Regenerative braking - revisited

[CommonSense]

In the 19-page "I cancelled my R1S" thread, there was a comment:

I was worried about 1 pedal driving for all of 5 mins on my first ever time driving a Rivian. I’ve had it for two weeks now and I love it. Couldn’t imagine not having it.

I've had my R1S for six months and I dislike how regenerative braking was implemented on the Rivian. It has grown to become one of my biggest dislikes.

I much prefer Porsche's regen braking setup , which drives like a regular car - the vehicle coasts as you lift off the accelerator and then regen brakes when you push on the brake pedal, pushing harder on the brake pedal engages the actual brakes after you are at max regen.

I'm not sure why Rivian believes 'coasting' is not a valuable driving mode that would not be missed.

a) it's more efficient. It is a bit hard to hit the 'not accelerating' , 'not regen braking' sweet spot on the Rivian, so in reality you're just oscillating back and forth between them. Maybe without an equivalent of any engine drag this would be unnerving?

b) bumpy roads can be challenging in the Rivian. It's really hard to maintain that tight sweet spot when bouncing around in your seat - you hit a bump , decelerate, foot goes in , vehicle accelerates, foot lifts off, vehicle decelerates (and that cycle repeats for a good 4-5 times.

I can live with a) of course, it's a bit jarring to switch back and forth between the Rivian and my other cards, it's more b) that is a real problem for me, it's harder to drive the Rivian smoothly , compared to a normal car.

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[TollKeeper]

I completely agree.. To a point. Still waiting for my R1S to be delivered. It will likely be a steep learning curve for me.. That said, I coast.. A LOT. I approach an exit, I am already coasting 1/4 to 1/2 mile before the exit, and all the way down the ramp.

Like a passive regen mode needs to be created, like you experienced in the VW.

One other thing I noticed, on my test drive a couple weeks ago, the R1T that was also on a test drive in front of me, the brake lights didnt come on till about 10-15 feet from the vehicle stopping. I do wonder if this is contributing to all the rear end accidents.

 

[Andystroh]

Honestly I agree. I’m used to it, of course, but the ID.4 gives you the option to easily switch between how the rivian (1 pedal) drives, or how you described above with the Porsche (2 pedal). When I owned it I would use 1 pedal in cities and two pedal on the highway. I think coasting on the highway is valuable.

 

[superfly_snook]

I drove my wife’s e-tron SUV after my first few weeks in the R1S and definitely noticed how smooth it is at coasting - so I agree that is the one thing that jumped out at me that Audi has pretty dialed (I think their Adaptive cruise control is best in class also but that’s another story and they had over a decade of refining that on gas cars).

Overall I like the one-pedal driving on my R1S and I am not sure how Rivian could implement coasting and maintain that. The e-tron (with coasting) is solidly a two-pedal experience.

 

[MrMusAddict]

Honestly, I wonder if there was a consideration of safety that has come into play when Rivian made the decision to have it permanently enabled. I was going downhill for an extended period of time when my regenerative braking got reduced; enough that I wasn't even coasting, I started accelerating.

All of the sudden, the weight of my R1T became scarily apparent. It feels like it could stop on a dime with regen on, but it felt like I was maneuvering a bulldozer at high speed when I was coasting.

Ironically, I feel like if anything they need to increase the braking force with physical braked when regen is de-rated.

 

[jjswan33]

Honestly I know some people are in this camp and that is fine but I love the regen braking as is when it is on full blast and don't find that learning the balance on the pedal is that hard. Similar to using a clutch when you are stopped on a hill in a manual transmission.

You might want to look at a Kia or something if you think coasting is something you want to do, they have more configurability, at least my EV6 did

 

[CommonSense]

One other thing I noticed, on my test drive a couple weeks ago, the R1T that was also on a test drive in front of me, the brake lights didnt come on till about 10-15 feet from the vehicle stopping. I do wonder if this is contributing to all the rear end accidents.

I wonder if the R1T driver ahead of you was just waiting to brake late?

Note that you will be able to see your own brake lights status while driving by looking at the Rivian truck image on the dashboard - it's subtle, but the brake lights in the dashboard model turn on/off , easiest to see via the 'reflection' under the truck in the dash picture.

BTW - I should complement Rivian on 'echoing' the control changes from the stalks onto the dashboard (e.g. when you change the wiper speed it actually shows you what you selected in a pop up), none of my other cars has this, I've only seen it in rental KIAs.

 

[Gkfisher]

Also agree - I wish I had more control over regen levels. It’s way too aggressive and I prefer the options in the ionic 5.

 

[Notaevfan]

22,000mi and it's definitely the biggest complaint. I can do it, I'm very good at it, but it's not natural. Keeping your foot on the pedal with pressure while something ahead of you is requiring you to slow down, is not a good way to drive. It's also pretty often that I naturally jerk my foot off the pedal due to someone or something giving me a scare. While on a higher speed road where you need to turn off quickly and sharply (fairly common in more rural but still crowded Texas), the process is something like this, slow using Regen with your foot off the pedal, now hit the brakes, now jump back on the accelerator to try and coast through the turn (this takes an educated guess as to how much pressure to reapply as to not be slowing down more and not being a hooligan on your way out of the corner), then let everyone else in the car know how well you executed said difficult maneuver. It's fun for the driver in a challenge sort of way, but part of the ownership experience is complaints of carsickness. There is no good reason to not be able to turn off OPD, I couldn't care less about lost efficiency or range due to not having it. I will say that when driven very hard and fast, it's not an issue at all, or I'm having way too much fun to care. One more thing, it is nothing like a clutch other than with a clutch you feather the pedal for a very brief moment, and I am a pretty successful amateur race car driver, so being smooth with the pedals is second nature.

 

[MrMusAddict]

I wonder if a lot of people's dislike to the regenerative breaking stems from an underutilization of ACC (Adaptive cruise control)? I'll use ACC nearly every waking moment of driving, even on city & residential streets.

When the brake pedal is needed, it's used. Otherwise if I feel I need to decelerate before the truck recognizes it needs to, I'll just bump the stalk up to cancel ACC and feather the accelerator as needed.

My foot's hardly ever on the accelerator.

 

[TollKeeper]

ACC?

 

[MrMusAddict]

ACC?

Adaptive cruise control

 

[Dark-Fx]

22,000mi and it's definitely the biggest complaint. I can do it, I'm very good at it, but it's not natural.

Does not sound like you are very good at it, sorry.

 

[Redline]

In the 19-page "I cancelled my R1S" thread, there was a comment:

I was worried about 1 pedal driving for all of 5 mins on my first ever time driving a Rivian. I’ve had it for two weeks now and I love it. Couldn’t imagine not having it.

I've had my R1S for six months and I dislike how regenerative braking was implemented on the Rivian. It has grown to become one of my biggest dislikes.

I much prefer Porsche's regen braking setup , which drives like a regular car - the vehicle coasts as you lift off the accelerator and then regen brakes when you push on the brake pedal, pushing harder on the brake pedal engages the actual brakes after you are at max regen.

I'm not sure why Rivian believes 'coasting' is not a valuable driving mode that would not be missed.

a) it's more efficient. It is a bit hard to hit the 'not accelerating' , 'not regen braking' sweet spot on the Rivian, so in reality you're just oscillating back and forth between them. Maybe without an equivalent of any engine drag this would be unnerving?

b) bumpy roads can be challenging in the Rivian. It's really hard to maintain that tight sweet spot when bouncing around in your seat - you hit a bump , decelerate, foot goes in , vehicle accelerates, foot lifts off, vehicle decelerates (and that cycle repeats for a good 4-5 times.

I can live with a) of course, it's a bit jarring to switch back and forth between the Rivian and my other cards, it's more b) that is a real problem for me, it's harder to drive the Rivian smoothly , compared to a normal car.

That's my comment and I mean it.

I've had it for just over 2 weeks and I love how it works. I use it in standard, and now I'm tempted to move that up.

 

[Redline]

The Rivian is my first EV, and I disagree with this wholeheartedly. I find it easy to find the balance point of essentially coasting, and I hate switching back to my ICE car now. Moving to the brake pedal feels like wasted effort now.

If they had different settings, including off, I'd be fine with it, but I prefer driving with regen on high.

I totally agree with this.

I drove my wife's Rav4 Hybrid and I was just dying to get back into the R1S

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