jlsoaz said:
edatoakrun said:
If you want to minimize the energy loss to air resistance to travel any given distance over any given time, maintaining as close to constant speed as conditions permit is optimal. And this of course requires using the accelerator/regen pedal.
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Hi - I'm not sure I'm understanding where you are getting this claim from. Is this some sort of common-knowledge firmly-established principle of aerodynamics and physics?
Apart from efficiency considerations, in general, I do agree that introducing wide variance in speed in one's driving is not desirable from a general safe defensive driving point of view.
he is talking about driving on a constant velocity trip like a freeway or something. iow, completely different topic. we are talking about city driving, large amounts of stop and go and speed variations.
What a nice way to put things.
I respect the thinking and passion you're putting in to driving the vehicle, but my own goal here is to ask if the efficiency gains you and other pioneers are evidently attaining can be made easier for other drivers
and that is exactly what we are trying to say. Let me emphasize that dead banding could be just as good as neutral, but dead banding requires a lot of concentration and you will slip back and forth from power to regen and every little teeny weeny slip is a loss of range. be it 10 feet or 1000 feet, its still a loss. This conversation has really gone to "how bad is driving in neutral?" as these types of threads always do.
my post was an attempt to emphasize that neutral is not bad because this is quite simply not that kind of car. it does not have a transmission, gears to grind or any of that stuff so all the legacy baggage associated with the "neutral is bad" club does not apply here.
Switching into and out of neutral (whether by switching to R while in forward motion or by holding at N for a couple of seconds) and then switching out of neutral seems a hassle that some won't bother with while a switch or attenuator, or a widened better-defined pedal zone might require less futzing to achieve the same or similar result.
so you think some sort of user settable feature that controls the action of the accelerator is a better idea? this would be something that is changed constantly depending on what kind of driving you plan to do. seems like THIS would be something users would not want to do. I think a "super regen" button on the steering wheel or something might be nice for those fast stops to maximize the recapture of power but other than that, digging into an on screen menu nearly every day to change this?
besides, I am currently driving a car called a Ford Fiesta that has a large dead area on the accelerator . I
HATE the feeling. besides, as we all know, the dead band position on the pedal is speed dependent. the faster you go, the more regen is possible which means dead banding is a moving target. another reason why it is simply much more difficult. besides? why not shift? maybe its just me and the fact that I was in my mid twenties before i ever own an automatic transmission car
I didn't realize that your thinking was so focused on this aspect of avoiding using the brake. We had a separate and I think good-looking suggestion for an indicator that helps us know when we are using the friction brake.
That would be a great idea. the Prius has it (called "HSI" hybrid System Indicator) and so do some other EVs but then again, its one more thing to look at instead of the road. once again, my personal feeling is that there is unfounded reasons for resistance to using neutral as a tool.
using neutral to shift allows you to watch the road including lights that may change, how much traffic is piling up in front you, etc. another thing to look at is kinda cool. did it in my Prius all the time. SO probably did too (which could be why she rear ended someone in it)