[YPPH]

>My understanding is that Tesla vehicles differ quite a bit from regular ICE vehicles, to the point that there's a bit of a learning curve to operating the car.

>I'd be interested to hear from a Tesla owner on this

Not a Tesla owner, but I did take one for a 30 minute test drive. There wasn't really any learning curve except for that when you let your foot off the accelerator (gas?) pedal, the regenerative braking kicks in, and you start slowing down very quickly. I didn't touch the brake pedal for the whole drive. Got used to it in a few minutes.

The hardest thing for me was the cruise control. Only a subset of autopilot features were enabled and I found it a bit difficult to operate.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Tesla used to have "Standard" and "Low" settings for how strong the regenerative braking is, but just found an article that says they removed the low option, which would be a bummer in my opinion.

[snek_case]

It's way more energy efficient if you can learn to drive with regenerative braking. Otherwise you're just wasting energy as heat with your brake pads.

[simfree]

Coasting is way more efficient than regenerative braking slowing your roll, causing you to need to accelerate again.

Hence why many non-car electrified rides disable Regen braking in Eco mode when your not accelerating or braking as keeping that mechanical energy & momentum is much more efficient than paying the conversion penalty to turn it back into electricity.

[cbo100]

As far as I can tell, from the somewhat minimal GUI Tesla gives you, and the general feeling while driving...

You can "coast" with regen on, you just need to balance the accelerator at the point where you aren't adding power, but the car isn't taking power away.

You won't see any green or black on the power usage bar.

Coming down long mountain roads, it's somewhat easier than coasting in an ICE and having to continually shift down gears or ride the brakes (which is obviously bad).

[caf]

This is correct. You coast by feathering the accelerator.

[lokar]

On my leaf you could feel a very slight change in the pedal resistance at the coast point.

[discardable_dan]

This seems insane to me. "Do nothing and the car coasts" versus "balance this pin and the car coasts" is such a massive dichotomy shift that it seems like poor design. It's a car, not a helicopter.

[vel0city]

If you his the accelerator steady, you can easily keep a pretty constant speed. It's not like you have to either be slamming on the accelerator or completely off the accelerator, you can keep it constant and hold a speed. I really prefer single pedal as with just the single pedal I get far more control of my speed than if I had to switch between two pedals. Want to slow down a little? Just ease up a little. Want to go faster? Just ease a bit more on.

I have not seen coasting modes to be more efficient than single pedal on my own electric car.

[yurishimo]

Oh my, this reminds me of a Lyft I got home from the airport once. The driver didn't know how to hold the throttle steady and was constantly on and off the gas for the entire 15 mile drive back home on the interstate. I was nauseous and nearly puking by the time I got home, even sitting in the front passenger seat because I'm already prone to motion sickness.

I'm hoping their car was actually broken in some way, because I'm assuming they had owned a license for decades at that point.

However, I'm pessimistic and curious if some people just learn to drive with the constant coasting on and off the throttle? Maybe it's an international thing? I'm not sure but I will never forget that ride!

[londons_explore]

A certain kind of driver does this. It's as if they live in a binary world. Either "go faster" or "go slower".

Can't be good for their gas mileage (and hence profits!)

[TeMPOraL]

Oh god, I feel you. That, but with a 2 y.o. feeling sick in the back, on their way to a pediatrician's office, was my wife's recent experience with one of the faux-taxi services (Bolt or FreeNow, don't remember which), and the driver was lucky - few more minutes of this, and he'd have to do a thorough cleaning of the back of the car.

[mrfusion]

My exact thoughts but people seem to save energy by turning up the regen? I don’t get it.

[01100011]

Regen braking is one of the best features of an EV. I wish I could figure out how to make my Bolt default to 'one pedal' mode. I use the brakes less than 10% of normal now, and it helps me leave more space because I want to maximize the energy return by slowing more slowly.

[iggldiggl]

It depends on the manufacturer, but some cars allow a coasting mode for when the throttle pedal is released and do brake blending for the brake pedal, which prioritises regen and only adds the hydraulic brakes when the regen brake force isn't enough.

[mywittyname]

Even then, engine braking isn't exactly a foreign concept in the ICE world. Lots of vehicles have a mode or gear option that enables engine braking.

[YPPH]

That's true. Although I own a manual transmission car and it was noticeably more pronounced than the engine braking I experience when downshifting.

[rkuykendall-com]

This is unfortunate to hear. My least favorite thing about automatic cars is that the pedals don't increase and decrease the momentum of the car. Instead, the car slowly moves at all times unless the brakes are hit, and the "gas" is treated as more of a hint system for if the car should speed up or slow down.