Regen discussion

Of course I've had mine less than a week, but...does onedrive mode really give more regen than another? Your hear the word more used in many reviews. Or do you just get it faster? And isn't braking with the pedal just as effective as getting your regen from using B mode? If you are descending a long steep hill, I could see using B or Eco for the "convenience" of not having to keep your foot on the brake pedal, but judging from the needle in the blue zone, regen is the same.

I've tried Eco mode in suburban driving and if you pull your foot off the accelerator too quickly to come to a stop, you may lose momentum and have to re-accelerate. I think this may be a behavior I learned from Prius driving where you try to do pulse and glide.

I think it is a great feature that you can choose the aggressiveness of regen.

I sure do like the responsiveness of the car in drive mode.

fjpod, you've identified a number of different issues and asked a number of questions which have already been discussed in other posts on this forum.

Amount of regeneration is a function of shift lever setting and vehicle speed: as you slow down the regeneration diminishes. There is no "rate" associated with regeneration; i.e., it doesn't engage faster in one setting vs. another.

Quantity of regeneration, i.e., the amperes being stuffed back into the battery varies:

in D you get some regen
In ECO you get more regen
In B you get even more regen
When you lightly apply the brakes you can modulate the amount of regeneration which can exceed even what you get in B. Look at where the needle lies in the blue zone to get a feel for the amount.
The amount of regen on our display was quantified on this thread:
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=288

Some of us prefer, by far, to modulate our regeneration using our shift lever instead of lifting one's foot and applying the brake. For example, on my modified Gen1 Honda Insight hybrid I have a joystick which controls both regen and power of the electric motor - I sure wish I had this feature or a paddle by the steering wheel to give me variable control over regen on my iMiEV.

You mentioned pulse and glide: have a look at this posting for a discussion of playing with our shift lever to maximize our range within the hypermiling thread:

http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1210#p1210

HTH.JoeS

but my point was...if I come to a long stop in D mode by rolling to a stop, I am not getting less regen in total than I would get by applying the brake, or using Eco mode...Work = Force through a distance, right?

fjpod, sorry if I misunderstood you.
Coming to a stop using regen, it doesn't matter which you use as long as the hydraulic brakes are not engaged - and I can't tell when that happens. I modulate my deceleration using the shift lever most of the time until the very end. Also, I coast in N for the maximum distance possible before decelerating.

As I understand it, all of the drive modes (Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Eco, Brake) are engaged electrically. I think the only reason there is even a cable from the shifter to the motor/trans is to engage the parking pawl

So - Some enterprising individual should be able to figure out how to hit a switch and have it shift from Drive into Neutral so you can coast when you want to without fiddling with the shifter and on the other hand, you could use the Drive mode all the time and hit another switch for the 'B' mode when you want regenerative braking . . . . maybe a double switch if you like as there's even more regen available when the brake light switch is engaged - You could get that extra regen with another switch without having to put your foot on the brake

Some models have both audio and bluetooth buttons on the steering wheel which means they have a multi contact clockspring to get the wires up onto the wheel - *IF* they used the same clockspring on all models (which I would guess is pretty likely) it should be fairly easy to add your new switches to the wheel if you liked - Paddles like some automatics shift with would be nice

Don

Seeing as how there is no center armrest, I often rest my hand on the shifter.

Don,

I like where you are going with that!

Jenn

For starters, I'm wondering what would happen if you just added a switch in parallel across the brakelight switch so you could press it when you wanted regen - An added bonus would be that the brakelights would come on so you wouldn't get run into while slowing in the regen mode. Hmmmm . . . . where to mount that extra switch?

Don