Brake regen has been on BMWs for over 10 years (2010 for F01 7 Series) to recharge the 12V battery.
I’m not sure what you mean by this.
What that means is if you coast under the speed limit, you must use les feux de détresse de son véhicule or risk a $100+ fine per SAAQ.
Meaning, if coasting takes you from point A to point B, regen braking will take you from point A to some point well short of point B ... more energy is needed up front to get you all the way to point B (the red light, in my analogy). And time doesn't really factor into it very much when it comes to things like red lights; whatever is saved by getting there quicker will be spent by waiting longer.
The SE's high regenerative braking is 0.19g, low regenerative braking is 0.11g. I don't know what max is for friction brakes, but I know from experience combined with high regenerative braking it's much higher than 0.19g.
The 0.3 figure I think came from what the article said the Porsche’s regen was capable of… which is pretty aggressive, and makes their claim that it covers ”the vast majority” of braking scenarios seem perfectly reasonable.
I didn’t mean A to B quicker. The SE coasts down so slowly that coasting is almost useless — if not impossible — in most urban and suburban driving situations. But let’s assume you’re cruising down some six-lane suburban stroad between Best Buy and Home Depot on a Monday at 10:30 am and the lights are a mile apart. You’ll need to get up to speed quicker if you want to coast down before the next light, while I accelerate more slowly and decelerate gradually while the needle dips below zero. Anyway, whatever, without empirical evidence one way or the other I’m willing to bet the difference between them is likely negligible. In good weather I’m able to get 145 miles on a charge driving my way, which is without worrying about coasting or ultimate efficiency. Yes, the car is green and saves me money and I feel good about that, but above all else it’s able to be clean and green and save me money while also being a total blast to drive.
Imagine what they'd say about a manual transmission
The stoplight is just one example for simple illustrative purposes, but there are a lot of other situations... approaching slower traffic up ahead, taking a long-ish freeway offramp, etc. I coast all the time in my Cooper S, and that coasts down much slower than the SE does.
Ok, but the question was whether 1-pedal driving is the most efficient way of driving. And unless the laws of physics have been suspended, harvesting kinetic energy back into a battery is always going to put less back than was spent to provide the kinetic energy in the first place. Coasting has losses due to friction (mechanical friction, rolling resistance, air resistance, etc.)... regen braking has those same friction losses PLUS the losses inherent in the regen process. That was the entire point the red light example was intended to convey. Again, much better than throwing all that energy away in heat with traditional brakes, but still less efficient than coasting by itself.
Assuming the same wheel-bearings are on both cars, wouldn't the heavier SE with its more efficient tires coast down slower than a Cooper S? Of course, it requires a sensitive ankle to induce coasting in the SE, but I believe it would coast further than a Cooper S. It's too bad Bimmercode can't enable the programming of a coasting button.
