Drive mode options

[ssspinball]

I got the i3 as my first EV and it's one-pedal regen default has completely spoiled me. It's one of the best things about the car.I hope the Bolt has something very similar, because I drove the 2nd gen Volt and is was notably inferior for my preferences. I'll take 1 pedal over 2 pedals and a paddle any day!

Also have to disagree with JPWhite about one-pedal on the highway. I prefer one-pedal in every scenario I've encountered. It just feels natural, just like you'd fly a plane by lowering the throttle to slow down. No switching between inputs necessary. I can easily coast in my i3 without thinking about it or looking at the instruments.

I've not driven many other one-pedal EVs so it could be that BMW nailed this and others haven't figured it out yet. Maybe I wouldn't like one-pedal driving either if I was only exposed to the other cars and not the i3.

 

[SeanNelson]

I got the i3 as my first EV and it's one-pedal regen default has completely spoiled me. It's one of the best things about the car.I hope the Bolt has something very similar, because I drove the 2nd gen Volt and is was notably inferior for my preferences.

My understanding is that if you shift the Bolt into "L" mode then the amount of regenerative braking you get when you lift your foot off the accelerator is not only more aggressive but that it will in fact bring the car to a complete stop and hold it there. And to avoid accidents where someone thoughtlessly gets out of the car when it's being held in place that way, the car will automatically apply the parking brake when you open the door in such a scenario.

 

[NeilBlanchard]

The Bolt EV will have the buttons on the back of the left side of the steering wheel to increase / decrease regen.

My issues with one pedal schemes is you have to work to coast, and you cannot rest your leg. Which is an issue on longer drives.

 

[SeanNelson]

My issues with one pedal schemes is you have to work to coast, and you cannot rest your leg. Which is an issue on longer drives.

To be fair, if the Bolt works like most other electric cars then you'll have to work to coast even in "D" mode, since the default when you lift your foot off the pedal is to simulate the same kind of compression braking you get with a gasoline engine. The only true way to coast with your foot off the pedal is to select "N" (neutral).

One of the few things I've seen in the Bolt that I don't like is that it looks like you can't shift between "D" and "N" without going through "P", which would seem to preclude using it for coasting.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

One of the few things I've seen in the Bolt that I don't like is that it looks like you can't shift between "D" and "N" without going through "P", which would seem to preclude using it for coasting.

I haven't noticed this "feature", but why would anyone design a shifter like that? I've never seen anything but N being between D and R (the Leaf not withstanding, they kind of threw away the linear shifting concept)

 

[JPWhite]

My issues with one pedal schemes is you have to work to coast, and you cannot rest your leg. Which is an issue on longer drives.

On a longer drive I'd use cruise control. I find with a car with the ability to regen, cruise control can be more useful than is the case with gasoline vehicles.

Using just the controls on the steering wheel I can gently accelerate if need be by choosing "Accel" or slow down using "Coast". The regen means the car slows noticeably when depressing the coast button

I refer to it as "no pedal driving"

If the Bolt comes with adaptive cruise control then there is no disadvantage to using the one pedal driving around town and use adaptive cruise on the highway.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

My issues with one pedal schemes is you have to work to coast, and you cannot rest your leg. Which is an issue on longer drives.

On a longer drive I'd use cruise control. I find with a car with the ability to regen, cruise control can be more useful than is the case with gasoline vehicles.

Using just the controls on the steering wheel I can gently accelerate if need be by choosing "Accel" or slow down using "Coast". The regen means the car slows noticeably when depressing the coast button

I refer to it as "no pedal driving"

If the Bolt comes with adaptive cruise control then there is no disadvantage to using the one pedal driving around town and use adaptive cruise on the highway.

+1 for cruise control. Unfortunately cruise control is less efficient than an experienced hypermiler. With a BEV inefficient driving has a different cost. Rather than costing a few dollars more at the pump (which is practically always located where you need it), the car has a few percentage points less range. This can be the difference between making it to the next EVSE or needing a tow. Unfortunately, the chargers are too rare these days. Hopefully that will change with the arrival of the Bolt et. al.

Moreover, even if you do arrive at the charger, using less energy means you need to spend less time charging. This is far less important than actually making it, but still you spend more time charging than filling a gas tank.

 

[DucRider]

Those looking to hypermile don't like automatic regen at all. They want it only when braking is required.

The most efficient way to drive an EV (or any vehicle for that matter) is to keep the power needle as close to zero as possible (most EV's show power draw or regen earned). Regen is not 100% efficient. It is much more efficient to coast down hills (gaining speed) and use the momentum to avoid drawing from the battery. It also pays to accelerate verrrry slowly and lift waaaay early to avoid using brakes when approaching a red light.

Taken to extreme, these techniques are unsafe in traffic and may provoke a certain amount of road rage from other drivers.

Most EV's will be sold to people who want to drive them in a way that pretty much goes with the flow of traffic. And the torque is just way too much fun to always drive like a granny!

I don't know how "light" you can get the regen using the paddle shifters, but they are an excellent feature that will be beneficial however you choose to drive.

No adaptive cruise on the Bolt.

 

[SeanNelson]

Most EV's will be sold to people who want to drive them in a way that pretty much goes with the flow of traffic. And the torque is just way too much fun to always drive like a granny!

Oh yeah! I hate, HATE wasting gas and so I always drive very conservatively. But I can't wait to get my hands on an EV where I can drive any way I want without worrying about the environmental cost. Virtually 100% of our power here is hydroelectric, so the only downside will on my electric bill.

Decades of conservative driving is probably a habit that's too hard to break, but I'd still like the opportunity to try!

 

[JPWhite]

+1 for cruise control. Unfortunately cruise control is less efficient than an experienced hypermiler. With a BEV inefficient driving has a different cost. Rather than costing a few dollars more at the pump (which is practically always located where you need it), the car has a few percentage points less range. This can be the difference between making it to the next EVSE or needing a tow. Unfortunately, the chargers are too rare these days. Hopefully that will change with the arrival of the Bolt et. al.

Moreover, even if you do arrive at the charger, using less energy means you need to spend less time charging. This is far less important than actually making it, but still you spend more time charging than filling a gas tank.

A hypermiler can get better efficiency compared to cruise, but then again a hypermiler will probably never use one pedal driving either. Hypermilers are welcome to their art form, I'm not one of them.

Each to his own. I use a combination of Waze and LEAFSpy pro in my LEAF. I compare the distance to destination, distance to LBW and if I'm doing a constant 65 and have 3 miles 'to spare' I use cruise to speed up to 70 if the speed limit allows. I keep an eye on the 3 mile buffer and make further adjustments as necessary.

For me the consistency of speed cruise gives you more range predictability and the ability to use every extra watt of energy to get you where you are going as fast as possible with no fear of running out.

My guess is that once I start driving a 200+ mile EV compared to the 2011 LEAF I'll quit measuring so closely and just drive, range no longer being a factor for almost all journeys.

 

[Devin]

My guess is that once I start driving a 200+ mile EV compared to the 2011 LEAF I'll quit measuring so closely and just drive, range no longer being a factor for almost all journeys.

That's pretty much what happened to me once I got the RAV4 EV and realized that I could confidently exceed 100 miles range in almost any circumstance Southern California could throw at me. Any longer trip and I would revert to my LEAF hypermiling ways, but for most day-to-day driving range was no longer a factor.

 

[SeanNelson]

For me the consistency of speed cruise gives you more range predictability and the ability to use every extra watt of energy to get you where you are going as fast as possible with no fear of running out.

You must live in a relatively flat area. Cruise control is no guarantee of anything where I live, because the grades I encounter in the next 5 miles may not be anything like the last 5 miles' worth of them. And on a road going through rolling hills the cruise control will apply regenerative braking on the "downs" and then have to feed in extra power on the "ups" in order to maintain a constant speed. It's a lot more efficient to just keep a mostly steady throttle position so that the speed you gain on the "downs" can be used to get over the "ups" without wasting energy unnecessarily.

A driver that can see the road ahead can make much more informed decisions about the best throttle position than a cruise control that uses speed (and maybe distance to the car ahead) as its only inputs.

On relatively flat terrain a cruise control works great. But just because it works well there doesn't mean it's always the best choice in every situation.

 

[ssspinball]

My issues with one pedal schemes is you have to work to coast, and you cannot rest your leg. Which is an issue on longer drives.

Personally haven't found this to be a case with my i3, as I use adaptive cruise control in most scenarios (even in city traffic), but just like with gas cars I would never do any sort of long distance highway driving without cruise control.

If the Bolt comes with adaptive cruise control then there is no disadvantage to using the one pedal driving around town and use adaptive cruise on the highway.

Exactly, but if the ACC is good enough you can also use it in the city. This somewhat depends on your location as I imagine drivers in, for example, LA are far more aggressive than some other places. ACC works best when other drivers are not completely manic, as it is usually pacing the car in front of you and has to readjust every time someone switches lanes right in front of you

 

[ssspinball]

And the torque is just way too much fun to always drive like a granny!

Guilty! :mrgreen:

I don't know how "light" you can get the regen using the paddle shifters, but they are an excellent feature that will be beneficial however you choose to drive.

Strongly disagree. A paddle on the steering wheel would not improve my i3 driving style at all, in fact it would be a negative as I would then be required to use my hand to control deceleration instead of my foot--Where that input has historically been controlled for the last 100 years of the automobile.

No adaptive cruise on the Bolt.

That's really unfortunate.

 

[NeilBlanchard]

I dislike cruise control, for several reasons. And it is no substitute for coasting. Only the e-Golf has coasting by default, as far as I know. I shift into neutral (by shifting into R above 7MPH) in our Leaf. The downside is having to shift back into D to either accelerate again, or to get regen.

Coasting when you can is the most efficient way to drive, bar none. Having regen is great, but why do we need to mimic ICE's?

Use regen only when you need to slow down, and save energy for more spirited acceleration, if that is your choice. I've been know to enjoy acceleration once in a while.

 

[JPWhite]

I shift into neutral (by shifting into R above 7MPH) in our Leaf. The downside is having to shift back into D to either accelerate again, or to get regen.
.

Why select R in order to get to neutral?

Simply pull the puck towards you and hold for about 1 sec in a central position and the car shifts into neutral. It can also be done below 7mph which is handy for coasting downhill in nose to tail traffic at very slow speeds.

 

[DucRider]

You can coast in any EV - it's just harder on some than others. If you work it, you can maintain a neutral throttle (same as coasting). It's easier with light regen. The i3 has a coast mode, (albeit a little hard to find) you get it by depressing the throttle about an inch and the car will coast without further "feathering" of the throttle.

The Bolt was designed to exactly mmimic a typical ICE car with .2g's of decel while in Drive mode. You can then use the paddles for regen on demand, or shift into Low mode for even stronger regen.

But more to the point. If EV's are to become mainstream, they need to be accessible and familiar to the masses. I'm not a hypermiler (and have no wish to be). I'm used to "engine braking" on all my vehicles, and on the motorcycle it's a good way to ride in a spirited fashion while minimizing inputs that upset the chassis. Test rode a Zero motorcycle, and it has little to no regen by default. Scary.

For better or worse, EV's will to a certain degree mimic ICE vehicles - it's what drivers are familiar with and have come to expect. A good example is creep mode. It's available on some EV's (It will engage on the Bolt if you use the friction brakes).

That being said, regen and much of the mimicking of ICE vehicles is controlled by software, and as such should be adjustable by the user to their preferences. When not adjustible, most manufacturers tend towards what is familiar to the masses. As much as you love coast mode, you are in the minority (but majority if you are a hypermiler - whether EV or ICE).

 

[GetOffYourGas]

I shift into neutral (by shifting into R above 7MPH) in our Leaf. The downside is having to shift back into D to either accelerate again, or to get regen.
.

Why select R in order to get to neutral?

Simply pull the puck towards you and hold for about 1 sec in a central position and the car shifts into neutral. It can also be done below 7mph which is handy for coasting downhill in nose to tail traffic at very slow speeds.

It's just much quicker to push the shifter to "R" than to hold and wait. There is no other reason to do it that way.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

That being said, regen and much of the mimicking of ICE vehicles is controlled by software, and as such should be adjustable by the user to their preferences. When not adjustible, most manufacturers tend towards what is familiar to the masses. As much as you love coast mode, you are in the minority (but majority if you are a hypermiler - whether EV or ICE).

IMHO, VW got this right. In the eGolf, you have the option to have coasting, ICE-like behavior, or one-pedal driving. Switching between the modes on the road is easy to do.

 

[ssspinball]

Having regen is great, but why do we need to mimic ICE's?

Agree, which is why the i3 (and I believe Tesla) does not mimic ICE at all. It is trivial to coast in an i3 with no shifting needed. It sounds like the Bolt unfortunately was not designed this way and honestly this might be a dealbreaker for me after a test drive.

That being said, regen and much of the mimicking of ICE vehicles is controlled by software, and as such should be adjustable by the user to their preferences.

Exactly! I cannot understand why they would do something so unusual as adding a steering wheel paddle instead of just letting the driver adjust this in the settings? It's not like they don't already have many, many user adjustable settings and only getting more each year.