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Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by r00fus on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @08:58PM (#35350549)
One other thing not mentioned - they brake faster. Like hybrids, EVs have dual brake systems - regenerative + brake pads. On an EV, the regen can be much more powerful than a hybrid since the motor/batter are larger.
Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by mikestew on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:28PM (#35350849)
One other thing not mentioned - they brake faster.

No, they do not. Any car has brakes that can overcome its tires. All that is added by regenerative braking is the ability to lock the wheels more quickly.

Tires and weight (which EVs have a lot more of) are the larger factors in stopping distance.

Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by rootusrootus on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:09PM (#35351808)
One thing I like about strong regenerative braking is how quickly it responds. If some kid darts out in front of me, there's a fraction of a second while I get my foot onto the brake pedal before the car starts to slow meaningfully. But with regenerative braking, the car is already slowing down significantly just by me lifting my foot. Just a little extra built-in margin, which is nice.
Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by calvinmorrison on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:31PM (#35350874)
> No, they do not. Any car has brakes that can overcome its tires.

Well yeah, that's why we have ABS right?

But there's more to it than that... having a good way to engine brake (and in this case regen) keeps your brakes cool and prevents them from overheating. Regardless of stopping power in ideal conditions, overheated brakes are not safe.

Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by kube-system on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:02PM (#35351762)
Have you ever overheated your brakes? I’ve managed to do it twice. It took a $25 dollar set of brake pads about 8 laps on a race track. It takes multiple repeated hard stops of >~50mph delta to overheat even crappy bargain basement brakes on an economy car.

Brake discs on modern cars are vented and work like a centrifugal fan to cool them actively. They continually shed heat, so even dragging a brake pedal the entire way down a long mountain, as many drivers will do, is well within safety margins. So to overheat them, you have to get the heat in fast. Like 0-100-0-100-0-100-0 fast.

On the road, the only vehicles that experience brake fade are loaded trucks descending a grade, or suspects in a police pursuit.

Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by calvinmorrison on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @10:47AM (#35358053)
Yeah i overheated my brakes doing exactly that, coming out of the Rockies
Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by porknubbins on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @10:46PM (#35351630)
I don’t think overheating brakes is that common of a problem either outside of a sports car on a race track or a truck going down a mountain. The real advantage of regen brakes is way longer between pad changes and less accompanying dust.
Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by lostlogin on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:01PM (#35351746)
… and the battery charge.
Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by YZF on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @09:20PM (#35350759)
I'm not sure this is true. They're a lot heavier and on most cars the brakes should be powerful enough to lock the wheels which is the max braking power you're going to get.
Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by rootusrootus on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @11:11PM (#35351822)
> They're a lot heavier

A bit heavier, but not "a lot." A model 3 is between around 3600 and just over 4000 pounds, depending on trim. Not far off a similar size ICE vehicle.

Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by jjav on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:19AM (#35353751)
> A bit heavier, but not "a lot."

To compare a car which is available in both ICE and EV, a 2018 Fiat 500e (electric, with a tiny battery bank good for only ~90 miles) weighs almost 3000 pounds, whereas the same car with ICE is ~2400lb.

25% more weight is a lot on a car.

Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by rootusrootus on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @10:53AM (#35358144)
The 500E is a retrofit of an ICE, not a ground-up EV. All you can derive from that comparison is that retrofitting is inefficient.
Re:The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks by jjav on Thursday March 30, 2023 @03:27AM (#35369286)
> The 500E is a retrofit of an ICE, not a ground-up EV. All you can derive from that comparison is that retrofitting is inefficient.

That's all true, but I'm uncertain how much difference it can make. The bulk of the weight difference comes from the batteries, which will be there whether a retrofit or new design. Everything related to the ICE systems was removed, so it's not like there was any leftover weight from the conversion.

Weight distribution can likely be better in a chassis designed solely for EV, but total weight seems likely to be about the same either way.