3 ms·
Me too. I live at the top of a steep hill, so if I charge fully I can't regen all the way down in the morning, and I have to press this large pedal that hydraul
by tlb 8y ago
Me too. I live at the top of a steep hill, so if I charge fully I can't regen all the way down in the morning, and I have to press this large pedal that hydraulically clamps some friction pads around steel disks attached to the wheels. So I set it to charge a little less than full, and gain about 6 miles of range on the way down.
A resistive dump of 20-30 kW would improve the cold weather deceleration experience, but that's a big honking resistor that'd need forced air cooling.
- Scoundreller 8y agoWhy not 2-4 kw to heat the cabin really fast when it’s cold? Pre-heating the cabin instead of the brakes would save cabin heating energy later.
- tlb 8y agoThe model S already has a 6 kW cabin heater, which is presumably fully on when starting out cold. Electric heat is great -- the cabin starts warming up immediately. Braking normally goes up to 60 kW. Another 2-4 kW would barely make a difference.
- Scoundreller 8y agoI’m making up numbers, but I think braking is like insurance: most payouts/utilization is at the low end. You need the 60kw available for hard braking, but what percentage of the area under the curve is below the 5kw mark?
- tlb 8y ago60 kW isn't hard braking -- that's the normal level you get in a model S when you take your foot off the accelerator anywhere above 20 mph. So coming to an anticipated red light, you'd normally brake at the full 60 kW tapering down to zero at about 10 mph, then use the mechanical brake. That's makes for a comfortable stop and wastes the minimum power. Hard braking, like slamming them on at 80 mph, can exceed 1000 kW.