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by AngryData
487 days ago
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They use drum brakes because drum brakes are protected better from the environment while brake discs are not and will quickly get covered in rust and dirt when not used for awhile and then be less effective when they are actually needed for an emergency braking situation. We only ever really went to disc brakes because they were slightly cheaper and easier to manufacture and since racing vehicles used disc brakes (because they benefit from the extra cooling capacity that commuters don't need) it was easy to convince customers that they were "better" and they became standard. There was also a time when they didn't figure out traction control very well using brake drums while they did manage it with brake discs, but part of that could be just because brake drums were out of fashion in racing where traction and stability control were invented and implemented first and nobody bothered improving drum brakes to take advantage of that tech until decades later. Now that EV drivers can go weeks without touching their actual brakes and just rely on regen braking, disc brakes have become a liability since they aren't worn down smooth and cleaned whenever someone stops at the end of their driveway. |
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The only recent cars I've had with drum brakes used them for the parking brake. They tended to corrode and not work well. Also, as an emergency brake even with a pedal you could push hard on, they were beyond terrible, even dangerously ineffective.