I was pleased to see that my comment about the 500e's regen stimulated this lively discussion. Thank you TomW for quantifying regen and providing the practical examples.
Just a brief note as to where I'm coming from - My 1967 Saab (I'm the original owner) has freewheel - once you're used to coasting with throttle-off, any unwanted retardation is unwelcome. The original Pulse-and-Glide. My 2002 Gen1 Honda Insight (LIFETIME 77mpg) with MIMA has joystick control over the electric motor both for acceleration and regen. Once you've experienced fingertip control over regen, lifting one's foot to gently apply the brakes in order to induce regen is a PIA. As you can tell from the mileage, I usually hypermile and spend a good portion of my driving coasting in neutral. My three Corbin Sparrows and EV conversions have series DC motors - sure, they coast with foot off the accelerator, but what a horrible teeth-gritting waste not being able to recover that energy! I purchased my Mitsu i-MiEV (over the Leaf) primarily because it provides three manually-actuated regeneration levels (using the 'shift' lever), its 'B' (Brake) setting being just-short of deceleration requiring brake-light actuation. As it is, I also spend a fair amount of time in neutral when driving that car. I live in hilly country, so being able to manually modulate my speed on downhills with the different regen settings (and not my foot gently pushing the brake pedal) is a priority for me - hence my criticism of the 500e. On the i-MiEV I measured maximum drive current out of the battery at a little over 150A and in one brief test I measured a little over 100A maximum battery current when regenerating but I understand the number is perhaps above 120A. When driving a car with high regen on the accelerator pedal, it requires a lot of concentration to keep it from going into unwanted regen in normal driving. For highway driving I would like to disable regen completely and have the vehicle coast with foot off the accelerator - just like the freewheel in my 1967 Saab! My ideal is a steering-wheel mounted regen paddle - pulling it applies variable regen for smooth deceleration. In addition, I would like a (dash-mounted?) control to select regen levels with accelerator released (either multi switch detent positions or continuously variable) - ranging from zero to max. Fingertips are so much more sensitive and convenient as a deceleration controller than a foot on the brake pedal. Thank you for your patience with this overly-long post. ----- Joe Siudzinski -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Fiat-500e-EV-close-to-perfect-tp4668392p4668555.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
