Quote:
Originally Posted by byte312
The problem is that if weight is doulbled the energy to accelerate that mass is 4 times as much. The same is true of the distance to stop, it is also 4 times.
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Just to repeat: this is false. Double the weight is only 2x the energy to accelerate to the same speed. And the braking distance might not increase at all, as it's usually traction limited.
But the idea that you can reclaim the energy is also mostly false. A regeneration cycle is very inefficient -- 25% to 30% is typical.
The regeneration efficiency is higher for specialty vehicles, but omitting the transmission, differential and driveshafts (e.g. four CV joints) isn't practical for an on-road car. And we still aren't quite there with regeneration into a high recovery ratio capacitor bank (vs. using the motor controller to push energy back into the batteries). Every attempt has been high publicized, giving the false impression that it's common and successful.