Anybody seen this? Looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen!
panic stopping observation on the LEAF
by GeneF Jun 29, 2011; 08:10am ::
I was wondering if any of you have had experience with sudden stopping
performance on the LEAF, or other EVs with regenerative braking.
Last week I was accelerating behind a semi truck going up I-5.
Frankly I got too close and somebody must have pulled in front of the
truck; the trucker slammed his brakes on.
I did the same. (Commonly called a panic stop.)
The brakes locked up,and I heard the tires screeching. The car maintained
its direction, thank God, and I did not spin out.
When I realized I wasn't going to rear end the semi, and he was not
stopping anymore, I released the brake. At this point I was probably under
35 MPH. What happened next came as a surprise to me. The brakes seemed to
be still stopping the car; wheels still screeching. I thought I was going
to come to a complete stop, but they finally relented, and I accelerated
back up to speed.
I think the time I applied the panic stop brake was only for about 3/4 of
a second, the continued braking seemed to last at least another 1/2
second, by then I think I was down to 20MPH, and the gap between me and
the truck was several hundred feet.
I went into Tonkin yesterday to discuss this with the service writer; he
said that is "normal" regenerative braking! He said I should have pushed
on the accelerator pedal to get it out of that mode. He says as long as
the warning lights did not come on, everything was working normally. I
told him I disagreed that that was NOT NORMAL behavior and that if I was
designing the braking model, I would detect a panic stop and apply full
brakes, but as soon as the pedal was released I would not assume that I
wanted any significant regenerative braking. BTW wheels screeching is NOT
regenerative braking.
I just thought I would throw this out for the general group because some
of you are more mechanically adept than I am, and would have some thoughts
on the proper braking performance.
I told the service advisor that I would elevate this issue with NISSAN. (I
haven't done this yet, but will soon.)
Thanks for any input.
Gene Fifield
>>>This has nothing to do with regen!!
--Kaelev
2011 LEAF
2003 Rav4EV, 7 years experience, 89,000 miles