is it better to ride the brakes because of the regenerative braking? and when is the braking the actual brakes?
RobertMaria - The pecking order of preference to maximize MPG: Coasting, No Brake Pedal Application --- Regenerative Coasting. Very Light Brake Pedal Application --- Regenerative Braking, No Friction Braking Moderate Brake Pedal Application --- Regenerative & Friction Braking Hard Brake Pedal Application --- Friction Braking When Your Speed Drops To 7 MPH & Below With Brake Pedal Applied --- All Friction Braking
Shaka Brah! You can thank the Software Control System “Menehunes” who are pedaling hard in the Hybrid Synergy Drive System.
Watch this video. The gliding described is the best thing to do, just light pressure on the gas that makes it so there's no power going in or out. If possible, its best to leave the energy as forward motion because the conversion to electricity and back to motion is pretty inefficient. The reason regen helps when braking is because it captures some of the energy that would normally be lost as heat in friction brakes.
The key here is that you save more energy by having less speed to scrub off than by pushing it into the battery. Case in point is if you see a red light a distance ahead if you're not impeding anyone behind you you're best off to coast with no power applied and no regen than to continue to power the car towards it then apply the regen to reclaim (some fraction of) your kinetic energy. You'll frequently see people in conventional cars accelerating towards a light that will clearly not be green when they reach it, applying the brakes to stop when they have to stop. The energy was initially wasted as they continued to accelerate. If they have no regen they've then converted that energy to heat in their brakes. If they had a hybrid, some portion of that would go into the battery to be reused later but the rest would go into heating the circuit components (including the battery). Regen is good in that it slows the car without throwing out all the energy but it isn't very efficient. Most efficient is to time yourself relative to the lights so you don't accelerate and slow more than necessary. This isn't very practical in most real life driving though. Try not to be the Prius driver that pisses everyone else off.
