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I can see Bolts 1 pedal driving the new road rage trigger

Discussion in 'GM Hybrids and EVs' started by Starship_Enterprius, May 31, 2017.

  1. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    That's actually my plan: wanna be 50' closer to your destination, be my guest. :whistle:
     
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  2. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    No, they didn't.
    Yes, the brake lights are activated when the car is deaccelerating by a certain amount.
    The rapid on-off of the brakes you saw was due to the driver speeding up and slowing down rapidly.

    If someone in any car speeds up and slows down rapidly the brake lights will activate and deactivate.
    Your issue is not with regenerative 'one pedal' driving, it is with people speeding up and slowing down rapidly.
     
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  3. El Dobro

    El Dobro A Member

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    I haven't seen too many manual transmission cars with the brake lights coming on during rapid down shifting. ;)
     
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  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    that's how everyone drives around here.
     
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  5. Starship_Enterprius

    Starship_Enterprius Active Member

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    If someone in any car speeds up".... Any car? I haven't done a thorough check yet so I can be wrong, but I think so far GM is the only one lighting up the brakes on regens'.

    Also according to some of the Bolt forum members, the brake lights will come up EVERYTIME you take your foot off the accelerator in L (Low)... so there goes your argument. It is possible the 0.1g deceleration trigger only occurs in D or you play with the regen paddles enough to set it off... I don't know, who cares? The point is it will come out (sometime or a lot of times) at the most unexpected moment. All it takes is one bad occurrence to start a chain reaction.
     
  6. El Dobro

    El Dobro A Member

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    The i3 brake lights come on during regen.
     
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  7. Starship_Enterprius

    Starship_Enterprius Active Member

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    Thanks... fortunately they are so rare I haven't been behind one yet. Do they have a very strong regen and do they accelerate rapidly? It is possible the combination of quick Bolts (pun) and sudden regens combined with a brake light is stronger with the Bolt to be alarming (at least to me).
     
  8. bhtooefr

    bhtooefr Senior Member

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    Strong regenerative braking, as well as brake pedal usage, is what will trigger brake lights in most cars capable of it.

    Teslas will do it too.
     
  9. Starship_Enterprius

    Starship_Enterprius Active Member

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    And yet I haven't experienced the same erratic behaviour behind a Tesla. I'm beginning to think it's the L mode in Bolt where the brake lights up every time you lift of the accelerator.
     
  10. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    VW BEVs also have the brake lights come on with heavy regen. If a deceleration rate of x or higher requires brake light activation isn't in a vehicle code some where, and the manufacturers have come to the conclusion it is needed for safety and liability.

    So the driver of the Bolt you saw either...
    • was unfamiliar with one pedal driving. The feel of steering, braking, and acceleration varies between ICE cars. One pedal driving is a further divergence from that norm. So people new too it will need time to adjust. Keep the gas pedal pressed half way to coast is a new concept for the majority of drivers out there.
    • or is just drives aggressively no matter what car they are in. You might even have crossed paths with him before, but just brushed it off as some jerk driver because his car model was one you've seen hundreds of times.
     
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  11. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    Most likely that is because you haven't experienced someone in a Tesla driving that erratically.
    My understanding is that the brake lights light, when the car slows down at, or above a certain rate. As I recall it is 0.2G, but it may be slightly more or less.

    All EVs that slow down at, or above that rate, will light the brake lights.
    If the Bolt driver had slowed down as quickly by using friction brakes, you would have seen the same thing.
    If a Gen 2 Prius had sped up and slowed down as quickly (requiring friction brakes) you would see the same thing.

    Brake lights are SUPPOSED to light when the car slows down. Don't blame the brake lights for lighting as designed, blame the driver for changing speed so much.
     
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  12. Starship_Enterprius

    Starship_Enterprius Active Member

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    No, brakes normally are not supposed to light up when you slow down unless you put on the brakes. Only the advent of EV's have introduced auto brake lights. And not all implement it the same as GM.

    Also i would never see the same if an ICE or the Gen 2 Prius in traffic accelerate as rapidly as a Bolt (0-30 in 2.9 secs), suddenly lift off their foot off the accelerator, transfer that same foot to the brake pedal, then depress the pedal deep enough the friction brakes engage and brakes light. None of us can move AS FAST as a Bolt driver simply lifting off the pedal...unless your The Flash. Even the regular Bolt driver that you bring up if on Low cannot stomp the friction brake and beat the automatic lights due to regen. So just give it up Zyth... this is your 3rd rebuttal and really your points are not even making sense at all.

    I still believe some adjustment needs to be done on how GM designed and implemented the brake lights on the Bolt on Low (i assume). Maybe let the Bolt free wheel a split second before increasing to full regen just to mimic the usual ICE behaviour we are used to. Some miniscule efficiency can easily be given up for safety sake. I might not get any sympathies here, but hopefully by bringing this up some one up the food chain will give it a thought. Or if not maybe after a couple of years when bolts become common more people will pop up with the same complaint and move them to do something.
     
  13. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    I watch these guys gas/brake/gas/brake, a half a block down the road, day after day. They stand on the brake, I coast up to them. They floor it, I start gradually speeding up. I stick to the right lane, and the speed limits. No problems.
     
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  14. ssdesigner

    ssdesigner Active Member

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    I'm not sure if you're saying this because you feel it's a bad thing, but this is the mentality of most drivers. Like getting somewhere is some sort of race we need to 'win'. I don't, and will never, understand this thought process. The reason traffic slows down is bottleneck. Everyone refusing to allow space to let traffic merge = bottleneck. People always in such a big damn hurry, and for what? Shave 30 seconds off your trip? UGH.
     
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  15. ssdesigner

    ssdesigner Active Member

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    Thank you!

    I wish more people felt this way. It would make slower traffic at least move along at a pace vs. bottlenecked and stopped.
     
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  16. Montgomery

    Montgomery Senior Member

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    For some reason, when I read the word "perfectly" I can hear Hal9000's voice.........................................
     
    #36 Montgomery, Jun 6, 2017
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2017
  17. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    <sigh>
    Ok, let me try this again, as I think we are just talking past each other.
    The basic purpose for brake lights are not to warn you someone is pressing a pedal in the car. They are there to warn people a car is slowing down.
    I don't care if someone is touching a pedal in their car, I care if a car is slowing down.
    Now, with ICE cars, this warning has, lazily, been placed on the brake pedal. This works well for most ICE cars as the only time they are slowing moderately quickly is when the driver presses the brake pedal.

    Hybrids introduced regenerative braking. This regenerative braking was not seen as significant enough to require automatic brake lights, thus they didn't get introduced.
    Now, with some cars having larger batteries which can take more energy, the rate of slowing has increased, thus the brake lights triggered by an accelerometer was born.
    Now, I am not SURE that everyone does it this way, but I know Tesla and BMW do, and I strongly suspect everyone else does as well.

    If a car is slowing down rapidly and speeding up repeatedly, I think it would be a safety issue if the brake lights didn't light.

    With this said, please note, nowhere did I say that the Bolt's solution is well done, or doesn't need tweaking.

    What I am saying, is that it is not regenerative braking per se that is the issue, but the way the driver was operating the vehicle.
     
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  18. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Brake lights are a safety signal to let cars behind you that you are slowing down and may even stop. Their activation is tied to the brake pedal simply because that was the easiest way to do it, and it the friction brakes was how most people slowed their car quickly, but I've witnessed a near crash when someone severely downshifted and/or pulled the emergency brake without touching the brake pedal because they got pissed at a tailgater.

    Moving brake light activation to a deceleration rate is a good thing for driving safety.

    I think you'd be surprised at the foot dancing experienced manual drivers are capable of. Then there are people like my father that brake with their left foot. Some of those have enough resting pressure on the brake pedal to activate the lights all the time.

    Without being in the car, you can't say if this Bolt driver had the car in D, and was using the brake pedal.

    I think you, and perhaps this Bolt driver, are not fully comprehending how one pedal driving works.

    There is a midpoint of the accelerator's travel in which energy flow is stopped, and the car is effectively in neutral. Depress the pedal, and energy flows to the motor for acceleration. Release the pedal, and energy flows from the motor/generator. To a battery, we call it regenerative braking. To a bank of resistors, it's named dynamic braking. The energy flow is not simply on or off like it is with the tiny bit of regen a hybrid accelerator pedal has. It is variable, and increases the further away from that neutral point the pedal moves.

    In short, one pedal driving allows the same control over the amount of regen braking force from the accelerator as is possible through the brake pedal.

    Toyota has had to tweak the feel and operation of their hybrids' brakes. Blending friction and regen on one pedal isn't easy, and why some BEVs have had regen brake control done completely through the accelerator, and left the brake pedal to control just the friction brakes. So it is possible that GM needs to make adjustments to their system on the Bolt, or this sole example of a Bolt driver needed more pratice with one pedal driving, or just driving in general.
     
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  19. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    what we need is traffic police who actually try to do something about erratic driving.
     
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  20. bhtooefr

    bhtooefr Senior Member

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    I will say, in the Model S I test drove, getting all 60 kW of regen on the accelerator took a fair amount of getting used to. The way they described it to me was that it was like driving a manual ICE car in 2nd, and I'd actually concur with that.

    However, it does mean that they didn't need to worry about a blended brake pedal at all.