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Brake lights on heavy regen?
Do we know if they’re engineering in that the brake lights illuminate under heavy regen? If I’m not mistaken European rules state that any deceleration above a certain threshold G-force must cause the brake lights to illuminate.
While I’m at it, does the unusual tail profile of the Aptera pose a challenge to lidar or automatic emergency braking systems? Might it be an idea to have the rear facing edge of the rudder be retroreflective or as an additional vertical brake light?
- 18 Replies
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Brake lights on heavy regen?
updated 2 months, 2 weeks ago 16 Members · 18 Replies -
Yes the brake lights will light up when car is decelerating.
The much smaller rear facing flat surface will have a smaller profile for another car’s automatic braking system (radar) to detect. If you want to add an additional vertical brake lights under the license plate to add to safety that sounds like a good idea and could look really futuristic but potentially illegal.
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Rules on low center brake lights probably vary by state/province. Where I live a good number of pickups have a brake light mounted in their receiver hitch.
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Good idea Paul. Heavy regen without brake lights in my van worries me and scares people driving behind me.
Hi Riley, I had not heard auto lighting of the brakes on regen was implemented.
How do did you find out it is implemented?
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Hmmm I didn’t know that any car company with regenerative braking didn’t have the brake lights turn on while the car is effectively braking. What electric van do you drive?
haven’t heard anything from aptera but after reading your comment I will sent them an email to see what they say.
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Thanks Riley.
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I was thinking the same thing about adding a third brake light down there
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Looks like there is already a reflector, if I was going to do it myself I would order a spare led brakelight/diffuser and massage it into the location of the reflector to make it look identical to the other brake lights
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The legal requirement for activation of brake lights is when the braking action is greater than .1 G. The gen 1 Chevy Volt’s regen doesn’t exceed that and it doesn’t activate the brake lights unless using the actual brakes.
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This is a good subject and should be considered, at least by our government. It does not matter what the slowing down comes from, whether from traditional braking or regenerative braking.
If there is a collision, neither you nor the person behind you care what caused the slowing.
The important thing is preventing it in the first place.
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There is an aftermarket module you can buy for motorcycles that activate brake lights when engine braking/deceration. Wonder if it can be adapted to an Aptera if it doesn’t come already equiped with regen brake lights?
- This reply was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by
Kevin Bradbury.
- This reply was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by
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A recent Technology Connections video on YouTube covers the subject: https://youtu.be/U0YW7x9U5TQ. Apparently poorly-worded US regulations allow for not lighting up the brake lights during regenerative braking, and until very recently, European regulations FORBADE activating the brake lights during regenerative braking. Very scary.
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> until very recently, European regulations FORBADE activating the brake lights during regenerative braking. Very scary.
He’s now posted a correction, since that claim was (obviously) incorrect.
There have been several experiments with turning on the brake lights if someone lifts their foot off the accelerator very quickly. If I recall correctly it sped up brake light illumination by 100-200ms in emergency braking scenarios. One example is here https://patents.google.com/patent/US5210522 and I recall a European manufacturer also talking about it some years ago. I don’t know the current status of that idea.
- This reply was modified 4 months ago by
Michael Marsden.
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I know the Gen 2 Chevy Volts do light the brake lights during heavy deceleration while the Gen 1 Volts do not. So this has been done on EVs for almost a decade now.
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IIRC, the Gen 1 Volt did not decelerate fast enough (i.e., regen hard enough) without pressing the brake pedal to necessitate brake lights per the relevant regulation.
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This. I would really like to hear from Aptera that they will be lighting brake lights when the vehicle slows down (at some threshold), regardless of the use of the brake pedal and regardless of the US regulations.
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At highway speeds, once the cruise is shut off, if you are not accelerating, and the regen kicks in, does the taillights indicate the slowing? Those behind might need to understand that you are not just keeping up the speed but slowing down due to the regenerative braking. Hope that is not overlooked. If you know about this, hitting the brake pedal to illuminate the brake light will be needed to prevent rear enders. The tail gating going on at high speeds is NASCAR like in some places, the risk goes up in these situations.
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The brake lights will come on when there’s enough deacceleration – this is fairly standard on EVs.
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The brake lights coming on sensitivity is adjustable (minorly) and can be directly tied to the regenerative braking. Although I do not know how adjustable the sensitivity is during or while using 1 foot operation (one pedal operation) (not using a brake pedal). I know I can adjust my braking on my Tesla Model 3 to the point I use only one pedal. The brake lights come on under nearly any deceleration.
- This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by
Vernon Michael Gardner.
- This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by
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