I was told by a long-time Kona Electric owner (but haven't verified on my 2020) that the brake lights show up when using the regen paddle when the regen is set to two or three bars, but not one or zero bars.
That is the normal behaviour on mine but I only use the 'Normal' driving mode, also known as 'Comfort' mode in some markets. A
video I just watched demonstrated that in 'Sport' mode the regen levels are reduced and the brake light action changes accordingly, all of that is news to me.
I use Normal mode simply to get the proper dash speedometer. The car is no slower, only the accelerator pedal calibration is altered in Sport and Eco modes.
Also, the car auto-holds if brought to a stop using the regen paddle even if Auto Hold is not enabled.
I wonder what the logic was NOT to have the brake lights enabled when Auto Hold is enabled and one releases the foot brake?
Auto Hold is the same as in
ICE cars, holds the friction brakes after the brake pedal is released at a full stop. I believe that the brake lights stay lit for the duration, meaning until the accelerator pedal is pressed.
Left-paddle-hold is unrelated to Auto Hold and only uses the traction motor to decelerate and hold at a complete stop. The giveaway is that the car rocks slightly once stopped, a source of minor complaints back in the day. However it's totally normal within the industrial technology of motor controls and is known as 'deadband'. It's required to minimise noise (and heating) from the motor while holding a fixed position. That noise is a high-pitched tingling, coincidentally another source of irritation for those with excellent hearing.
I have noticed that if the left-paddle stop occurs on a moderate downhill slope that the friction brakes take over seamlessly. The giveaway is that there is no rocking and when continuing a slight clunk is heard as the pads release. Again there is precedent in the technology - a motor can overheat quickly when holding a fixed position under a moderate load. Industrial robots typically have brakes to hold position past a certain time interval if the axis loading can't easily be counterweighted.
There's no obvious reason why the Kona's brake light switches off the moment (actually a fraction of a second earlier) the car stops. I was going to annoy our importer about this safety technicality but it turns out that our law only requires that the lights are lit when the "service brakes" are applied. I have a tell-tail LED to indicate when my Kona's brake lights are on.
However
this US owner (who coincidentally used to frequent this forum) reports a software update changed that.
For further entertainment try left-paddle hold on slopes while in reverse.
