On the 2025 Camry, we have an S mode that lets you shift virtual gears. I suspect the lower gears can act like the old B gear. From the manual : ■S mode ●You can choose from 6 levels of accelerating force and engine braking force. ●A lower shift range will provide greater accelerating force and engine braking force than a higher shift range, and the engine revolutions will also increase. ●When the shift range is S4 or lower, holding the shift lever or paddle shift switch (if equipped) toward “+” sets the shift range to S6. ●To prevent the engine from over-revving, upshifting may automatically occur when the shift range is 4 or lower.
Maybe more accurate to say "to a complete stop electrically alone"—certainly with regen almost all the way down to 0 MPH, but the way the MG's generated voltage also drops toward zero as the speed does, there's a limit to the rate of slowing you can get from regen alone in those last moments rolling to a stop. But there's no difficulty in the car supplementing that with a little bit of motor current in the reverse direction in those last moments, all transparently so you don't have to know the details. You can bring a Prius all the way to a stop that way too: just slow it by regen alone to below 6 MPH or so and then shift to R (above 6 MPH the car doesn't let you), and at the exact moment 0 MPH is hit, stab the brakes. That's my standard Prius test for brake drag, because engaging the friction brakes only at 0 MPH to keep the car stopped means they make no heat, so the test for drag isn't spoiled. A Prius reprogrammed for one-pedal driving could easily do the same, automatically. But what the standard Prius programming does instead is apply a small amount of forward motor current near 0 MPH, to emulate the behavior of a standard automatic transmission that wants to creep forward when you're not on the brake. Me, I'd be happy if I had a setting to just not apply any motor current, forward or reverse, automatically at that moment—just have a car that rolls out to a natural stop without trying to creep forward or to stop sooner. I can use the brake to stop sooner, and without the programmed-in creep, I could make nicer limo stops.
The manual language was the same with older years and between the hybrid and ICE models. Even when the Camry hybrid had B and no virtual gears, it said, "Position for engine braking" for B. Since the goal is to provide more braking force through the drive train, Toyota isn't concerned with drawing a distinction between the engine and motor in the manual. The software will use whatever it thinks is best. It is just that the size of the hybrid's battery would quickly fill with the required increase in regen. So the system goes right to increased engine revs. Got curious and looked at the bZ4X manual. There is a regen boost button next to the shifter. Press it and regen while foot off the accelerator increases the regen braking amount. Going to guess it isn't any different than shifting to B in a Prime/PHV. A button that isn't on the steering wheel makes it seem like an 'engine braking gear' was an afterthought to the rotary shifter design. Other BEVs use the lower gear positions of a traditional shifter instead of a button. The hybrid battery size was a limit on the level of regen braking. (I guess excess energy MG 2 could make could go to MG 1 to spin the engine, but that seems Goldbergesque for a drive train the connects the wheels to the engine.) I could have been conflating that to lower regen braking force. Has anyone measured the max deceleration rate before the friction brakes will be used? I'm seeing 0.2g max for a Tesla's one pedal braking. Your method of getting regen braking down to 0mph is proof that there are limits within the hybrid system. We could do it in the software, and pretend adding lines of code never messes anything up. I saw in the manual that you could do this with a Tesla. One pedal can be turned off, and the car set to coast instead of a faux auto trans creep. wouldn't surprise me if others had such setting options.
