Why do Hybrid drivers love to brake ?

[S3000]

Has it to do with their battery charging sytem..? maybe a Prius driver can tell me why ?

Had a annoying experience yesterday.

[Caruso]

The brake lights on my Vectrix come on when it's regenerative braking, even if you're only slowing very slightly. Perhaps the Prius is the same?

[jimbobsimmonds]

I always thought it was because the part of the brain responsible for decision making has only reached the point of development where a: buying a hybrid seems a good idea and b: that touching the brakes every time a car comes in the opposite direction "will make things better"?

[wst]

Bit of energy regen, and a bit of "automatic gearbox" braking.

Nothing worse than people braking out of sequence, you'd get a good flow going and the tit in front of you is braking where you're coasting, coasting where you're braking, and for whatever reason you can't get past...

Ok, I exaggerate. Stalin might be worse.

[Triumph Man]

It's because they are st drivers. HTH

[davepoth]

S3000 said:

Has it to do with their battery charging sytem..? maybe a Prius driver can tell me why ?

Had a annoying experience yesterday.

The Prius doesn't engine brake in the normal "D" mode. If you aren't used to it, or are rubbish, you would probably end up tapping the brake pedal all the time to regulate speed.

http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/b-mode.html

[AmitG]

Surely if anything the opposite should be true. Hybrid drivers should prefer to use the brakes lightly and/or coast gently to a stop, since that gives maximum regeneration. Using heavy braking wastes energy, which in hybrid world is

When I drove a Prius I did notice that the brake pedal was stupidly sensitive compared to what I was used to. Maybe the driver wasn't used to it?

[Ninjaboy]

From the sty prius i drove touching the brakes does give the battery abit of charge. Has anyone else noticed people who have prius's always talk about them and watch the charge screen all the time?

[furrywoolyhatuk]

As above, as most are automatics they tend to have a creep on them and so unfortunately you sometimes have to dab the brake to regulate this.

[Jasandjules]

Is it because they are going downhill and once the speed creeps over 42mph they have to slow down? Or if there is a corner ahead, these modern hybrids clearly have useless suspension and can't take corners faster than 30mph....

[marshall100]

S3000 said:

Has it to do with their battery charging sytem..? maybe a Prius driver can tell me why ?

Had a annoying experience yesterday.

Tell us about the annoying experience, you can indeed drive a Prius or creep it through traffic on the brake pedal. It'll pull on it's own, and you don't tend to need the parking brake if your sat on an incline. The engine will hold the car in place.

Clever car, I hate mine.

[coppice]

Can't beat slavishly perpetuating urban myths about people who drive a car Clarkson mocks. I don't drive a Prius but certainly don't dislike them - they are something different and have a certain cool in my book . Obviously some hairy chested V8 drivers(I can do stereotyping too) may be in denial about the fact that some people who like cars actually like Priuses but what I have noticed about Toyota's 'planet saver' (which it isn't ) is that many I encouinter are actually driven with a lot of brio.I remember following one in my Seven along some bendy East Yorkshire B roads and it was making more than decent progress, Ditto on m-ways- often overtaken by Priuses at comfortably illegal speeds. Mind you if somebody wants to drive one slowly then that's their choice too.

[g3org3y]

Triumph Man said:

It's because they are st drivers. HTH

Common things are common so more than likely this

[Fatman2]

S3000 said:

Has it to do with their battery charging sytem..? maybe a Prius driver can tell me why ?

Had a annoying experience yesterday.

Has nothing to do with hybrid drivers IMHO. I see lots of people on my commute braking on straights, mild bends (mid bend) and all sorts of situations that I don't perceive to be necessary. For me, the perfect commute to work is not using my brakes at all!

The classic one is where I'm behind someone approaching a queue of traffic. Why do folks keep accelerating till they're 10m away and then slam on the brakes

[kambites]

As said above they tend not to engine brake so you do have to use the brakes a bit more if you actually want to slow down.

I think the "always braking when a car somes the other way" thing is pretty evenly spread across all types of car.