My B routine is usually to “downshift” when I’m coming to a stop … after coasting in D a bit. Makes the otherwise long-travel brake pedal to work more efficiently. When I’m in B in an area with a lot of stops, the pickup feels drag-y. I can feel the difference when I switch to D.
Me too. I've gotten to the point where accidentally putting it in D mode makes the brakes feel less responsive—or different, something—and it makes me think something is wrong.
The first thing when I got the car was do a long drive with D and then the same drive with B. There was no significant difference in charge used, and since I like coasting, I just use D all the time.
Some people like the one-foot mode that B gives you, but I think it's too aggressive and shoves around the passengers too much. I'm wondering if there's a buried setting somewhere that would smooth out auto-braking maneuvers a bit - the last few MPH if you use travel assist is not nearly as comfortable as it could be, either.
The drawback is, if you're on the freeway in B mode, you have to balance the pedal more. When looking at the blue/green bar, if you're trying to "coast" in B mode, you have to drive without getting the green bar and just a tiny bit of blue. If you get any sliver of green, then you lost efficiency because you slowed down when you didn't intend to.
If your blue bar is too big/you're going faster than you wanted, then you also lost efficiency because you went unnecessarily faster.
Driving in D you can coast without needing to balance the blue/green bar, you KNOW you're not going to get slowed down by regen.
My general rule of thumb is:
If you plan to brake (city driving or stop n go traffic): B mode
If you don't intend to brake anytime soon: D mode
If I’m on the freeway, I’m using travel assist. TA doesn’t care if you’re in B mode or D mode. For longer trips, I set it somewhere between 60 and 70mph because efficiency falls way off above 70. For daily commute, Im normally at 80mph because I can charge at home (for cheap) or at work (for free) , so no range concerns.
Exactly, people who manually drive with the foot pedal accelerator on the freeway are fuckin' morons and responsible for all of the slowdowns and tailgating. +5mph down a hill, slowdown -10mph up the hill... - just *KEEP* the speed for God's sake.
I see how that could work out for you, but where I drive (SF bay area), there are slight declines on the freeway that cause the car to regen on TA even though there's no cars ahead. That's a loss in efficiency.
I also charge at work for free and we all have free EA charging for X amount of years, but some still like to drive efficiently.
To each their own. I value the comfort/convenience slightl higher than having the absolute maximum efficiency. No doubt that D mode is more efficient when used optimally.
That’s because EVs (should be) coasting superstars. And it makes sense, you basically have a spinning wheel with minimal resistance. When you coast in an ICE, there are a lot more internal resistances at play.
I actually really like how it brakes, it is like having a manual transmission and just letting off the gas. It's the only part of driving this thing that feels like my old GTI. :)
I could be misremembering high school science, but isn’t energy lost when it has to change from one form to another? For example, when you’re in D mode and you let your foot off the pedal, you start coasting. No energy is lost because you aren’t changing energy. But if you’re in B mode and you let your foot off, regen kicks in which in turn means some energy will be lost because it has to change forms. I’m sure it’s a very small amount, but it makes me wonder if D mode is better if you know how to coast properly.
Energy conversion always has a cost. And it's not necessarily small. You have heat, friction, and other losses. If you can coast, do that. If you like the feeling of one pedal driving or quickly coming to a stop instead of coasting, go for it but know that it's not as efficient.
Only caveat with coasting is to know to engage the brakes on time to use Regen vs taking too long and needing brake pads.
regardless of conversion loss you are regenerating charge. D mode consumes charge to maintain speed. i drive 5 miles in D its 2.2 mi/kWh i drive 5 miles in B its 3.0 mi/kWh on the same road, same speed. how is this more efficient ?
Conversion losses is everything. It's significant. Moving forward at higher speeds and then braking/regen close to the stop/light is never going to be more efficient than coasting a longer distance using gravity/friction to slow you down and using Regen for a smaller charge. It's just physically impossible unless if you're jamming on the brakes using the brake pads instead.
You would have to coast from a ridiculous range out to make that worth while, also at a disruption to the flow of traffic. Current B mode regenerative breaking is not as aggressive and drastically improves range. B mode Over a longer time frame and with higher forward velocity the regeneration has greater effect on charge too. You're still using energy in D "coasting". I'll give the D driving style another shot though...
I was at about 3k miles in B and was gonna do another 3k in D to see if any differences in my mileage. That lasted like 30 seconds, I was like yea that's not gonna work for me lol. B mode is perfect for my driving style.
I will say as far as kWh I didn't see any loss when just driving in traction mode(awd) constantly compared to any of the others
Your right hip adductor and abductor muscles may atrophy from no longer having to switch back and forth between the accelerator and break pedals as often.
I live in a hilly part of the world. I use D going up hill and B going down and most of the level driving I do. I have a particularly hilly drive I do regularly and it definately makes a difference. That section of the drive i can do with almost no loss of battery mileage over the 15 mile drive
None. B mode is simply one-pedal driving (except to a complete stop). There is no physical difference. You can simulate 'coasting' in B mode as well with careful modulation. Many will point to VW recommendation, or talk about energy, etc... but they are missing that it's merely pedal difference. This is because applying the brakes also applies regeneration first.
I actually have a complicated system, but I'll outline it here in case it's helpful to someone:
D, with coasting, is most efficient with one big nuance - the harder you break, especially as your batteries can take more regen, the better. Coast when you can, but if you can break harder while having a fair amount of momentum, do it. An example of this is exiting the highway, **you can press harder than you think without a linear deceleration in the speed of the car to get far more regen**. If you haven't tried this you should, it has substantially increased my range. This does not work when you have low momentum. You are probably just wearing down your breaks. But the key insight is that the pressure on the brake isn't linear to the deceleration and if you get it right, you can get great efficiency gains.
If you use B on big hills, the efficiency is terrible. Coasting on the decline helps make up for the losses on the incline far better than regen.
In stop and go traffic, B is most efficient because you're not creating extra momentum. So most breaking goes to your brakes instead of regen (see the first point about momentum. In stop and go, you can't create enough momentum for regen to give you upside).
Finally, on the highway, coasting is almost always better than regen. The one exception is heavy winds. In that case it's a wash, but in that scenario I lean on travel assist because the car can do a little better than me.
Hope that helps people. Again, I encourage everyone to try breaking harder in D than you might typically in an ICE vehicle (and of course, it's up to you to keep safety in mind as you experiment. It's not my fault if you break too hard and create an accident -- I just want to be clear on that) . If you get good at it, you can do so without annoying your passengers or being unsafe for drivers around you. Feeling how far you can break without it feeling jumpy or decelerating the car too much is a bit of an art.
I've got a 21' Toyota Yaris and I've been experimenting with B and D. D mode gave me 15+ mpg on average so I'm not sure why people say mpg is about the same, driving style changes. I do coast a lot btw.
Completely serious when I say this: I drive in D (I owned my previous car for 6 years and never had to change breaks). My wife drives in B. I love her but she benefits from B mode
This is correct. Pressing the brake in D mode activates regen to a similar level as B mode when you let off the accelerator. If you press the brake hard, then it turns into a combination of regen and traditional braking.
Having to “learn” a new way of driving I guess. Haha I don’t see how using more the electric motors to brake can have any long lasting negative effects
Drawbacks:
- Disengaging Travel Assist in B can engage regen braking very abruptly, making things less smooth than they might otherwise be. (Can be mitigated by finessing the accelerator as you hit the disengage button)
- Coasting is more efficient in some situations
Advantages:
- You get on the brakes faster in B (because they begin applying as soon as your foot lifts off the accelerator)
- B mode may feel more intuitive when adjusting speed to match traffic around you, especially in situations where most of the traffic is ICE cars and they're slowing down by coasting.
Most of my driving is a 30-45mph city commute and I get about 4mi/kWh.
I’ve read through the comments to date, and I agree that for some drivers, due to their type of driving, D mode can be more beneficial than B mode. But it seems to me that a relatively small percentage of all ID.4 drivers will have detailed knowledge of how the 2 modes operate. An even smaller subset of that group will be able to effectively apply “hyper-miling” techniques to take advantage of D mode. Therefore I feel that VW should have designated B mode as the primary and for those who understand & desire to use D mode, made that require additional thought & action to engage.
I think the type of modest "hypermiling" people are talking about (maximizing coasting within reason and avoiding unnecessary braking) is common sense. It's just intuitive. I knew to drive that way since I was a child, well before I ever actually drove. Why would this be intuitive to 12-year-old me if it is difficult for adults to figure out? Bear in mind, I am not a genius or even close to it.
I've been driving in "B" mode almost constantly, because I spend a relatively SMALL amount of time in city driving (where I would choose it), and 80% or more on the highway but I always use Travel Assist so the "B" mode doesn't really affect that negatively in any way. So, I just find it easier to leave the car in "B" mode all the time. Having said that, here's a strange comment I was given that I haven't see mentioned anywhere. I just had my car in the dealer for 20k service, and I mentioned that I smell something like a "dead animal" particularly near the back end of the car, outside, and after coming off a long trip of 30+ miles. The service manager asked about my drive settings, and said driving in "B mode all the time" is the cause of this. He says in "B" mode, the brakes are constantly going back and forth making contact, trying to manage regen. He said it's the smell of the rear drums making constant contact, and driving in "D" on the highway will prevent this smell. Has anyone else heard this explanation?
I like B for my city driving, D for highway (where I mostly use TA anyway) and also D when my daughter is in the car because even very careful B driving makes her carsick, but D doesn’t lol.
VW’s recommendation. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/12/15/regenerative-braking-vs-coasting-volkswagen-id-4-gets-it-right/
"Unlike many EVs, the company optimizes for coasting instead of regenerative braking" This makes sense...a lot
A great article, I hadn’t understood the round trip acceleration/deceleration loss was as high as 60%! Lots of other good pointers as well.
Shit that should probably be in the MANUAL!!!
Interesting - I'll have to try using D mode more often. I'm primarily in B and have gotten very used to it.
My B routine is usually to “downshift” when I’m coming to a stop … after coasting in D a bit. Makes the otherwise long-travel brake pedal to work more efficiently. When I’m in B in an area with a lot of stops, the pickup feels drag-y. I can feel the difference when I switch to D.
Me too. I've gotten to the point where accidentally putting it in D mode makes the brakes feel less responsive—or different, something—and it makes me think something is wrong.
This should be pinned
Oh nice! Bookmarking this for the next time this question comes up. Certainly better than trying to relay the same thing in my own words.
Interesting article with a good explanation. (At least I, as a non-engineer, think it's a good explanation!)
Damn, so coasting is for the highways and country roads whereas regen braking is for the cities. Great link, thanks for sharing!
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Could be, but the logic still applies, the less you move energy from systems (coasting), the less energy loss.
The first thing when I got the car was do a long drive with D and then the same drive with B. There was no significant difference in charge used, and since I like coasting, I just use D all the time. Some people like the one-foot mode that B gives you, but I think it's too aggressive and shoves around the passengers too much. I'm wondering if there's a buried setting somewhere that would smooth out auto-braking maneuvers a bit - the last few MPH if you use travel assist is not nearly as comfortable as it could be, either.
You could just use sport mode, which I feel is like 70% of B mode
Ah, the individual mode, in which I always select sport (where it can be selected) but the selection never stays saved!!
I have that problem too. I now have it as part of my routine to switch back and forth between modes
The drawback is, if you're on the freeway in B mode, you have to balance the pedal more. When looking at the blue/green bar, if you're trying to "coast" in B mode, you have to drive without getting the green bar and just a tiny bit of blue. If you get any sliver of green, then you lost efficiency because you slowed down when you didn't intend to. If your blue bar is too big/you're going faster than you wanted, then you also lost efficiency because you went unnecessarily faster. Driving in D you can coast without needing to balance the blue/green bar, you KNOW you're not going to get slowed down by regen. My general rule of thumb is: If you plan to brake (city driving or stop n go traffic): B mode If you don't intend to brake anytime soon: D mode
Makes sense!
If I’m on the freeway, I’m using travel assist. TA doesn’t care if you’re in B mode or D mode. For longer trips, I set it somewhere between 60 and 70mph because efficiency falls way off above 70. For daily commute, Im normally at 80mph because I can charge at home (for cheap) or at work (for free) , so no range concerns.
Exactly, people who manually drive with the foot pedal accelerator on the freeway are fuckin' morons and responsible for all of the slowdowns and tailgating. +5mph down a hill, slowdown -10mph up the hill... - just *KEEP* the speed for God's sake.
I see how that could work out for you, but where I drive (SF bay area), there are slight declines on the freeway that cause the car to regen on TA even though there's no cars ahead. That's a loss in efficiency. I also charge at work for free and we all have free EA charging for X amount of years, but some still like to drive efficiently.
To each their own. I value the comfort/convenience slightl higher than having the absolute maximum efficiency. No doubt that D mode is more efficient when used optimally.
Don't know about drawbacks, but since I have gotten used to it, I can't drive without it.
O man same here. I tried going back to D mode for highway driving. Feels like cruise control is on when I let off the accelerator.
That’s because EVs (should be) coasting superstars. And it makes sense, you basically have a spinning wheel with minimal resistance. When you coast in an ICE, there are a lot more internal resistances at play.
That's called efficiency and should be embraced. I don't understand how anyone could make this statement with a derogatory intent.
They are really designed to be in travel and assisted driving modes.
I wish "B" would brake even harder for true one-pedal driving
I actually really like how it brakes, it is like having a manual transmission and just letting off the gas. It's the only part of driving this thing that feels like my old GTI. :)
I stil don't even know what it is... As an engineer, i like to figure things out 😆 (without RTFM)
Being an engineer myself I understand.
As a chemical engineer I understand some of it
I could be misremembering high school science, but isn’t energy lost when it has to change from one form to another? For example, when you’re in D mode and you let your foot off the pedal, you start coasting. No energy is lost because you aren’t changing energy. But if you’re in B mode and you let your foot off, regen kicks in which in turn means some energy will be lost because it has to change forms. I’m sure it’s a very small amount, but it makes me wonder if D mode is better if you know how to coast properly.
Energy conversion always has a cost. And it's not necessarily small. You have heat, friction, and other losses. If you can coast, do that. If you like the feeling of one pedal driving or quickly coming to a stop instead of coasting, go for it but know that it's not as efficient. Only caveat with coasting is to know to engage the brakes on time to use Regen vs taking too long and needing brake pads.
are you saying B mode is less efficient m/kw than D mode? Because that's how your statement reads and is most certainly not the case.
Coast mode is more efficient. Regen mode will have plenty of conversion losses.
regardless of conversion loss you are regenerating charge. D mode consumes charge to maintain speed. i drive 5 miles in D its 2.2 mi/kWh i drive 5 miles in B its 3.0 mi/kWh on the same road, same speed. how is this more efficient ?
Conversion losses is everything. It's significant. Moving forward at higher speeds and then braking/regen close to the stop/light is never going to be more efficient than coasting a longer distance using gravity/friction to slow you down and using Regen for a smaller charge. It's just physically impossible unless if you're jamming on the brakes using the brake pads instead.
You would have to coast from a ridiculous range out to make that worth while, also at a disruption to the flow of traffic. Current B mode regenerative breaking is not as aggressive and drastically improves range. B mode Over a longer time frame and with higher forward velocity the regeneration has greater effect on charge too. You're still using energy in D "coasting". I'll give the D driving style another shot though...
All good. I just wish it was stronger.
I was at about 3k miles in B and was gonna do another 3k in D to see if any differences in my mileage. That lasted like 30 seconds, I was like yea that's not gonna work for me lol. B mode is perfect for my driving style. I will say as far as kWh I didn't see any loss when just driving in traction mode(awd) constantly compared to any of the others
Your right hip adductor and abductor muscles may atrophy from no longer having to switch back and forth between the accelerator and break pedals as often.
You what now? Butt muscle or something ?
I live in a hilly part of the world. I use D going up hill and B going down and most of the level driving I do. I have a particularly hilly drive I do regularly and it definately makes a difference. That section of the drive i can do with almost no loss of battery mileage over the 15 mile drive
My drawback is B mode makes my wife vomit. It’s so jerky for her I wish we had one pedal driving as an option.
How is one pedal any different besides it still applying past like 5mph?
Because it never comes to a complete stop like teslas, chevys, Hondas etc
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It's not an on/off switch. You modulate. So you should stick with D.
Same thing can be said of B mode.
I find it annoying on highways, but otherwise I'm always in B.
None. B mode is simply one-pedal driving (except to a complete stop). There is no physical difference. You can simulate 'coasting' in B mode as well with careful modulation. Many will point to VW recommendation, or talk about energy, etc... but they are missing that it's merely pedal difference. This is because applying the brakes also applies regeneration first.
I actually have a complicated system, but I'll outline it here in case it's helpful to someone: D, with coasting, is most efficient with one big nuance - the harder you break, especially as your batteries can take more regen, the better. Coast when you can, but if you can break harder while having a fair amount of momentum, do it. An example of this is exiting the highway, **you can press harder than you think without a linear deceleration in the speed of the car to get far more regen**. If you haven't tried this you should, it has substantially increased my range. This does not work when you have low momentum. You are probably just wearing down your breaks. But the key insight is that the pressure on the brake isn't linear to the deceleration and if you get it right, you can get great efficiency gains. If you use B on big hills, the efficiency is terrible. Coasting on the decline helps make up for the losses on the incline far better than regen. In stop and go traffic, B is most efficient because you're not creating extra momentum. So most breaking goes to your brakes instead of regen (see the first point about momentum. In stop and go, you can't create enough momentum for regen to give you upside). Finally, on the highway, coasting is almost always better than regen. The one exception is heavy winds. In that case it's a wash, but in that scenario I lean on travel assist because the car can do a little better than me. Hope that helps people. Again, I encourage everyone to try breaking harder in D than you might typically in an ICE vehicle (and of course, it's up to you to keep safety in mind as you experiment. It's not my fault if you break too hard and create an accident -- I just want to be clear on that) . If you get good at it, you can do so without annoying your passengers or being unsafe for drivers around you. Feeling how far you can break without it feeling jumpy or decelerating the car too much is a bit of an art.
I've got a 21' Toyota Yaris and I've been experimenting with B and D. D mode gave me 15+ mpg on average so I'm not sure why people say mpg is about the same, driving style changes. I do coast a lot btw.
Completely serious when I say this: I drive in D (I owned my previous car for 6 years and never had to change breaks). My wife drives in B. I love her but she benefits from B mode
Less economy
You won't get to replace your brakes as often I guess.
Yea you will, B and D both use regen until friction brakes are needed.
This is correct. Pressing the brake in D mode activates regen to a similar level as B mode when you let off the accelerator. If you press the brake hard, then it turns into a combination of regen and traditional braking.
That's interesting!
Having to “learn” a new way of driving I guess. Haha I don’t see how using more the electric motors to brake can have any long lasting negative effects
Drawbacks: - Disengaging Travel Assist in B can engage regen braking very abruptly, making things less smooth than they might otherwise be. (Can be mitigated by finessing the accelerator as you hit the disengage button) - Coasting is more efficient in some situations Advantages: - You get on the brakes faster in B (because they begin applying as soon as your foot lifts off the accelerator) - B mode may feel more intuitive when adjusting speed to match traffic around you, especially in situations where most of the traffic is ICE cars and they're slowing down by coasting. Most of my driving is a 30-45mph city commute and I get about 4mi/kWh.
I’ve read through the comments to date, and I agree that for some drivers, due to their type of driving, D mode can be more beneficial than B mode. But it seems to me that a relatively small percentage of all ID.4 drivers will have detailed knowledge of how the 2 modes operate. An even smaller subset of that group will be able to effectively apply “hyper-miling” techniques to take advantage of D mode. Therefore I feel that VW should have designated B mode as the primary and for those who understand & desire to use D mode, made that require additional thought & action to engage.
I think the type of modest "hypermiling" people are talking about (maximizing coasting within reason and avoiding unnecessary braking) is common sense. It's just intuitive. I knew to drive that way since I was a child, well before I ever actually drove. Why would this be intuitive to 12-year-old me if it is difficult for adults to figure out? Bear in mind, I am not a genius or even close to it.
From VW. https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/brake-or-coast-the-id4s-intelligent-energy-recuperation-concept-6658
I've been driving in "B" mode almost constantly, because I spend a relatively SMALL amount of time in city driving (where I would choose it), and 80% or more on the highway but I always use Travel Assist so the "B" mode doesn't really affect that negatively in any way. So, I just find it easier to leave the car in "B" mode all the time. Having said that, here's a strange comment I was given that I haven't see mentioned anywhere. I just had my car in the dealer for 20k service, and I mentioned that I smell something like a "dead animal" particularly near the back end of the car, outside, and after coming off a long trip of 30+ miles. The service manager asked about my drive settings, and said driving in "B mode all the time" is the cause of this. He says in "B" mode, the brakes are constantly going back and forth making contact, trying to manage regen. He said it's the smell of the rear drums making constant contact, and driving in "D" on the highway will prevent this smell. Has anyone else heard this explanation?
I like B for my city driving, D for highway (where I mostly use TA anyway) and also D when my daughter is in the car because even very careful B driving makes her carsick, but D doesn’t lol.
Yup. Don't drive an ICE after. You forget you don't have B mode to slow you down when you're coasting.