Use of e pedal and smoothness of ride

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DavidBurbidge

Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2020
Messages
7
Hello,

I am new to my 2019 LEAF and new to the forum. I love them both!

I love the e pedal but think it makes the overall ride more bumpy. I think it the torque in the wheels as you drive and/or ease up on the accelerator causes the weight of the vehicle to push towards the front and causes the car to hit the bumps harder. I compare it to biking. When I hold on to my handlebars tightly and harden my muscles, the bumps reverberate more through my body. If I loosen my arms and muscles, the vibrations are absorbed better.

The free flowing coasting feel of the regular pedal seems smoother.

I would love to hear from anyone with a more scientific description to prove or disprove my thoughts. Thanks.

DavidBurbidge
 
I think it the torque in the wheels as you drive and/or ease up on the accelerator causes the weight of the vehicle to push towards the front and causes the car to hit the bumps harder.

This is likely what you are experiencing. You can moderate the regenerative braking strength in ePedal mode by backing off the accelerator pedal more gently and slowly, keeping more of the car's weight evenly distributed.
 
I agree with Leftie.

I didn't use ePedal for the first 9 months I had the car. With a little practice, you can make the driving experience very smooth. Its only useful in local driving, never really useful on the highway, unless in a traffic jam. My data is anecdotal, but I do feel like I get a little better efficiency using ePedal when doing local driving. I don't know if its because I get modestly better regen.
 
It's pretty much what Leftie said.

The e-pedal driving takes some getting used to and is not something one will typically learn to control easily. Keep at it and you will learn to get smooth rides over bumps and other road obstacles.

I use the e-pedal all the time and feel that I have a good grasp of it at this point for smooth driving & stopping.
 
E pedal is a tool and there is a right and wrong way to use any tool and E pedal is no exception. I used it exclusively for a while then switched to only using it for major deceleration events or when coming to a stop with the goal of not using the brake pedal at all.

When looking at all the drive modes, E pedal allows the full range of motion based on how much you ease off the acceleration. It is not for the jumpy person. It does provide very fine speed control and acts like any very low gear in a normal car.

I tested E pedal on my 40 and 62 kwh LEAF and it does provide a much higher level of regen (50-60% more than B mode depending on speed) so it is beneficial in that;

it regains more of the power used to attain your speed of travel

Is easy to engage.

But also higher levels of regen means a bigger hit to the pack. Now how much bigger? Hard to say but I will tell you that I have seen much higher regen levels than you would see at a charger when SOC was well above the charging curve. Considering the very short duration of the E pedal events, I figure there is an effect but low on the priority poll of concern
 
Agreed, I have seen some hard freeway deceleration cycles (say 75mph to 5mph on a decline) regen and add a whole degree C to the pack in 30 seconds...so maybe the fastest way to charge is to have the leaf towed in B/ePedal mode.
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
Agreed, I have seen some hard freeway deceleration cycles (say 75mph to 5mph on a decline) regen and add a whole degree C to the pack in 30 seconds...so maybe the fastest way to charge is to have the leaf towed in B/ePedal mode.

It’s funny you say that Doug. We are motorhomers. Although we have tended to pull a car on a trailer behind us, many motorhomers like to pull their vehicles “4 down”. Lots of discussion in the RV forums on how to pull an EV and have it charged when you arrive at your destination. :). Sooner or later someone will try it. It won’t be us. :).

Our introduction to Epedal was when we were ordering a 2020 Leaf SL plus. We were thoroughly impressed. IMHO the Epedal on the leaf and model 3 feel very similar with the leaf maybe having a little gentler stop than the 3.
 
Yeah, compliment to the Leaf that M3 added the feature in the last year.

Engineering Explained towed a M3 with a Ford Raptor. It was pretty funny and showed how a small hit in mpg, the M3 was able to travel quite far.
 
webeleafowners said:
DougWantsALeaf said:
Agreed, I have seen some hard freeway deceleration cycles (say 75mph to 5mph on a decline) regen and add a whole degree C to the pack in 30 seconds...so maybe the fastest way to charge is to have the leaf towed in B/ePedal mode.

It’s funny you say that Doug. We are motorhomers. Although we have tended to pull a car on a trailer behind us, many motorhomers like to pull their vehicles “4 down”. Lots of discussion in the RV forums on how to pull an EV and have it charged when you arrive at your destination. :). Sooner or later someone will try it. It won’t be us. :).

Our introduction to Epedal was when we were ordering a 2020 Leaf SL plus. We were thoroughly impressed. IMHO the Epedal on the leaf and model 3 feel very similar with the leaf maybe having a little gentler stop than the 3.

The problem with that is you are force charging against the BMS which will lead to disastrous results. I can also imagine the drag on the motorhome's engine is something you will not want to deal with either.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
webeleafowners said:
DougWantsALeaf said:
Agreed, I have seen some hard freeway deceleration cycles (say 75mph to 5mph on a decline) regen and add a whole degree C to the pack in 30 seconds...so maybe the fastest way to charge is to have the leaf towed in B/ePedal mode.

It’s funny you say that Doug. We are motorhomers. Although we have tended to pull a car on a trailer behind us, many motorhomers like to pull their vehicles “4 down”. Lots of discussion in the RV forums on how to pull an EV and have it charged when you arrive at your destination. :). Sooner or later someone will try it. It won’t be us. :).

Our introduction to Epedal was when we were ordering a 2020 Leaf SL plus. We were thoroughly impressed. IMHO the Epedal on the leaf and model 3 feel very similar with the leaf maybe having a little gentler stop than the 3.

The problem with that is you are force charging against the BMS which will lead to disastrous results. I can also imagine the drag on the motorhome's engine is something you will not want to deal with either.

Yah. Could be. Not an expert. But using the Leaf as an example, when our leaf was at 100 percent it had no regen. Would it not just stop charging.

The extra drag would probably not be noticed in the diesel pushers. Lots of torque and HP. We barely noticed pulling a 10,000 pound load.
 
webeleafowners said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
webeleafowners said:
It’s funny you say that Doug. We are motorhomers. Although we have tended to pull a car on a trailer behind us, many motorhomers like to pull their vehicles “4 down”. Lots of discussion in the RV forums on how to pull an EV and have it charged when you arrive at your destination. :). Sooner or later someone will try it. It won’t be us. :).

Our introduction to Epedal was when we were ordering a 2020 Leaf SL plus. We were thoroughly impressed. IMHO the Epedal on the leaf and model 3 feel very similar with the leaf maybe having a little gentler stop than the 3.

The problem with that is you are force charging against the BMS which will lead to disastrous results. I can also imagine the drag on the motorhome's engine is something you will not want to deal with either.

Yah. Could be. Not an expert. But using the Leaf as an example, when our leaf was at 100 percent it had no regen. Would it not just stop charging.

The extra drag would probably not be noticed in the diesel pushers. Lots of torque and HP. We barely noticed pulling a 10,000 pound load.

Well, that would mean that regen would be much more limited at high SOC or/and high temperature and that i have not seen. I saw 9 kw of regen on my 2018 when it was at 99% SOC. A normal DC charge would be below 20 Kw by the time you hit 85% but I have seen regen at 40 kw.

Now, we also have to consider constant charging power verses regen which is short quick bursts. How much that plays into it, I don't know but in a towing situation, It would be max'd out all the time at any speed and regen requires conversion when DC charging does not.

On the drag, that 10,000 lb load wasn't dragging the brakes but your LEAF in regen would feel exactly like that. Big difference.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
webeleafowners said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
The problem with that is you are force charging against the BMS which will lead to disastrous results. I can also imagine the drag on the motorhome's engine is something you will not want to deal with either.

Yah. Could be. Not an expert. But using the Leaf as an example, when our leaf was at 100 percent it had no regen. Would it not just stop charging.

The extra drag would probably not be noticed in the diesel pushers. Lots of torque and HP. We barely noticed pulling a 10,000 pound load.

Well, that would mean that regen would be much more limited at high SOC or/and high temperature and that i have not seen. I saw 9 kw of regen on my 2018 when it was at 99% SOC. A normal DC charge would be below 20 Kw by the time you hit 85% but I have seen regen at 40 kw.

Now, we also have to consider constant charging power verses regen which is short quick bursts. How much that plays into it, I don't know but in a towing situation, It would be max'd out all the time at any speed and regen requires conversion when DC charging does not.

On the drag, that 10,000 lb load wasn't dragging the brakes but your LEAF in regen would feel exactly like that. Big difference.

Interesting. Now we know why the couple times I have seen a leaf behind a Motorhome it was on a dolly. :)
 
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