Auto-Regen Ignorance

[4thPcar]

I love this feature and wish I could have it permanently engaged. But I'm wondering...when it does engage in slowing the vehicle, does the car's brake light also engage (I am thinking no), and does the engine braking reduce brake pad wear (I'm thinking yes?)

Sponsored

 

[Jasper4S]

I love this feature and wish I could have it permanently engaged. But I'm wondering...when it does engage in slowing the vehicle, does the car's brake light also engage (I am thinking no), and does the engine braking reduce brake pad wear (I'm thinking yes?)

I noticed when driving at night that the brake lights actually engage sometimes. When the regen kicks in to brake because another vehicle is getting close, it sometimes used the brake lights. I knew because of the red hue in the dark behind my car. I remember one other forum thread about this, and the conclusion back then was that lights did not engage.

 

[Jhenson29]

does the engine braking reduce brake pad wear (I'm thinking yes?)

Not relative to using the brake pedal which also uses regen.

Yes relative to pads, but that’s not what’s engaged when you press the pedal. At least not at equivalent decel rates to auto recup.

 

[bn8959]

There is a lot going on. Firstly a huge proportion of any braking (both the car managed ‘regenerative’ braking and via the pedal) is done via the motors (ie Regenerative), you have to be braking really quite hard for the physical brakes to come in to play.

however, when the car is doing its regen braking it can automatically vary the amount it does - for example by adjusting based on traffic in front (especially if you have ACC). There is a formula where it will engage the brake light itself (without you pressing the pedal) and it’s based on some legal directive around the rate of retardatation. There is another post on this with the actual figures.
So basically, yes the brake light can come on, but now always.

 

[Tooney]

Couple of old threads on this. This is one of them.

 

[Jhenson29]

And another
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/regenerative-braking-brake-lights-on.6950/#post-100096

 

[anonymouse]

does the engine braking reduce brake pad wear

Brake pad wear in a Taycan should be very slight. If you use auto-regeneration it will rarely use the brakes ... AND ... if you turn off regen and use the brake pedal it will ALSO rarely use the brakes. The Taycan slows the vehicle by recovering energy as much as it can.

As you will have seen in the threads linked above, in a Taycan normal use of the brake pedal is translated by the vehicle into a request for regenerative braking. If you need more, or stamp on the brake pedal, it will of course use the brake pads.

The inverse problem affects EVs: there is so little use of brake pads that they can deteriorate because of under-use. To counteract this the Porsche has a routine where it will briefly apply the "real" brakes on occasion - see the manual for further details. The driver is most likely unaware that this is happening. (In my Tesla we had to simulate this by doing the occasional emergency stop, which was a far less elegant solution ).

 

[W1NGE]

I love this feature and wish I could have it permanently engaged. But I'm wondering...when it does engage in slowing the vehicle, does the car's brake light also engage (I am thinking no), and does the engine braking reduce brake pad wear (I'm thinking yes?)

In general recuperation doesn't engage the brake lights - deceleration isn't strong enough.

Brake pads aren't used to brake. The motors are. No discernible increase in pad wear.

Braking in general uses the motors and not the pads. Pads used on start up for first few miles or on heavy braking.

Sponsored