How to maintain your brakes with regenerative braking?

[Mr.Cooper]

Hello everyone!

I had an interesting conversation at the garage today about the impact of regenerative braking on brake wear. I usually rely almost entirely on regen to slow down, which I figured would be a good thing for reducing wear on my brakes. But the mechanic pointed out that my front brake discs are already showing significant corrosion, even though my car has low mileage.

How often should we actually be using the footbrake to keep things in good condition? The garage owner mentioned he has seen hybrids and EVs with low mileage needing new disks and calipers due to them partially seizing from lack of use.

I am curious if anyone else has run into this issue. How do you balance between regen braking and using your footbrake to avoid potential long-term problems?

 

[Zeke]

That's right. I usually use regenerative braking for highway driving and the foot brake for city driving.

 

[GoMickey]

Using the footbrake occasionally helps prevent rust and seizing. Try braking lightly every few drives to keep discs and calipers healthy.

 

[Travel$quad14]

@Mr.Cooper Regenerative braking works a little differently in each car. Some require you to be in a specific driving mode, others have a paddle behind the steering wheel to adjust the level, and some just rely on how you lift off the accelerator.

You'll often hear people talk about "one-pedal driving." Basically, you mainly use the accelerator for both speeding up and slowing down. Instead of completely lifting your foot off the accelerator and then pressing the brake pedal, you just gradually ease off the gas. This triggers the regenerative braking system to slow the car down.

Of course, in an emergency, you can always slam on the regular brakes to stop quickly.