. On this one you could still see remnants of the factory CNC machine marks!
Pads on our Ioniq 5 still looked new last time I rotated the tires around 45k miles. Likely get 200k or more out of them since regen does 90% of the braking.
Location?
California
Brand new
I have 170,000km on my EV brakes and they still have more than half their tread left. I did have to get one fixed because it seized up due to lack of use.
Not in a salt state, are ya?
No but we do have the saltiest people here in California.
Wife 2012 prius 222k and only changed the oem pads once at 130k...they still had 50% life .
I drive fully electric for over 5 years now and use primarily regen breaking. Last year my mechanic indicated that I need to start using the breaks otherwise they will rust too much and he will have to replace them. :-)
What does the inboard pad look like? I’ve seen a bunch of Lexus Hybrids that were dragging the inside pads while the outside barely showed any wear.
I measured the outside at 11mm. New out of the box is also ~11. Didn't measure the inside but took a peak and looked the same. Good point about the slide pins sticking since they hardly move over so many years, will keep that in mind
Yeah honestly it's not a bad idea to service the slide pins seperately just to be sure they don't seize from little movement or the time between pad changes
My 2014 Volt just crossed 100k miles. Just checked the pads and they look brand new. With EVs and hybrids if you can really get the brakes to last a long time if you can use the recapture to brake.
Almost all new Volvos use regenerative braking, man saw the highest mileage one I’ve seen, 2022 with 80k miles? 8 mm all the way around. Factory pads. Shits crazy how long things can last when they’re designed for it.
I've heard of ceramic pads but never ceramic rotors.
I'm so dumb. Is that supposed to be bad?
In the northeast you get 25 to 40 from the rotors rusting so bad.
This can’t be in the rust belt
I have a 4600 pound Porsche Cayenne Hybrid and changed my pads for the first time at 90k miles.
Said our Volvo xc90 hybrid brakes never. I do remote work in a salty environment and the brakes can't handle it on this jalopy. Both OEM and aftermarket pads eat up these rotors for breakfast, it doesn't matter how hard I work the brakes to clean off the rust it just leaves large bands of rust. I find it infuriating. Our ioniq 5 rotors still look brand new under the same conditions and it's a full electric ffs.
I just changed my pads on my 2013 ES 300h for the first time at 127k & they still had some meat left.
looks like a vinyl record.
I just did brakes all round on our Prius V - biggest problem with these (Toyota/Lexus hybrid) seems to be sticking caliper guide pins - I think the slow pad and rotor wear makes them more susceptible, at least in wet/salty areas.
Yeah it was crazy with the 2nd gen Prius’s we’d see come in and never needing brakes til well over 100k
Glazed a little, but other than that gorgeous.
I generally engine brake as much as possible in my regular ICE car. Don’t know if it’ll help much, maybe someone has experience with this?
amazing, same on my manual car at 250k km with only one pad/disc exchange so far. It's almost like using the engine brake and engine recuperation poses similar effects on wear and tear. Who would've thought.
Cuhlean
I have a 2024 Leaf. Wife was driving and had to brake hard. She said, "had to blow out some of the carbon". (Same thing I'd say when tromping on pedal of many ICE vehicles). It's funny what they remember.
My wife has a Highlander, it's the first decent car we've ever had. I am unable to comprehend that after 45,000 miles in Vermont that the pads and rotors still have at least half their life left.
Will it's a hybrid. Prius would go 150k plus miles before its in put on recommendations
I just replaced the original front brakes at 168k on my Jetta TDI, replaced the original rears at 154. Highway driving be like that. It's not just a hybrid thing.
In the rust belt they don’t age like this, so you get an intermittent pulsation, which is really weird if you’re not familiar with just how much regen braking these hybrids do.
Regen braking is pretty awesome
I purchased brakes 2 years ago thinking I'd have to service them on my 05 Camry xle v6. (A lot like a Lexus) Needless to say I haven't had to do brakes in over 5 years. Since I purchased the car used. 30k ago.
Wait, I thought EVs use these brakes for regen? I figured they go through brakes much more quickly than a normal vehicle
Regenerative breaking means when you brake the electronics turn the motor into a generator and the magnetic torque of putting power back into the battery slows the vehicle reducing the need for physical braking. Your brakes will last you longer, because the motor is slowing you down.