Yeah regen breaking on the accelerator is so bad and unnecessary.

It makes sort of sense from a non-human what’s the motor doing now perspective if this was similar to a gas pedal and removing all gas/juice input. but has no meaningful technical reason to mimic that functionality of the gas pedal rather than the coasting functionality.

In fact, some EVs actually do instead mimic the coasting part rather than the remove all juice part. They mimic the function result rather than not the actual detailed process which doesn’t actually translate well.

The plug in Subaru crosstrek for example configured the thing super well. Let up on the gas pedal, the car coasts with similar slight slowing to a gas car. The brake pedal when starts in regen mode, the tachometer indicates regen. Press harder it transitions to both regen and actual brakes. It’s sensical and just seems so obvious that it should be that way.

There is no “reason” for the car to coast either. I love single pedal driving, it is one of the best parts of electric and hybrid vehicles.

My only problem with it is a few manufacturers have done a bad job with the amount of jerk from the transition.

He is also wrong that the brake lights don’t come on, the ones I have driven definitely do.

You want to coast because it's the most efficient. Regen is better than burning brake pads, but you'll go further by coasting than you will by Regen and then pushing it back out later.

Also, the gas pedal doesn't have enough resolution to handle forwards, coasting, and decent braking all one one pedal travel. You have to be super careful to go straight to coast on a 1 pedal driving modem. It's much better to just be able to lift of the go pedal.

> There is no “reason” for the car to coast either.

The user wants it to! That's a really great reason for the machine to obey.

The driver generally has superior information/ estimates about upcoming conditions and decision-trees which the gearbox does not.

For example, "That intersection's red light will probably become green soon, allowing me to efficiently coast for a bit before accelerating again, and I don't (yet) need to brake if instead it stays red."

A similar scenario exists for highways, where the driver is managing their following-distance to buffer-away repeated cycles of braking and acceleration.

Then there's also the problem of cars where the precise increment on the gas pedal isn't accessible or ergonomically viable, and then coasting serves as a way to moderate the output.

> The user wants it to! That's a really great reason for the machine to obey.

No, the user wants to maintain a speed or slow slightly, that does not demand rolling in neutral.

Maybe it is because I have grown up with cars with manual transmissions or maybe it is because I live somewhere with hills and regen is extremely useful, but I don’t find it particularly hard to modulate a vehicle with regen, nor do I think there is an inherent reason for a car to coast other than “it is what I am used to.”

That's why I like my Chevy Volt. It has a couple different drive modes selectable with the shifter. Under the normal drive mode the regen braking is controlled by a little paddle on the wheel or during regular braking (hitting brake pedal). In the other mode (I believe they call 'low') the regen is applied when you take your foot off the gas, aka single pedal driving. I normally use the regular drive mode and reserve low for when there's some nasty winter conditions which dictate the sort of subconscious slowdown that the forced regen provides.