4 ms·
It generally breaks down to don’t brake unless you have to, and know & use the performance characteristics of whatever you’re driving. This might mean slowing
by marvin 5y ago
It generally breaks down to don’t brake unless you have to, and know & use the performance characteristics of whatever you’re driving.
This might mean slowing down while anticipating stoplight changes, curves or congestion behavior so you can just keep rolling, not accelerating over the top of a hill or entering a decline with excess speed, leaving a good distance to the car in front and so on.
Also knowing the efficiency characteristics of your vehicle. For ICE cars, generally running in high gear/low RPM. Not going fast. Engine braking is also braking, clutch in or shift to neutral while rolling downhill might help. But obviously use engine braking on very long declines, so you don’t burn out your brakes. Prefer regenerative braking rather than mechanical braking in battery vehicles with this feature. This is generally done by changing speed slowly, which requires that you think a few seconds ahead. Don’t accelerate hard if your engine/motor burns more energy than if accelerating slowly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jbarberu 5y agoWhen you go in neutral downhill your engine idles, vs if you leave it in gear the ECU cuts fuel supply completely. It's generally better to stay in gear except when you're at a standstill. (This assumes a modern vehicle with fuel-injectors)
- marvin 5y agoDo automatic gearboxes compression brake when going downhill? That's what I was trying to avoid. My point was to conserve your kinetic energy, not optimizing the fuel flow during the times when you don't want the engine to produce power.
- jbarberu 5y agoCan't speak for all of them, but many will engine brake if you use cruise control downhill.
- saagarjha 5y agoNote that even on electric vehicles, regenerative isn't "magic": it's typically about 60% efficient or so, because of losses in the brakes and motors when using that energy again. Rolling better can easily get you an additional 10-20% on your efficiency.