[OT] Engine braking

[H. S. Teoh]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 12:16:11PM -0700, Adam Wilson wrote:
[...]
> Toyota took it one step further and built a capability into the
> Prius where the electric driveline reverses it's polarity and uses
> motors to slow down the car while simultaneously recharging the
> battery as the car slows down instead of using the brakes. It's
> called regenerative braking. Needless to say, we don't do brakes
> very often on Prius'.
[...]

I got a Prius when renting a car once, and it was incredibly
fuel-efficient. I had it for a week, and drove it all over the place
including from LAX all the way to Irvine and back, and the tank was
still half full by the time I returned the car. I found that when
braking, the dashboard display shows that the battery is recharging. It
even has a diagram to show you how efficient your driving is, and from
experimentation, I found that gradual acceleration/braking resulted in
the highest efficiency (keeps the battery bar near the top) -- probably
because it was maximally postponing fuel consumption and using
regenerative braking instead of the brake pads.

My only regret was paying for the fuel plan (full tank of gas), because
I underestimated the car's efficiency, when I could've just let them
fill up half the tank at the end for a lower total price instead.


T

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