Chevron's vanishing act...

[Frankwell]

I may be off base, but I think the point is that it is more economic to use the potential "regen" energy to accelerate if you are going down a hill rather than to use the electric motors to push it into the battery with at most a 90% efficiency. This is why a cruise control with too tight a speed constraint for the speed will hurt mpg, but one with too loose a constraint will annoy drivers (too slow up hill, too fast down). Similarly, it is better to coast to a stop than to use regen to do it, just as described earlier, hard to perfectly do and may annoy those behind you that you have too big a following distance to the car in front of you.

I don't think we got into the downhill topic but yes that can be added to the list. I think the point of most of the discussion has been about misconceptions, not necessarily anyone here but just the general misconceptions that many owners have. Like the somewhat common belief that regen is only possible using the paddles. Or that regen is most effective using the paddles. Which into the finer points might be partially true, but likely not as much as some people think. Most of these areas of discussion it really becomes a question of how much efficiency can be gained doing the various things discussed. Only way to know for sure is through experimentation, ideally on a repeatable route in similar weather conditions. And of course only for those who are interested, which obviously isn't everyone.

I tend to think however that significant gains can likely only be realized by making somewhat radical changes to driving style, like going substantially slower. Or doing super long coasts at every stop regardless of whether someone is behind you or not. On that topic I find that many times I can see ahead and if the light is red and there is a line of cars, it's quite obvious that even if the light turned green right now I'm still going to be coming to a complete stop, so I start coasting. That's a change that gives you a little gain without making any real sacrifice. The person behind me sometimes gets annoyed because they aren't paying attention to the upcoming intersection and they want to keep charging at the light full speed in case it turns green. In those cases I will sometimes go ahead and annoy them because I know in reality I am not being a hinderance because we are going to stop one way or the other.

Coasting downhill and going slower uphill can help, and even if the gains are small if someone has hills as part of their daily driving those gains could in theory add up. However again as you mentioned there is the possibility of affecting other drivers, which personally I think should be taken into consideration, but others have more of a "they can go around me" attitude. Well as long as they aren't breaking the law I guess that's their right.

 

[David Towle]

Its easy to coast a lot where I live because all significant roads have 2 or 3 lanes in each direction. I can stay in the far right and stoplight racers can easily go around.

 

[Landshark]

I think the point of most of the discussion has been about misconceptions, not necessarily anyone here but just the general misconceptions that many owners have. Like the somewhat common belief that regen is only possible using the paddles. Or that regen is most effective using the paddles.

Certainly, your part of the discussion has been about misconceptions. The original question was simply about maintaining regen settings outside of Sport mode.

I have to ask: Since the discussion is taking place on this thread, on this forum, amongst this group of owners, where do these misconceptions exist, if not in the minds of the owners who are posting here?