Nothing better than recharging when going downhill.

I just went to the top of Pikes in Colorado (14115 feet elevation). Was at 37% at the top, and by the time I was at the bottom at 48%.

Nice

If you were to coast down Mt. Everest, what would be the gain? LOL

Went skiing in my model 3. If memory serves, started at 30 % and showed up at the lodge with 11%. Returned home with 11% :)

Meanwhile all the ICE cars are grinding metal.

Probably started off at 50-60%? From my experience regen is about 50% efficiency.

Not entirely. Most of the time they don’t burn gas at all just engine braking to maintain momentum. Unless there is no lubricant no metal is being ground.

A friend was in an ICE Mazda, shifted into second on the way down and those brakes were still burning.

Nice

Yea, right around there

Wow, I can think of a whole hell of a lot of things better than that.

Next time, look at the energy graph.

Grinding metal is referring to their glowing metal brake rotors.

Again, engine braking, heard of it?

Yes, but that also means the drive up used a ton of extra energy compared to a flat road.

Why drive instead of take the train?

Began at 7400 ft elevation up to 14115 ft. Round trip 36 miles. Total energy usage was 10% of my battery. Regenerative braking almost 7000 feet down regains a lot of energy.

Advantage of your battery type. This does not work as well in my Y SR (LFP).

Then they should have shifted into first.

My sister's boyfriend asked why you need to charge an EV if it can regenerate while braking. He's about as sharp as a bowl of custard. Sorry for the random anecdote. This picture reminded me and had a sensible chuckle.

To be fair, at the end of the day it is the same from a technical point of view. The higher RPM is causing higher friction, resulting into the so called „engine braking“.

But what about those self-charging hybrids??? /s

I would recommend using skis next time, you’ll have better control going down a 15+ degree hill

He sounds pretty sharp. He modeled the system in his head, saw something surprising, and wasn't afraid to ask a question to understand it better, even if his girlfriend's brother would mock him for it.

Extremely rare for people to use engine braking, esp. with automatics. Manual drivers (very rare) do somewhat use engine braking since they know how gearing works. I'd put a lot of money on the fact that 75% of auto drivers have never "manually" changed gears even once, even those who have paddle-shifters.

That’s fine. Still less time consuming changing out brake pads than charging at a supercharger.

I'm headed up to Asheville this afternoon. Going up and down the mountains is so satisfying...it feels like no effort going up, and you get energy back going down.

I mean yeah, but I was just talking about engine braking specifically.

Rookie numbers. Coming down from pikes peak, I got -527

Charging uphill would be better , actually. 🙃

its fine, only demolished a few trees and skiiers.

I remember seeing a graph from the semi that showed battery level over distance, so on flat roads it’s just a gradual downsloped line. Regen made it such that going over a hill/mountain basically had the same average slope as the flat roads.

Right because you consume more going up and get some back going back down. Maybe a little less overall depending on efficiency. Same also applies to ICE cars as well.

you lost way more power going up though. so.. *shrug*

but didn't pay any attention in high school physics class.

Can you explain how you can tell what regen charged looking at those numbers? I do not understand how to read these numbers

Fault of teacher for not framing physics lesson in terms of EV car regen ;)

The kWh and Wh/mi values show the amount of energy spent since the journey started (left side) or since the last charge (right side). The negative values indicate the car has netted *gaining* energy rather than spending energy.

trains don’t ascend and descend 6000 feet. what is this question?

There is a cog railway to the top of Pike’s Peak that is a lot more fun than the drive. It was recently renovated and reopened in 2021.

Sure, but would they be able to use as much regen?

And less of the driver's time spent charging at home overnight than driving to a gas station, what's your point? And what does that have to do with regenerative braking vs brake pads?

They tried but it was way too low

I think I can name a lot of better things

You are featured in an article at SuperCarBlondie saying you discovered a hack to recharge a Tesla while driving LoL At-least ask them for a cut from their Click bait fuelled ad-revenues, since you were probably the 1st person to get regen charging going downhill (as per them) https://supercarblondie.com/tesla-ev-battery-hack-car-recharge-while-driving/

Yup the only silly question is the question never asked Maybe he was distracted (by his gf 😉) in highschool but never too late to learn

In an automatic, most people just brake when it feels too fast Some of the more basic or older automatic transmission cars may not even have the option to manually select 1st gear. You depend on the car to figure it out, sometimes it decides 3rd gear is slow enough, until you reach a sharp bend when 3rd gear travel was too fast SO THEY HIT BRAKES

Right. Most ICE cars and pickups huff and puff tryin to maintain speed while going uphill, while Tesla effortlessly accelerates uphill

Drive up uses extra energy even in gas cars, but the drive downhill doesn't refill some gas back in the tank. Yes gas cars do coast downhill with almost zero gas used, but they don't get, say 2 gallons, refilled into their tanks That's the difference with EVs, we get juice back into the tank

The extra energy needed going uphill is the same for gas or EVs. I.e Drive uphill uses extra energy even in gas cars, but the drive downhill doesn't refill some of that gas back into the tank. Yes gas cars do coast downhill with almost zero gas used, but they don't get, say 2 gallons, refilled into their tanks That's the difference with EVs, Tesla gets juice back into the tank

Probably less on Semi or Cybertruck, because regen would have a limit of whatever max kw it can charge with Heavier vehicles like CT/Semi will provide more energy than can be picked up by the battery

Yes, I understand the basics of electricity.

That reminds me of a Big Bang Theory episode where nerds were bouncing a laser off moon and Penny's muscular BF asked them what if they might blow up the moon 🌙 One of the scientists assured him that the laser was set to "stun" 😂

True. Regan can only do so much bleeding off momentum.

Depends on the automatic too. Some automatics have predictive grade control like my Honda if I press brakes while coasting downhill it will downshift to the proper gear. Obviously it’s never gonna be as powerful as regen unless you stick it in way lower gear and keeping the rpm high like 4000. Brake pads are cheap tho.

How did you get this info to display?