I don't think I can tell the difference between regen braking and friction braking from feel alone. Is there a good way to tell when you've exceeded what regen braking can do, and the friction brakes engage? Thought there might be some significance to this notch on the power meter: . . .but wasn't sure. Does 4 paddles of 'coasting' regen braking give you the same amount of braking force as the brake pedal at the point where the friction brakes engage?
No. The regen levels are obviously disparate from the brakes; while slowing down with your foot already on the brake while approaching a stop sign, if you use the paddles to go from regen level 1 to 4, you can see the charge meter increasing by a tiny bit each time even though your foot is not pressing harder and you're still going slower. The car won't stop on regen alone because of that stupid "we must emulate a gas engine that can't stop just because you're not accelerating" thing. I'd make a wild and uneducated guess that the computer applies more braking power and less regen the slower you get, so that you don't have to stomp on the brakes to get the car to actually stop, and just the light touch works.
When we returned from vacation, our Clarity's brake disks had acquired a somewhat alarming amount of rust and I could hear a swish-swish-swish sound from the brakes as I drove around town. The sound was especially annoying because our Clarity is otherwise so quiet. When I pressed lightly on the brake pedal, the sound immediately changed to a more pronounced rubbing sound as the brake pads contacted the disks and started grinding off the rust. I was surprised because I expected the Clarity's brake pedal would activate regen braking first and add friction braking as needed to bring the car to a complete stop. However, as long as I was pressing on the brake pedal, I could always hear that the calipers were engaged. This experience leads me to believe that the brake pedal activates both the brake calipers and regen braking by the traction motor. The extremely complex braking system can then smoothly vary the two methods of braking to avoid a noticeable transition from regen to friction braking.
Well ****, I didn't realize as soon as I pressed the brake pedal I'd be losing energy to the friction brakes. Guess I'll be using the paddles more often! Thanks for the info.
It was a pain to switch from paddle-first to brake-pedal first--sometimes using near panic-braking force from 60 mph--to wear off the brake-disk rust and return to the serene quiet of EV travel in our Clarity. However, it was instructive to become familiar with how fast a Clarity can stop when you really need it to stop. Now back to paddle-first.
