Why wouldn't it work like it does in a car? If you've never driven an EV, then you might not know that there are three modes of acceleration: power from batteries, regen to batteries, and braking from kinetic. If you don't activate the braking from kinetic but you activate regen to batteries instead, then hydraulic is never activated.

I guess in a semi you brake all wheels and braking just the front ones (where the motors are) wouldn't work?

Although with normal cars, most of the braking is done in the front anyway? And vans can be 4x4, electric motors are probably relatively affordable to put on all wheels, considering things like the Toyota SUVs with AWD system that has electric motor in the back instead of shaft from the engine.

There's a difference between emergency braking and gentle/standard braking. Emergency braking you obviously need physical brakes on every wheel. With gentle braking you can use just the drive wheels, wherever they are, since they can obviously slow the truck down just as quickly as they can speed the truck up, and generally that's all you need.

> Regenerative braking isn't nearly as efficient on something like a UPS truck or semi, compared to your Leaf.

I don't get the point here. If it's 40% effective on his LEAF and 20% effective on a delivery van, then it is. Anything that increases range or decreases the cost of the vehicle is a big win. Regenerative braking is one of many reasons why electric delivery vans make a ton of sense, it's not the only reason.