Regen braking…

[TheDeuce]

iPace regen vs friction braking is a pretty smooth transition and 'feels' fine. Unfortunately Jag skimped a bit and the discs/pads are smaller than is really acceptable on such a heavy and powerful car. For daily driving that's not an issue at all as most normal braking is 90% regen anyway - it could almost be called a wise cost saving measure by Jag to skimp... But then it's also a 400hp car which they market as 'genuinely sporty'. Needless to say those tiny brakes fade very quickly if you actually sustain any sort of sporty driving down a twisty road.

On the flip side, I drove an e-tron and also an EQC and I honestly can' remember which one, but one of them had (I think) painted 4 pot callipers at the front and the switch was much harsher from regen to friction braking - that said, both were a brand new car then so could easily have been improved via software.

I suppose another complexity for the engineers is that fitting normal sized brakes to an EV is problematic as they'll never really heat up. My old BMW with m brakes was less positive on the brakes than a standard BMW until the heat was put through the brakes by plenty of use. I look at the monster callipers on the Taycan and wonder how hard you have to thrash the thing to get them in to the window, given that even on the track regen is still accounting for a considerable amount of retardation.

[SWoll]

Max_Torque said:

SWoll said:

The ability to easily change the regen dependent on usage is great, leave in max around town and then quickly change to minimum when on a longer high speed run to take advantage of coasting and remove the worry of your brake lights coming on every time you back off the throttle.

I'm not being deliberately contrary honest! :-) but:

The brake lights only come on when the vehicle actually reaches a set level of decel, so if you want to "coast" (which really in a EV means "drive at the same speed i am currently going") then simply leave your foot where it is. There is no need to "lift your foot off the accelerator". On a long high speed run, if you are bouncing your foot on and off the accelerator pedal and yo-yoing around, your passengers are going to pretty quickly hate you lol! Just leave you foot where it is, simple........ ;-)

the only reason you want to "lift your foot off the accelerator" is that is how you used to do it with the old fashioned tech we used to drive because those powertrains where fundamentally mono-directional so needed an entirely seperate system to be able to absorb and dispurse Kinetic energy when we wanted to slow down (ie the hydrualic friction brakes), and back in the day when cars were first mass produced, without modern control electronics, the easiest thing to do was simply fit another pedal to allow the driver to activate this system.

I know. Always up for a grown up discussion.

I've driven both now for a reasonable distance and different journey types, it's a very different experience and without a doubt the low regen coast method is noticeably more efficient. To not trigger the brakelight in the Model 3 took a high level of throttle control I found, in the Audi it's just far easier.

Didn't expect to like it after the i3 and Model 3 but genuinely a fan after a couple of months of use.