Paddle Shifters For Adjusting Regen

[Variable430]

Currently have an EQS and have zero love for one pedal driving. The EQS has paddle shifters to adjust the level of brake regen manually and on the fly - effectively it serves as a synthetic down shift and provides a much more interactive driving experience. I believe the Ioniq has this as well. Please strongly consider adopting this technology and it should include the ability to completely disengage regeneration as one of the modes.

 

[strider]

They aren't a gimmick, they offer choice to those of us who hate the Tesla experience. My car has paddles to adjust regen and they're incredibly useful. I much prefer them over the Tesla way of doing things.

Can you explain how they're useful? I have never used them and I am seriously curious. To me it seems like it would add a ton of time lag and require way more thinking on the part of the driver.

With paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then need to engage your hand to click the paddle. More regen kicks in. You are still closing. More clicks. You are still closing. You then need to realize that you have reached max regen and move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

Without paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

There are way fewer steps in the second system. What am I missing?

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

The Ford EVs I own come with profiles that adjust the motor response to the accelerator. There’s no direct mechanism for on-the-fly accelerator adjustments. In other words, you go into a menu and chose an accelerator response profile and drive with that. That works fine. It’s not as dynamic as having paddles.

One-pedal response is a toggle in the menu.

These two Fords always have blended braking and the friction braking doesn’t engage unless there’s rapid brake pedal application, deep brake pedal application, or low-speed stopping.

There are probably infinitely many ways to engage regenerative braking and infinitely many ways to annoy one or more people with the way it is implemented. As long as the behavior is predictable and sensible, I don’t have a strong opinion about how it “should” be implemented.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Can you explain how they're useful? I have never used them and I am seriously curious. To me it seems like it would add a ton of time lag and require way more thinking on the part of the driver.

With paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then need to engage your hand to click the paddle. More regen kicks in. You are still closing. More clicks. You are still closing. You then need to realize that you have reached max regen and move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

Without paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

There are way fewer steps in the second system. What am I missing?

You seem to assume that the brake pedal doesn’t exist with paddles?

If I’m closing on something and need to brake more aggressively, I’m going to use the brake pedal. The paddles aren’t a factor in the need to brake in this kind of situation.

One simple example of when paddles might be useful:
You’re driving on the freeway with low regen active (so you can coast rather than aggressively brake when you pull your foot off the accelerator pedal). You come up on stop-and-go traffic and want to increase regen braking aggressiveness during the time you're time in traffic. Once you leave traffic, you decide you want to decrease regen aggressiveness. Using the paddles to do this is a simple mechanism that doesn’t require taking your eyes off the road.

 

[Cranky Canuck]

Can you explain how they're useful? I have never used them and I am seriously curious. To me it seems like it would add a ton of time lag and require way more thinking on the part of the driver.

With paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then need to engage your hand to click the paddle. More regen kicks in. You are still closing. More clicks. You are still closing. You then need to realize that you have reached max regen and move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

Without paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

There are way fewer steps in the second system. What am I missing?

Yeah, you seem to be misunderstanding what the paddles actually do. There are a pair of paddles on the steering wheel, the right paddle increases the aggressiveness of the regeneration while the left paddle decreases it. They control the intensity of the regen (ie how fast the car decelerates) when you lift your foot off the accelerator. With the paddles you can easily set the regen to be zero, so you coast (which is good for highway driving), or you can have level 1, 2, 3, or 1-pedal driving. You can also set regen to "auto" which will dynamically adjust the aggressiveness of the regen based on what's happening in front of the vehicle. Personally I leave it on auto regen for the city and level 0 for highway which seems to give me the best efficiency.

There is also the brake pedal which operates normally and blends regen with friction braking depending on speed or how aggressively you press the pedal.

 

[J Alynn]

Yeah, you seem to be misunderstanding what the paddles actually do. There are a pair of paddles on the steering wheel, the right paddle increases the aggressiveness of the regeneration while the left paddle decreases it. They control the intensity of the regen (ie how fast the car decelerates) when you lift your foot off the accelerator. With the paddles you can easily set the regen to be zero, so you coast (which is good for highway driving), or you can have level 1, 2, 3, or 1-pedal driving. You can also set regen to "auto" which will dynamically adjust the aggressiveness of the regen based on what's happening in front of the vehicle. Personally I leave it on auto regen for the city and level 0 for highway which seems to give me the best efficiency.

There is also the brake pedal which operates normally and blends regen with friction braking depending on speed or how aggressively you press the pedal.

These responses tell me there is a place for both, just like ICE with paddle shifters. I’m all for both.

 

[oldgeeksguide]

The Ford EVs I own come with profiles that adjust the motor response to the accelerator. There’s no direct mechanism for on-the-fly accelerator adjustments. In other words, you go into a menu and chose an accelerator response profile and drive with that. That works fine. It’s not as dynamic as having paddles.

One-pedal response is a toggle in the menu.

These two Fords always have blended braking and the friction braking doesn’t engage unless there’s rapid brake pedal application, deep brake pedal application, or low-speed stopping.

There are probably infinitely many ways to engage regenerative braking and infinitely many ways to annoy one or more people with the way it is implemented. As long as the behavior is predictable and sensible, I don’t have a strong opinion about how it “should” be implemented.

Yes, there a lot of different ways to implement regen, even a lot of ways To implement OPD. The nice thing about paddles is it gives the driver an easy way to choose between several different possibilities without resorting to a menu on the screen somewhere.

 

[Chaz26]

If they do go with paddles, hopefully there's a way to make it an option, I wouldn't want them or use them and would find it annoying having them on the wheel area when I'd never use them.

 

[AlanL]

Agree wholeheartedly. I love the way that Tesla (and Volvo) has implemented this. Regen is solely controlled by the right pedal, friction brakes are solely controlled by the left pedal. Elegant in its simplicity.

Different driving uses call for different approaches. That Tesla way is not good for towing and paddles are much better. Use paddles for straight downhill speed control, feet off both pedals in a relaxed posture, attention on the road. Coming into a curve, “downshift” with the paddles and/or left foot on the friction brakes. Hopefully Scout will accommodate both techniques.

 

[AlanL]

With paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then need to engage your hand to click the paddle. More regen kicks in. You are still closing. More clicks. You are still closing. You then need to realize that you have reached max regen and move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

Without paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

There are way fewer steps in the second system. What am I missing?

1. The use of adaptive cruise control.
2. The use of paddle shifters for regen to mimic the well established use of downshifting ICE going downhill with a big weight pushing you along.

 

[BeerParty]

Can you explain how they're useful? I have never used them and I am seriously curious. To me it seems like it would add a ton of time lag and require way more thinking on the part of the driver.

With paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then need to engage your hand to click the paddle. More regen kicks in. You are still closing. More clicks. You are still closing. You then need to realize that you have reached max regen and move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

Without paddles: You are driving down the road and realize that you are closing on a car in front of you. You start to let off the accelerator and regen kicks in. You are still closing on the car so you let off with your foot even more. You then reach the limit of travel of the pedal. You are still closing on the car. You then move your foot to the brake pedal and engage the friction brakes.

There are way fewer steps in the second system. What am I missing?

What you are "missing" is that you don't use the paddles that way. With or without paddles, when you are closing on a car in front of you, you lift your foot off of the accelerator and put it on the break. If the regen level isn't strong enough to slow you down enough, you press down on the break to slow down quicker. You don't use the paddles to adjust the regen behavior when you are breaking, you use them to adjust the regen behavior to the level that you want without having to go into a sub menu on the screen.

Regen is one of those things that people want to adjust with physical controls rather than having to navigate an on-screen menu. Having physical controls has been a selling point with the interior design of the Scouts. A lot of people on the forums have complimented the Scout designers based on the look of the included physical controls.

I will give you a specific example of why I like the paddle controller regen: I own an Hyundai Ioniq 5. I usually have the regen set to 1 (that's low auto-regen). This is most comfortable for me because the coasting behavior is like my other car (Toyota RAV4 hybrid). But, when I go to the dump, I will adjust the regen to i-pedal so that I don't have to go back-and-forth from accelerator and break pedals when waiting in the line of cars. When I finish and leave the dump, I will adjust back to regen 1. I can do that without even taking my hands off the wheel - three clicks on the paddle and the regen is set the way I like it. If I had to use a sub-menu on the main screen, I would probably never change it and I would "lose out" on some excellent functionality of the car.

 

[BeerParty]

There is one extra thing I want to bring up in support of paddles. The paddles in an electric vehicle are set up to control the regen level by default. But, remember, they are really just a couple of easily accessible physical switches.

With a "software defined vehicle," their function can be changed to do different things.

The Ioniq 5 N already does this - in normal driving the paddles adjust regen level. But the 5N has a mode that changes the paddles so they act like shifters, and the car adjusts the power to simulate a 6 speed gear box. Now, I think it's a gimmick (a cool gimmick, sure), but it is a good example of changing the behavior to something else the user wants. If you include paddles, then that opens up the potential to assign differfent functions to them to support different driver needs/styles.

 

[R1TVT]

Another way to think about this in terms of the specific need for Scout to add paddles and more HW is "how often will you be adjusting your regen settings?"

Personally, I never really change my regen settings UNLESS I suddenly need less regen due to snow conditions. In that case, I just switch into Snow mode (which automatically takes care of this, reduces pedal sensitivity and reduces regen). I realize I'm not driving like everyone else, but I am driving in an electric truck, and regen is more like "set it and forget" for me anyway.

 

[dreamweaver]

There is one extra thing I want to bring up in support of paddles. The paddles in an electric vehicle are set up to control the regen level by default. But, remember, they are really just a couple of easily accessible physical switches.

With a "software defined vehicle," their function can be changed to do different things.

The Ioniq 5 N already does this - in normal driving the paddles adjust regen level. But the 5N has a mode that changes the paddles so they act like shifters, and the car adjusts the power to simulate a 6 speed gear box. Now, I think it's a gimmick (a cool gimmick, sure), but it is a good example of changing the behavior to something else the user wants. If you include paddles, then that opens up the potential to assign differfent functions to them to support different driver needs/styles.

A very good point. "With a "software defined vehicle," their function can be changed to do different things."

 

[cyure]

Another way to think about this in terms of the specific need for Scout to add paddles and more HW is "how often will you be adjusting your regen settings?"

Personally, I never really change my regen settings UNLESS I suddenly need less regen due to snow conditions. In that case, I just switch into Snow mode (which automatically takes care of this, reduces pedal sensitivity and reduces regen). I realize I'm not driving like everyone else, but I am driving in an electric truck, and regen is more like "set it and forget" for me anyway.

Honestly this is what I am hoping. I don’t want to have to keep changing things all the time.

 

[cyure]

I just want to get in and drive and this is making things sound more complicated than they need to be.

 

[strider]

I completely understand what the paddles do. I am trying to figure out why they are useful. In the OPD mode, you can always have as much or as little regen as you want just based on where your left foot is. You want more? Lift off more. You want less? Lift off less. There is NO need for paddles or menus or anything. It "just works."

This whole idea of creep and paddles for "downshifting" are all relics of the ICE way of doing things. These things were done not because they were the best human machine interface, but due to limitations of the ICE technology. We don't have gears anymore. The amount of "engine braking" (regen) is completely variable and effectively infinite, just adjust your foot. Why add more controls that just complicate everything?

I think the Ioniq 5N use of the paddles is perfectly ridiculous. Why replicate a terrible experience (herky-jerky shifting of gears) with software?

I get that those of you with paddles have found uses for them. My contention is that your lives could be much simpler if you just had everything on the right pedal. No thinking required.

 

[AlanL]

This whole idea of creep and paddles for "downshifting" are all relics of the ICE way of doing things.

Try towing down the Panamint Grade into Death Valley or or any of the other steep curvy grades in the west. I’m not saying everyone needs this, but some of us do and our lives depend on it.

 

[cyure]

Try towing down the Panamint Grade into Death Valley or or any of the other steep curvy grades in the west. I’m not saying everyone needs this, but some of us do and our lives depend on it.

Well all I can say is Scout knows people are going to tow large things down mountains and I would imagine they would want people to do that safely in their vehicles. So however it happens I would think they would make sure it’s safe. It wouldn’t make sense for them not to.