What's the best mode for "fuel efficiency?" What's your experience? Who has done an empirical comparison?

[4thPcar]

I try to do this but I get impatient and my results are not empirical.....

It is a 101 mile drive from San Diego to LA, a drive that I make fairly often. At 100% charge, I have a thin margin of error to make it to LA, drive around the block a couple times for whatever errand, and drive home.

In my RWD model, I've tried using regen, auto-regen, and the default mode. I've tried to correlate the distance traveled to battery depletion but each time I get a different result. Maybe it's my manner of driving, temperatures or other factors at play, because the route I drive is the same.

My suspicion is that full regeneration should be the best way to preserve power, but when it's engaged on the freeway, I am constantly pushing the pedal to overcome the resistance, thereby defeating the purpose. But in auto-regen I can coast for a mile!

Well, What?

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[f1eng]

I try to do this but I get impatient and my results are not empirical.....

It is a 101 mile drive from San Diego to LA, a drive that I make fairly often. At 100% charge, I have a thin margin of error to make it to LA, drive around the block a couple times for whatever errand, and drive home.

In my RWD model, I've tried using regen, auto-regen, and the default mode. I've tried to correlate the distance traveled to battery depletion but each time I get a different result. Maybe it's my manner of driving, temperatures or other factors at play, because the route I drive is the same.

My suspicion is that full regeneration should be the best way to preserve power, but when it's engaged on the freeway, I am constantly pushing the pedal to overcome the resistance, thereby defeating the purpose. But in auto-regen I can coast for a mile!

Well, What?

A single user will never get constant enough conditions of temperature, wind and humidity, or drive consistently enough to get accurate data on small differences.
The internet videos are really just entertainment IMO and give a bit of a hint if there are big differences between different cars but nothing definitive.

You have to rely on basic physics for a definitive answer and that is that coasting must be the most efficient, though there probably isn't much in it compared to driving style and weather.

 

[hifi239]

The car's regen is realized by applying the brake. The button regen modes are mostly for driving convenience in stop and go traffic to mimic ICE pedal lift-off, not for energy saving. I.e., it eases the need to keep switching from gas to brake. As you found, the auto regen won't activate at all unless the car detects another car close ahead. You will get close to your best range in range mode, or manually keeping it under 70 and running the AC or heat in ECO mode. Set cruise control at 70 and it will regen down steep hills (basically it is applying the "brake" like an ICE car would to maintain the set speed). Or without cruise control, coast down hills, or apply the brake on steep hills, which will given you the same regen as cc.

 

[chun]

j1.1, car is more efficent without out regen on autobahn, and more efficent with it off in city - according to porsche lead engineer for taycan

j1.2 car is more efficent with regen on everywhere, also according to porsche lead engineer for taycan

I guess it has to do with the fact that j1.2 regen is quite a bit stronger.

I never use range mode, as all it does as far as i could notice is mess with the air conditioning, screens getting less bright, bass is lower, etc. Pain in the ass. I just use normal.

I also get lower consumption with the car in its lowest mode on the autobahn.

As for auto regen, outside of high density city traffic, its pointless.

 

[Jhenson29]

imagine the following. You have a bank account. Money gets direct deposited from your job. There are no debit cards. You have to take out cash for expenditures. If you want to redeposit your cash, the bank charges a 20% service fee, so only 80% of your cash actually goes back into your account. The government has a law that no person may have cash on hand after 9pm. Any cash not in a bank after 9pm gets burned.

Don’t try to think about it too much. Just follow along.

What’s your best strategy?

Not spending money at all would be best, but you need things like food, clothing, shelter, so you’re best off only taking out the money you need each day for your expenditures that day. At the end of the day, if you did have cash left over, it would be preferable to redeposit it than let it burn.

Redepositing the money is not itself a good thing. You do not want to do that. You want to avoid that. However, it is significantly better than just letting it burn.

In this poorly cobbled analogy, money is energy; the bank account is your battery; direct deposit is charging your car; taking money out is using the accelerator, redepositing money is regen/recup (overrun or braking; doesn’t matter); and burning the money is the friction brakes.

Going down a hill is like finding money on the ground. Spend it if you can. Otherwise, deposit it at a loss (still better than burning it).

So, how much do you want to regen? The same amount as you want to redeposit. As little as possible. You don’t really want to do it all, frankly. But it’s way better to regen/recup than to use the friction brakes.

Reminder that the brake pedal uses regen/recup.

 

[chun]

imagine the following. You have a bank account. Money gets direct deposited from your job. There are no debit cards. You have to take out cash for expenditures. If you want to redeposit your cash, the bank charges a 20% service fee, so only 80% of your cash actually goes back into your account. The government has a law that no person may have cash on hand after 9pm. Any cash not in a bank after 9pm gets burned.

You lost me. Should I give you the number on the back of my card, or?

 

[Mr Bill]

I am close to obsessive in watching my actual consumption figures during and after any drive. Ran with regen on my MY22 RWD for six months, then changed to non-regen to compare. No change in consumption to speak of - to me, it comes down to what you like best when driving.

 

[McgR]

In my experience the charging with regen is quite minimal. Also the lowering in range mode will have some effect but quite minimal.

Biggest effect on range for me was reducing the temperature and eco pro mode in the winter and reducing the speed. It switched of heating increasing the range a lot. After some times the windows started to fog up and I had to switch to normal mode.

question is if you want to drive like that. Or just have a 5 minute stop to charge and drive like you want.

but I can imagine if it is the only stop you want to skip it and probably the best way is to reduce your travel speed or AC temperature.

 

[4thPcar]

imagine the following. You have a bank account. Money gets direct deposited from your job. There are no debit cards. You have to take out cash for expenditures. If you want to redeposit your cash, the bank charges a 20% service fee, so only 80% of your cash actually goes back into your account. The government has a law that no person may have cash on hand after 9pm. Any cash not in a bank after 9pm gets burned.

Don’t try to think about it too much. Just follow along.

What’s your best strategy?

Not spending money at all would be best, but you need things like food, clothing, shelter, so you’re best off only taking out the money you need each day for your expenditures that day. At the end of the day, if you did have cash left over, it would be preferable to redeposit it than let it burn.

Redepositing the money is not itself a good thing. You do not want to do that. You want to avoid that. However, it is significantly better than just letting it burn.

In this poorly cobbled analogy, money is energy; the bank account is your battery; direct deposit is charging your car; taking money out is using the accelerator, redepositing money is regen/recup (overrun or braking; doesn’t matter); and burning the money is the friction brakes.

Going down a hill is like finding money on the ground. Spend it if you can. Otherwise, deposit it at a loss (still better than burning it).

So, how much do you want to regen? The same amount as you want to redeposit. As little as possible. You don’t really want to do it all, frankly. But it’s way better to regen/recup than to use the friction brakes.

Reminder that the brake pedal uses regen/recup.

you lost me at "I have a bank account."

(I stopped using banks decades ago. All my money in a brokerage account. Banks are evil)

 

[Freeewilly]

I strongly against the Range mode, I didn't buy a Porsche Taycan and make it drive like a Prius.

 

[roger-on-taycan]

This does raise a question I was wondering about during the last "recuperation" thread -- which is more efficient (in terms of minimizing loss to heat / whatever): applying 50kW regen for 100m (or yards), or applying 100kW regen for 50m (yards)? All other things being equal.

I suspect that 50kW for 100m is more efficient, but it wouldn't absolutely shock me to hear an argument for the other way around, or for them to be equal.

 

[Jhenson29]

you lost me at "I have a bank account."

(I stopped using banks decades ago. All my money in a brokerage account. Banks are evil)

lol, lost in one sentence? K. Keep wondering how things work then, I guess.

 

[Grim]

In my mind any strategy that uses braking (regen when you take your foot off the accelerator) and acceleration intermittently is less efficient than applying constant and even power through out:
- regen is not 100pct efficient
- acceleration (I’m assuming) less efficient than steady speed

With regen on I tend to find more cycling in terms of how power is applied and therefore more deceleration and acceleration.

Clearly this theory only holds true if regen braking is used when the brake pedal is pressed - which is the case in almost all situations that are relevant in my view. Yes, relatively hard braking will use friction brakes but this will also be the same if you have regen enabled so makes no difference to the comparison of different modes.

So what’s the purpose of regen mode? In my view it’s to mimic the driving experience of an ICE car which naturally slightly slows down when you take your foot off the accelerator. I guess that’s also why regen is by default off in Sport and Sport+ modes and why it’s mild compared to most EVs that have one pedal driving. So nothing to do with efficiency.

… at least that’s my theory

 

[Flying ace]

So what’s the purpose of regen mode? In my view it’s to mimic the driving experience of an ICE car which naturally slightly slows down when you take your foot off the accelerator. I guess that’s also why regen is by default off in Sport and Sport+ modes and why it’s mild compared to most EVs that have one pedal driving. So nothing to do with efficiency.

… at least that’s my theory

I agree with this and was thinking the same thing today driving the car.

I prefer to have regen on in the city. It is very similar to engine braking feel on an ICE. I just prefer it for some reason, and my prior daily was the X5 PHEV.

I know that regen off is the most efficient, but in the city, I cannot adjust my driving style for no regen and tend to go too fast. I used to own a X5 diesel and I was conditioned to let off the gas pedal and coast for max efficiency and allow the engine to recharge the 12v.

On long distance highway trips on both my prior X5 PHEV and my Taycan, I turn regen off. In fact the X5's "Eco" model defaults to no regen.

 

[Poshfpg]

Drive down a mountain in coast mode and the brakes still do a fine job of regenning.

My wife had an i3 for 7 years that had one pedal by default and I loved it in town but since then she has had an ID3 for 3 years and now a Smart #3 which don't have it and driving the Taycan for over 2 years means we now use coast mode all the time and I found the one pedal in a rental Model Y infuriating. I quite like using the brake pedal when I want to slow/stop instead of trying to measure how much to lift off the accelerator.

We found having vastly different settings in the 2 cars was quite dangerous if you were hopping between them. You'd lift off in the Taycan in traffic having been in the ID3 and suddenly have to slam on the brakes when you realised it wasn't slowing down.

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