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China bans one-pedal driving in default modes by 2027

29 points by jerlam 1y ago

badc0ffee 1y ago
"One-pedal driving" means the vehicle slows to a complete stop when you release the accelerator pedal. (I had never heard of this before just now.)
- cderg 1y ago
  It's quite common in electric cars these days. Makes driving much more pleasant, and once you get used to it there's minimal need to swap back to the brake pedal.
- HankStallone 1y ago
  Neither had I. I've heard of clutch braking, where you downshift to slow the vehicle, though that won't bring it to a stop. Truckers use that sometimes because it saves wear on the brakes, and it's banned some places. I suppose regenerative braking could have a similar effect, but why not have that turn on the brake lights the same way pressing down on a brake pedal does?
  - NobodyNada 1y ago
    > it's banned some places "Engine braking" bans usually target jake braking [0] (opening the exhaust valve at the end of the compression stroke), which greatly increases the effect of engine braking at the cost of producing a very loud noise [1] (which is why it's often banned in residential areas). As far as I'm aware, such bans do not limit the use of "normal" downshifting to decelerate. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_release_engine_brake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_release_engine_bra... [1]: https://youtu.be/z3bLqjPBlx8 https://youtu.be/z3bLqjPBlx8
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    > why not have that turn on the brake lights the same way pressing down on a brake pedal does? It does at least in the cars I've driven.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  Sounds incredibly dangerous to me What do you do if you have to stop asap rather than coasting? Emergency brake?
  - jcotton42 1y ago
    There's still a separate brake pedal.
    - bluefirebrand 1y ago
      Okay, so it's a misnomer
      - barbazoo 1y ago
        For me, the majority of one pedal driving is exactly this. No brake pedal needed. Requires looking and thinking ahead when driving. Obviously if something unexpected happens, the brake pedal it is.
        bluefirebrand 1y ago
        This is how I already drive my gas powered vehicle so I don't really get the difference But then again, I'm always shocked when I've driven in the USA, Americans ride the brake pedal it's crazy
        barbazoo 1y ago
        I'm talking no brake pedal is needed even for stopping at roundabouts, intersections, etc. The regen braking will take you to a complete stop. Much less brake force than the conventional brake so it's crucial to have enough space in front of you.
        bluefirebrand 1y ago
        I guess it's a different way of controlling the vehicle but I don't think I would enjoy or feel comfortable in a car that starts decelerating the moment the accelerator is released I mean coasting is one thing and of course you will lose speed doing that, but this sounds more aggressive than just naturally losing speed from coasting
philipallstar 1y ago
> The disadvantages are equally apparent. It alters the core driving logic learned from the beginning – "press the accelerator to accelerate and press the brake to decelerate." When applied to the crucial acceleration and deceleration control of a vehicle, the associated safety risks are considerable. Well, in most vehicles if you take your foot off the accelerator you start to decelerate. It would be good if strong deceleration lit the brake lights, I agree, but that's a separate issue.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Glant 1y ago
  I believe in the past year or two someone passed a law with a specific deceleration amount. If you were decelerating at or beyond that amount, brake lights are required to come on. Maybe the EU? Can't quite remember. Would definitely be good to have that here in the US
- Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
  That amount of deceleration can vary a lot from car-to-car. I had a rental recently that would just keep going and going when I released the accelerator. I could be going 65 mph, release, and 30 seconds later, still going ~60 mph. As someone that used to drive manuals and now drives and EV, I hated it. My typical driving style is built around the idea that the brake pedal is an evil device that converts cash into brake dust and waste heat, so I use it as little as possible and release the accelerator earlier when I'm going to need to stop. That doesn't work on a car that barely slows down at all when you release the pedal. I don't know if this was considered a feature for this car, or if maybe the throttle cable was too tight or stuck or something, but I hated how much more I had to use the brake pedal.
  - HankStallone 1y ago
    A high-school friend of mine had a VW Bug, and he claimed it was easier to change the clutch than the brakes, so he downshifted to decelerate as much as possible. Maybe Bugs were special that way; on every manual shift vehicle I've owned, brakes were much easier.
tt_dev 1y ago
Seems reasonable, standardize on operability. It will be quite a shift in driving behavior for the vehicle the come to a complete halt during deceleration
altairprime 1y ago
To clarify the submission headline, the policy change limits, but does not prohibit, electric car regenerative braking when neither gas nor brake pedals are depressed: > The braking deceleration in the default state should not exceed 3m/s²
bwanab 1y ago
Total overreach. I go from one pedal driving on my EV to my manual 5 speed 2004 Saab on a regular basis. I've been doing this for 6.5 years. I'm really glad nobody has been telling me that I can't do it.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  It sounds like it's driven by safety concerns: > In 2024, a new energy vehicle brand conducted a user survey, revealing that 32% of car owners had mistakenly used the accelerator pedal as the brake pedal in emergencies, with 15% resulting in accidents. > A simulation test by Tsinghua University's Automotive Safety Laboratory also showed that drivers accustomed to the one-pedal mode had an average reaction time 0.3 seconds longer when pressing the brake pedal in an emergency, equivalent to an additional braking distance of 8.3 meters at 100 km/h.
  - dzhiurgis 1y ago
    Correlates with my experience. Def gives me a little pause once you are used to 1 pedal driving.
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
  Going from EV to automatic is nothing special, but to manual I found I subconsciously used engine breaking like EV, occasionally stalling it!
  - beAbU 1y ago
    I learned to drive on a manual car, and all my cars were manual for the past ~20 years. My current car is an ev/auto. For me the learning curve was remembering to _not_ press the brake with my left foot, thinking it's the clutch when I'm mentally downshifting or stopping. A left foot on the brake thinking it's the clutch is for sure a powerful thing!
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
I know that one-pedal has some ardent fans, but I’ve not been able to come around to it. The control it gives feels almost too direct which makes me feel like I need to be neurotic with my pedal control in order to be able to smoothly drive and not have “quivery” speed fluctuations when not leaning on cruise control. The more eased speed falloff that comes with a more traditional setup feels better.
- bob1029 1y ago
  Sharing the road with drivers on an entirely different control scheme is something I am not a fan of. Going from 2 axes of control to 1 axis of control is not a change to be trivialized. Some in the commercial trucking industry would argue that allowing 2 pedal driving was a catastrophe with regard to filtering out low skilled and unsafe drivers. Cruise control whenever feasible and safe is probably the most polite solution to the consequences of one pedal driving. The freeway is where this kind of driving causes the most frustration for me. I don't think it should be banned but I think drivers should really give a shit about how they impact others around them. We can make it entirely about safety if that helps. At some level being polite aligns with basic physics.
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    You really only have 1 axis of control with a brake pedal because you have to take your foot of the gas first. With one pedal driving at least you don't have to take off your foot. One pedal driving for me only makes sense if you keep a proper distance to the people around you, such that the limited braking force is sufficient to flow with the traffic, so that wouldn't apply to many drivers out there. Perhaps that's where the confusion comes from.
- amluto 1y ago
  I’ve contemplated a modified one-pedal scheme. The accelerator pedal could a haptic mechanism such that a smallish force could hold it at the neutral point and a significantly larger force would be needed to depress it into acceleration territory. This would allow light foot pressure to maintain speed without constantly oscillating a bit. “Neutral” could be defined as zero motor power, constant speed, or something else — there’s plenty of room for experimentation.
spicybbq 1y ago
I find it odd that Tesla removed creep mode as an option. For newer vehicles, there is only one-pedal mode. I've heard it increases the rated mileage, but not sure if that's the reason.
underdeserver 1y ago
This is one of those things that sounds scary until you try it. Everyone I know who uses one pedal driving thinks it's intuitive enough. I alternate between my EV with one pedal driving and my wife's automatic Mazda without issue.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  It doesn't sound scary to me, it sounds stupid and uncomfortable though You can't just take your foot off the accelerator and coast, even downhill, is that right? No thanks
  - dzhiurgis 1y ago
    It’s one of the best feature of ev, makes driving far easier and simpler. Wanna coast downhill? Press acc slightly.
  - geek_at 1y ago
    That's what ACC is for
- SupremumLimit 1y ago
  It isn’t just intuitive enough, it’s more intuitive and precise than the ICE setup. It’s safer too, as the car starts braking before I even reach the brake pedal in an emergency braking situation. I dislike going back to the ICE setup.
more_corn 1y ago
Specifically: “releasing the accelerator pedal should not decelerate the vehicle to a complete stop.” Every electric car I’ve driven needs brake pedal engaged to bring it to a complete stop. Regenerative braking seems to disengage at ~5mph. I honestly see no safety reason for this, but they’re not banning one pedal control they’re specifically saying it can’t bring the vehicle to a complete stop. I would actually think there’s a safety argument for the reverse. In absence of an active driver shouldn’t the vehicle slow and eventually stop?
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
  Tesla stops completely
  - ivandenysov 1y ago
    Yep. That was added back in 2019: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/02/tesla-one-pedal-driving-update-in-a-word-perfecter/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/02/tesla-one-pedal-driving...
    - ivandenysov 1y ago
      And Teslas use conventional breaks for the last few mph. But I never feel that transition from regen to friction brakes.

29 points by jerlam 1y ago

"One-pedal driving" means the vehicle slows to a complete stop when you release the accelerator pedal. (I had never heard of this before just now.)

cderg 1y ago
It's quite common in electric cars these days. Makes driving much more pleasant, and once you get used to it there's minimal need to swap back to the brake pedal.
HankStallone 1y ago
Neither had I. I've heard of clutch braking, where you downshift to slow the vehicle, though that won't bring it to a stop. Truckers use that sometimes because it saves wear on the brakes, and it's banned some places. I suppose regenerative braking could have a similar effect, but why not have that turn on the brake lights the same way pressing down on a brake pedal does?
- NobodyNada 1y ago
  > it's banned some places "Engine braking" bans usually target jake braking [0] (opening the exhaust valve at the end of the compression stroke), which greatly increases the effect of engine braking at the cost of producing a very loud noise [1] (which is why it's often banned in residential areas). As far as I'm aware, such bans do not limit the use of "normal" downshifting to decelerate. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_release_engine_brake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_release_engine_bra... [1]: https://youtu.be/z3bLqjPBlx8 https://youtu.be/z3bLqjPBlx8
- barbazoo 1y ago
  > why not have that turn on the brake lights the same way pressing down on a brake pedal does? It does at least in the cars I've driven.
bluefirebrand 1y ago
Sounds incredibly dangerous to me What do you do if you have to stop asap rather than coasting? Emergency brake?
- jcotton42 1y ago
  There's still a separate brake pedal.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    Okay, so it's a misnomer
    - barbazoo 1y ago
      For me, the majority of one pedal driving is exactly this. No brake pedal needed. Requires looking and thinking ahead when driving. Obviously if something unexpected happens, the brake pedal it is.
      - bluefirebrand 1y ago
        This is how I already drive my gas powered vehicle so I don't really get the difference But then again, I'm always shocked when I've driven in the USA, Americans ride the brake pedal it's crazy
        barbazoo 1y ago
        I'm talking no brake pedal is needed even for stopping at roundabouts, intersections, etc. The regen braking will take you to a complete stop. Much less brake force than the conventional brake so it's crucial to have enough space in front of you.
        bluefirebrand 1y ago
        I guess it's a different way of controlling the vehicle but I don't think I would enjoy or feel comfortable in a car that starts decelerating the moment the accelerator is released I mean coasting is one thing and of course you will lose speed doing that, but this sounds more aggressive than just naturally losing speed from coasting

philipallstar 1y ago

> The disadvantages are equally apparent. It alters the core driving logic learned from the beginning – "press the accelerator to accelerate and press the brake to decelerate." When applied to the crucial acceleration and deceleration control of a vehicle, the associated safety risks are considerable. Well, in most vehicles if you take your foot off the accelerator you start to decelerate. It would be good if strong deceleration lit the brake lights, I agree, but that's a separate issue.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Glant 1y ago
I believe in the past year or two someone passed a law with a specific deceleration amount. If you were decelerating at or beyond that amount, brake lights are required to come on. Maybe the EU? Can't quite remember. Would definitely be good to have that here in the US
Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
That amount of deceleration can vary a lot from car-to-car. I had a rental recently that would just keep going and going when I released the accelerator. I could be going 65 mph, release, and 30 seconds later, still going ~60 mph. As someone that used to drive manuals and now drives and EV, I hated it. My typical driving style is built around the idea that the brake pedal is an evil device that converts cash into brake dust and waste heat, so I use it as little as possible and release the accelerator earlier when I'm going to need to stop. That doesn't work on a car that barely slows down at all when you release the pedal. I don't know if this was considered a feature for this car, or if maybe the throttle cable was too tight or stuck or something, but I hated how much more I had to use the brake pedal.
- HankStallone 1y ago
  A high-school friend of mine had a VW Bug, and he claimed it was easier to change the clutch than the brakes, so he downshifted to decelerate as much as possible. Maybe Bugs were special that way; on every manual shift vehicle I've owned, brakes were much easier.

tt_dev 1y ago

Seems reasonable, standardize on operability. It will be quite a shift in driving behavior for the vehicle the come to a complete halt during deceleration

altairprime 1y ago

To clarify the submission headline, the policy change limits, but does not prohibit, electric car regenerative braking when neither gas nor brake pedals are depressed: > The braking deceleration in the default state should not exceed 3m/s²

bwanab 1y ago

Total overreach. I go from one pedal driving on my EV to my manual 5 speed 2004 Saab on a regular basis. I've been doing this for 6.5 years. I'm really glad nobody has been telling me that I can't do it.

amanaplanacanal 1y ago
It sounds like it's driven by safety concerns: > In 2024, a new energy vehicle brand conducted a user survey, revealing that 32% of car owners had mistakenly used the accelerator pedal as the brake pedal in emergencies, with 15% resulting in accidents. > A simulation test by Tsinghua University's Automotive Safety Laboratory also showed that drivers accustomed to the one-pedal mode had an average reaction time 0.3 seconds longer when pressing the brake pedal in an emergency, equivalent to an additional braking distance of 8.3 meters at 100 km/h.
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
  Correlates with my experience. Def gives me a little pause once you are used to 1 pedal driving.
dzhiurgis 1y ago
Going from EV to automatic is nothing special, but to manual I found I subconsciously used engine breaking like EV, occasionally stalling it!
- beAbU 1y ago
  I learned to drive on a manual car, and all my cars were manual for the past ~20 years. My current car is an ev/auto. For me the learning curve was remembering to _not_ press the brake with my left foot, thinking it's the clutch when I'm mentally downshifting or stopping. A left foot on the brake thinking it's the clutch is for sure a powerful thing!

cosmic_cheese 1y ago

I know that one-pedal has some ardent fans, but I’ve not been able to come around to it. The control it gives feels almost too direct which makes me feel like I need to be neurotic with my pedal control in order to be able to smoothly drive and not have “quivery” speed fluctuations when not leaning on cruise control. The more eased speed falloff that comes with a more traditional setup feels better.

bob1029 1y ago
Sharing the road with drivers on an entirely different control scheme is something I am not a fan of. Going from 2 axes of control to 1 axis of control is not a change to be trivialized. Some in the commercial trucking industry would argue that allowing 2 pedal driving was a catastrophe with regard to filtering out low skilled and unsafe drivers. Cruise control whenever feasible and safe is probably the most polite solution to the consequences of one pedal driving. The freeway is where this kind of driving causes the most frustration for me. I don't think it should be banned but I think drivers should really give a shit about how they impact others around them. We can make it entirely about safety if that helps. At some level being polite aligns with basic physics.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  You really only have 1 axis of control with a brake pedal because you have to take your foot of the gas first. With one pedal driving at least you don't have to take off your foot. One pedal driving for me only makes sense if you keep a proper distance to the people around you, such that the limited braking force is sufficient to flow with the traffic, so that wouldn't apply to many drivers out there. Perhaps that's where the confusion comes from.
amluto 1y ago
I’ve contemplated a modified one-pedal scheme. The accelerator pedal could a haptic mechanism such that a smallish force could hold it at the neutral point and a significantly larger force would be needed to depress it into acceleration territory. This would allow light foot pressure to maintain speed without constantly oscillating a bit. “Neutral” could be defined as zero motor power, constant speed, or something else — there’s plenty of room for experimentation.

spicybbq 1y ago

I find it odd that Tesla removed creep mode as an option. For newer vehicles, there is only one-pedal mode. I've heard it increases the rated mileage, but not sure if that's the reason.

underdeserver 1y ago

This is one of those things that sounds scary until you try it. Everyone I know who uses one pedal driving thinks it's intuitive enough. I alternate between my EV with one pedal driving and my wife's automatic Mazda without issue.

bluefirebrand 1y ago
It doesn't sound scary to me, it sounds stupid and uncomfortable though You can't just take your foot off the accelerator and coast, even downhill, is that right? No thanks
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
  It’s one of the best feature of ev, makes driving far easier and simpler. Wanna coast downhill? Press acc slightly.
- geek_at 1y ago
  That's what ACC is for
SupremumLimit 1y ago
It isn’t just intuitive enough, it’s more intuitive and precise than the ICE setup. It’s safer too, as the car starts braking before I even reach the brake pedal in an emergency braking situation. I dislike going back to the ICE setup.

more_corn 1y ago

Specifically: “releasing the accelerator pedal should not decelerate the vehicle to a complete stop.” Every electric car I’ve driven needs brake pedal engaged to bring it to a complete stop. Regenerative braking seems to disengage at ~5mph. I honestly see no safety reason for this, but they’re not banning one pedal control they’re specifically saying it can’t bring the vehicle to a complete stop. I would actually think there’s a safety argument for the reverse. In absence of an active driver shouldn’t the vehicle slow and eventually stop?

dzhiurgis 1y ago
Tesla stops completely
- ivandenysov 1y ago
  Yep. That was added back in 2019: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/02/tesla-one-pedal-driving-update-in-a-word-perfecter/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/02/tesla-one-pedal-driving...
  - ivandenysov 1y ago
    And Teslas use conventional breaks for the last few mph. But I never feel that transition from regen to friction brakes.