Recuperation: For efficiency or driving preference?

[RAHRCR]

I have had my Taycan for about 2.5 weeks now and have played with recuperation for about half of my driving miles. I am curious to know whether recuperation on Taycan is an efficiency play or really just a feature that seeks accommodate a different driving style.

I am interested in the experience of users related to efficiency using recuperation and less so opinions about Porsche’s driving ethos.

Please share your experience. Mine has been that there isn’t much difference in efficiency using recuperation (coasting vs braking). Trying to understand the car more…

TIA.

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[Jhenson29]

Maybe worth a read:
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/recuperation-modes.5718/#post-79271

 

[RAHRCR]

Maybe worth a read:
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/recuperation-modes.5718/#post-79271

Thanks but this is mostly the kind of pontification that I am trying to avoid. I am interested in the experience of drivers…with and without recuperation.

 

[Jhenson29]

I am interested in the experience of drivers…with and without recuperation.

Okay, but then, I have to ask, why?

Based on the below:

I am curious to know whether recuperation on Taycan is an efficiency play

I have to assume you think some people may see better efficiency with recup on. Otherwise, what’s the interest?

There have been posts related this, for example, read the bottom of this initial post in this thread for some “user experience”. It’s long. Just jump to the table at the bottom.

https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/t...2021-taycan-4s-after-6-months-ownership.6447/

Spoiler alert, overrun recup off is more efficient.

IMO, the reason people are interested or surprised is because they hear it “increases range”, but fail to understand that the context is relative to friction braking, which is what the other post I linked tried to explain.

 

[JAGMAN]

I’ll take the bait…2 technical points before I answer.

First and most importantly, recuperation is always active (except for first mile or two of driving each day to clean the brake discs, abs intervention, etc).

Second, the recuperation setting, on/off/auto, changes coasting behavior. Recuperation cannot be turned off. If you press the brake pedal, you are using recuperation (except for a few caveats).

I drive on open highways with coast active.
In traffic, recuperation on.
I use auto until it annoys me, then I turn it off.

coasting is most efficient…because recuperation suffers inefficiency due to heat losses.

Lastly Porsche has made it confusing by mixing nomenclature. Coasting behavior is really what you’re changing with the settings on the wheel. On the vehicle drive settings page it’s called recuperation and that suggests that it can be turned on or off. It is always on.

This is different than a Tesla. Tesla doesn’t have brake pedal recuperation, thus the one pedal driving design and implementation.

 

[tigerbalm]

Tesla doesn’t have brake pedal recuperation

Good explanation. I did not know that.

 

[f1eng]

I have had my Taycan for about 2.5 weeks now and have played with recuperation for about half of my driving miles. I am curious to know whether recuperation on Taycan is an efficiency play or really just a feature that seeks accommodate a different driving style.

I am interested in the experience of users related to efficiency using recuperation and less so opinions about Porsche’s driving ethos.

Please share your experience. Mine has been that there isn’t much difference in efficiency using recuperation (coasting vs braking). Trying to understand the car more…

TIA.

Very unlikely to impossible that any private driver has done a properly conducted, idential conditions, comparison of the 3 coasting modes, it would take a huge amount of time to get statistically valid data.

The nearest you can get will be what Porsche has done and you would be, frankly, bonkers to think anybody here has any chance of giving better engineering advice than them.

The salient point is what @JAGMAN wrote above. The recuperation is always on, and done as it should be, with the brake pedal. The 3 settings the driver can change are preference for the feel when you come off the throttle, can only make a small difference but coasting will be the most efficient - basic engineering.

Any car which only does recuperation by lifting the throttle rather than via the brakes is taking the cheap and easy engineering solution. I have zero respect for that solution, personally.

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