Regenerative braking is the process where energy lost while braking the vehicle is collected using motors. It is a must feature in electric vehicles and seen in many hybrid and internal combustion engine powered vehicles as well.
Wanted to improve the efficiency of your hybrid? Or extend the range of your EV? Regenerative braking helps in providing that additional bonus power to the vehicle’s batteries and the best part is that the bonus power comes out of the energy which would if not be wasted as heat dissipation to the environment. A regenerative braking is system that converts the kinetic energy of the vehicle to electric power and stores them in a battery which can be discharged whenever required. So how does it work?
Regenerative braking system consists of a motor that is connected to the drive wheels of the vehicle and they give or get power from the wheels as per the scenario. They power the wheels whenever the accelerator pedal is pressed and when the pedal is released, the wheels are spinning the motors which produces power and stores in the battery. This also slows down the vehicle by a considerable amount due to law of conservation of energy. This feature is also known as one pedal driving since one need not touch the brake pedal unless it is an emergency and this is seen in many of the EVs these days. However, some regenerative braking systems cannot bring the vehicle to a complete halt and at these places the conventional friction brakes are used (here there is no one pedal driving).
There is also a hydraulic regenerative braking system which uses the kinetic energy of the wheels to pressurise a fluid like nitrogen and stores it in a high-pressure reservoir. When the driver accelerates, the pressurised fluid helps in accelerating the vehicle by saving a bit of fuel.
Apart from producing power, regenerative braking helps in reducing the wear of brake pads thereby increasing its life and provides a comfortable and effortless driving experience especially while going downhill (One pedal braking).
The friction brakes are always present and can be useful whenever there is a need of emergency braking but that will have no or minimal effect in generating power.