Afraid to use regenerative breaking for fear of being rear ended.

[canadahowie]

Hello,

First post on the forum - :shock:

We have a 2018 Kia Soul EV white with baby blue trim - we have had it for about 9 months and put about 12k on it since new. We have now driven it through 1 Canadian winter and 1 Canadian summer - and overall love it.

My concern is with the B breaking option - this breaking system works so well that many times when its engaged I never have to actually push the break pedal until I am nearly stopped. If I time it right I can pretty much coast to a stop every time without touching the brake pedal.

My concern is that to my knowledge (and I may be wrong) - taking your foot off the gas doesn't trigger the brake lights - this is dangerous in my opinion as the car is technically braking on its own. I've seen many cars coming up to me fast from behind seemingly not realizing I'm 'braking' and it makes me want to tap my brake pedal just to warn them.

Can anyone confirm whether the break light comes on at all during regenerative breaking? IF not is this something of a safety concern?

With the Eco button pressed and the car in the B mode, I swear it will auto-brake from 80km/h to close to 0 within maybe 10-12 seconds...

Thanks,

Howie

 

[EVDee]

The brake lights engage when in B mode, so don't worry about it.

 

[notfred]

As EVDee says, the brake lights do come on. With Torque / Soul Spy you can see separate entries for brake lights on and for brake pedal pressed. You can then see that the brake lights come on when regenerative braking.