Recuperation mode?

[gatorfast]

Learn some new stuff.. so it seems I should just let it be automatic unless I have a preference in style of driving/braking?

You can do that, but to throw another variable into your decision - the recouperation on the auto setting is a bit different than the "on" setting. In auto, it will adjust the recoup level based on traffic in front of you and apply much harder recoup to maintain distance to the vehicle in front of you. This can be helpful but also a bit nauseating and closer to the one pedal driving you see in other EVs. The "on" setting is a consistent and gradual/soft recouperation to slow slightly.

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[Gino]

Learn some new stuff.. so it seems I should just let it be automatic unless I have a preference in style of driving/braking?

Recently after I had my 2021 Taycan in for service I had it set to Auto but it is always off now before I drive it and I have to select “ON” or “AUTO” for recuperation to be active.

 

[TonyR]

To add to the above, the car uses the motors to do most of the braking and put the energy back into the battery. The only time it uses the mechanical brakes is if the battery is full and won’t accept any more input from the motors braking, the last few mph when you are coming to a stop, you are just starting off for the first time in the day when it will use the mechanical brakes for around a mile to keep the pads and discs cleaned up or you are braking really hard and the regenerative braking capacity is insufficient for the braking required. New model have a much higher regenerative braking capacity than older ones so are much less likely to get to the fourth scenario

HTH

 

[targa666]

You can actually see it the in the Centre dial. The blue to the right is throttle %. The green to is the left is recuperation %.
As for the physical breaking the first meters : I think the car feels the state of the pads and discs since it's different dayto day when it switches to recuperating. Sometimes I can hear the actual cleaning by braking.

 

[Gino]

You can actually see it the in the Centre dial. The blue to the right is throttle %. The green to is the left is recuperation %.
As for the physical breaking the first meters : I think the car feels the state of the pads and discs since it's different dayto day when it switches to recuperating. Sometimes I can hear the actual cleaning by braking.

Thanks

 

[mystermykee]

As for the physical breaking the first meters : I think the car feels the state of the pads and discs since it's different dayto day when it switches to recuperating.

It's time based--the amount of time your car has been parked.

 

[targa666]

It's time based--the amount of time your car has been parked.

Ah. Ok. Good to know!

 

[Horizontally Opposed]

Mine is a 2024, bought 1/2024. For the first couple years I had regen on all the time. I prefer the slight drag that you get vs just feeling like the car will coast forever.

But, one day as I fooled with the range mode I noticed that in that mode it had deactivated regen. Was regen costing me range?

So I began paying more attention to it, and trips that I take regularly seemed to use less charge than before, by leaving regen off.

So I have it off now most of the time, but I kind of use it like engine breaking by enabling it on a long downhill stretch.

This is all seat of the pants!

 

[Gino]

Mine is a 2024, bought 1/2024. For the first couple years I had regen on all the time. I prefer the slight drag that you get vs just feeling like the car will coast forever.

But, one day as I fooled with the range mode I noticed that in that mode it had deactivated regen. Was regen costing me range?

So I began paying more attention to it, and trips that I take regularly seemed to use less charge than before, by leaving regen off.

So I have it off now most of the time, but I kind of use it like engine breaking by enabling it on a long downhill stretch.

This is all seat of the pants!

Thanks for the insight. It’s counterintuitive but if that’s what you experienced then maybe the benefits of recuperative braking isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

 

[Horizontally Opposed]

It’s counterintuitive but if that’s what you experienced then maybe the benefits of recuperative braking isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

I could not agree more. Completely counterintuitive.

I have no idea how the 2025> cars handle it, but range mode on mine straight up turns off the regen every time. So I’m thinking, ‘why’ unless it is negatively affecting range?

If anyone has the early gen and has a different experience please post it here

 

[prj]

Thanks for the insight. It’s counterintuitive but if that’s what you experienced then maybe the benefits of recuperative braking isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

It's not counter intuitive, regenerating is lossy. Most efficient is to coast and regenerate only when you need it - meaning using the brake pedal or the auto mode.

Having it regen all the time - the driver is human and makes mistakes, so you end up doing a bunch of regen that isn't needed and it makes the range worse. The only way it wouldn't be worse is if it was 100% efficient, but reality is it's 80% at best.

The Taycan is luckily not a Tesla (well, Teslas do have blended braking on the very latest models) and has blended braking from the start, which is a far superior system as far as efficiency is concerned. The reason Tesla did this whole OPD is because they couldn't do blended braking for the longest time - so they called the bug a feature. On all the Teslas apart from the very latest gen touching the brake pedal immediately engages the physical brakes. The Porsche is brake by wire - touching the pedal you just tell it the ABS unit how much you want to slow down and it delivers this using the motors and only uses the actual brakes when you're exceeding the negative torque available from the motors (or in some corner cases of disc cleaning).

 

[Gino]

I could not agree more. Completely counterintuitive.

I have no idea how the 2025> cars handle it, but range mode on mine straight up turns off the regen every time. So I’m thinking, ‘why’ unless it is negatively affecting range?

If anyone has the early gen and has a different experience please post it here

Yes, the point of using the regenerative braking on a downhill instead of using the brakes is supposed to charge back the battery instead of just coasting downhill & riding the breaks. There should be no loss associated with regenerative braking if it is designed correctly.

 

[prj]

Yes, the point of using the regenerative braking on a downhill instead of using the brakes is supposed to charge back the battery instead of just coasting downhill & riding the breaks. There should be no loss associated with regenerative braking if it is designed correctly.

You're wrong, because regenerative braking is around 60-70% efficient, and because on Porsche pressing the brake pedal does not engage the physical brakes until you're well into it. So by using the brake pedal you're always regenerating exactly the amount needed.

Again, it's not a tesla. You're not "riding the brakes", rather you're telling the car how much regen to give you.

As soon as you have a situation where you had lift-off regen and you regenerated too much, and have to apply throttle to speed up again, you lose range. That's why range mode turns lift-off regen OFF.

 

[Gino]

Yes, the point of using the regenerative braking on a downhill instead of using the brakes is supposed to charge back the battery instead of just coasting downhill & riding the breaks. There should be no loss associated with regenerative braking if it is designed correctly.

It doesn’t matter if you only get 80% of the energy back you used to get to the top of a hill. On the downhill side you are using the kinetic energy of the vehicle at speed going downhill which will add energy back to the HV battery which is better than coasting downhill which adds no energy back to the battery. That was the whole point of regenerative braking systems. Use the downhill or braking kinetic energy to put back some charge/range into the HV battery which is supposed to extend range.

 

[prj]

It doesn’t matter if you only get 80% of the energy back you used to get to the top of a hill. On the downhill side you are using the kinetic energy of the vehicle at speed going downhill which will add energy back to the HV battery which is better than coasting downhill which adds no energy back to the battery. That was the whole point of regenerative braking systems. Use the downhill or braking kinetic energy to put back some charge/range into the HV battery which is supposed to extend range.

You still don't understand how the regen works on a Porsche. How are you going to "coast down the hill" exactly with the lift-off regen off?
That's gonna be some crazy speed without touching the brake pedal no?

So you're going to touch the brake and that's going to give you exactly as much regen as you need.
Again, when you press the brake on the Taycan it's not using the brake pads/rotors to slow the car, unless you exceed the regen capability.

Also, the range reduction is when driving on a flat surface and you lift off the gas for some reason. The car immediately starts regenerating, if you actually did not need the regen and just lifted off the gas, then here is your 30% energy loss on the energy it takes to speed back up again, as otherwise you would have coasted.
No energy loss for lifting off the gas with lift-off regen OFF. That's why it's OFF in range mode. It's always more efficient to coast than to regenerate, if it is possible to coast in any given scenario.
Your downhill scenario is not one of them, you will need to slow the car, and you can do that with the brake pedal if the lift-off regen is OFF.

On the Taycan you only control the lift-off regen. The controlled regen via the brake pedal, which is 20 times as strong is always on, and the brakes make no contact until this is exhausted.

It's way more precise and predictable to use the brake pedal to slow the car, rather than have it on the gas pedal. The end result energy wise is exactly the same IF you're a robot-like driver who never lifts off the gas more than was needed. Which none of us are -> hence why Porsche turns off lift-off regen in range mode.

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