Zhang Yazhou was sitting in the passenger seat of her Tesla Model 3 when she said she heard her father’s panicked voice: The brakes don’t work! Approaching a red light, her father swerved around two cars before plowing into an SUV and a sedan and crashing into a large concrete barrier.
Stunned, Zhang gazed at the deflating airbag in front of her. She could never have imagined what was to come: Tesla sued her for defamation for complaining publicly about the car’s brakes — and won. A Chinese court ordered Zhang to pay more than $23,000 in damages and publicly apologize to the $1.1 trillion company.
Zhang is not the only one to find herself in the crosshairs of Tesla, which is led by Elon Musk, among the richest men in the world and a self-described “ free speech absolutist.” Over the last four years, Tesla has sued at least six car owners in China who had sudden vehicle malfunctions, quality complaints or accidents they claimed were caused by mechanical failures.
Depends on the vehicle. My Nissan Leaf (full electric) and Chevy Volt (plug in hybrid) both brake primarily with regenerative braking, but pushing the brake pedal past a certain point engages conventional brakes.
I don’t think it’s even possible to come to a full stop in either vehicle without engaging the physical brake. Regenerative braking doesn’t do much when you get under 10 MPH or so.
I would think it’s possible for them to come to a full stop with regen breaking smaller personal electric vehicles can lock their wheels coming to a stop ie skateboards and the like
Just talking from my own experience with these two vehicles, they will continue creeping along until I feel the physical brake engage.
It makes a certain amount of sense that a car that isn’t moving can’t generate power by stopping, and no regeneration means no regenerative braking. Were the car completely stopped it would have to start moving a little to get braking power, and imperfect efficiency would mean it’s never going to be enough to stop the vehicle completely.
I know what you’re talking about with smaller electric vehicles, but I think that locking operates on different principles. I don’t think many of those have regenerative braking because the math doesn’t make it practical at that scale. I definitely don’t put myself forward as an expert though.
Ah yea I wasn’t sure I know that they can use regen but it may operate on different principles cause i know my backfire board does advertise it and when used properly does actually add a few miles which on a skateboard does help a lot but I’m no expert either just have to many miles on my board pushing 1200 in under 2 years
Regenerative braking and brake by wire are 2 very different things. One is the brake pedal engaging an energy generating device based on current resistance/momentum until certain physical conditions are met, the other is the brake pedal being attached to essentially a trigger like on a game consoles controller, that tells a computer how hard you pressed the pedal, which then thinks about it and tells the calipers to engage the amount it thinks you meant.
The Nissan Leaf is not brake-by-wire—the brake pedal is directly connected to the car’s hydraulic braking system.
If your electric brake-assist failed you would still have conventional hydraulic brakes.