Regeneration recovers a certain percentage of any energy put into speed or altitude. No matter how long you spend climbing you get a good fraction of that ener

Regeneration recovers a certain percentage of any energy put into speed or altitude. No matter how long you spend climbing you get a good fraction of that energy back. In practice this is pretty quick, and even in stop and go you spend more time at around the same speed than accelerating and slowing. Rolling friction loss is related to speed and is occurring constantly as you drive. That energy is just gone immediately, unlike inertia, which is stored. Say you spend 50% of your time accelerating and braking, and 50% keeping speed. If you regen 80% of the energy and accelerate with 2.5x the power you use to cruise, you're using twice as much energy on friction as accelerating.