Driving test in an electric car

I believe agricultural machines like Bobcats have this type of drive system, but they don't have to drive along a motorway at 70mph, which may be difficult to do using just hydraulic motors.

But once you know that your brake lights stay on, there’s no excuse for not engaging the handbrake manually as a courtesy to drivers behind you apart from laziness.

Tim

My car has a twin clutch auto. The start off clutch is set to drag slightly to mimic a torque convertor auto - so it will creep on level ground. But being a friction clutch must cause some wear. So when stopped at say traffic lights, I put it in park. No point in the extra work of using the handbrake, as you have to apply the footbrake before you can select drive.

Om my electric car, pushing the brake pedal firmly engages the parking brake and a light on the panel tells you so. Then you can stop holding down the pedal.

Surely once you engage the handbrake it auto-releases when you press the accelerator?

Doing it your way you have to anticipate the lights changing, press the brake pedal, select drive and then accelerate. Way more faffy than just flicking an electric handbrake on.

Tim

But are you sure your brake lights go out? Most auto-hold brake features keep the brake lights on. Maybe not all though…

Tim

releasing the electric handbrake and pulling away is less smooth than releasing the ABS-held footbrake.

I didn't order my previous car with the auto-hold function, but I later replaced the single switch with a dual switch, added a couple of pins and wires into the ABS unit and programmed the car with it ... the brake lights extinguished when you took your foot off the brake.

On my current car, the spec had changed so that auto-hold is now a standard feature, rather than an option, but the brake lights do not extinguish when you take your foot off, so your argument is with Bosch rather than the drivers.

Depends on the car. Mine releases quickly and smoothly.

Tim

Um no, my argument is with drivers who know that their brake lights stay on and who could easy engage their handbrake to avoid this annoyance.

Tim

Mmm I don't need to release the electronic handbrake, when you press the accelerator pedal the Ebrake automatically releases, and this is a "poverty spec" Yaris so system can't be too expensive.

No, I don't *do* anything (other than touch the accelerator) to release whichever brake is on, but the electric handbrake only acts on the rear wheels, so the car squats a little before moving off, the ABS unit acts on all four wheels, so there's no squatting as they release.

Which is clearly a massive inconvenience. ;-)

Tim

Clearly a prime example of a first world problem, nevertheless one that annoyed me enough that I found a way to fix it.

If you were unable to find a suitable convenience then you too may find that releasing before squatting had unfortunate results. More like to happen with the female of the species though than the male. ;-)

A good many diesel trains have hydraulic transmission - and some of these can do 90mph, so there's no obvious reason why a car couldn't use it. That does seem to be about the limit, though - high-speed diesel trains use electric transmission.

Mike

AFAIK, all electric cars have automatic transmission.

Lew

It has a conventional handbrake.

Quicker than engaging a gear in a manual car?