Efficiency ball in Gen 2?

Ziv said:

LDB, to get the best AER, it is better to coast to a stop if you aren't going to hold up the people behind you in traffic. Regen is 50-60% efficient (75% in some situations?) but coasting is near 100% effective in not using any juice in the first place. Getting the best range only works, though, if you aren't going to make everyone around you hate electric cars even more because many ICE drivers don't mind rabbiting it around by gunning it out of the stop light light and slamming on the brakes at the next red light. They got tons of range and most don't realize that they are killing their mpg, or don't care.

Click to expand...

Sounds counterintuitive, right? Coasting is better than regen, regen is better than friction brakes (which only engage during panic stops, at the very end of regen, or if you hit the brakes while in N). Lots of people think they should be in L or use the regen paddles all the time, but in real world situations, you will usually get better EV range by avoiding L, avoiding the regen paddles, coasting either in D or N, and maintaining your momentum.

Instead of a regen paddle, I wish GM gave us an eco coast paddle (equivalent to N on demand) as it would actually produce better range results. Plus the brakes are the best regen as it is variable regen unlike the fixed point of L and the regen paddle. I view the regen paddles as a gimmick, it encourages regen which ultimately hurts range. It's almost no different than the Overdrive button on many ICE transmissions. Overdrive is just another gear in the transmission that gives you better fuel economy at the expense of get-up-and-go. The automatic transmission can decide for itself when to use it but they made it a feature where you have a button and you think you got something for paying extra for that feature (or it was standard with the car and you have that button that might cause you to pick this car over a competitors because that car didn't have that button).