Stupid questions about how to drive an EV

DesperateDan

Bearing in mind I have never driven anything other than an old diesel manual, and a Kona for about 5 mins 2 months ago, I'm about to take one home soon.

The Kona has drive, reverse, neutral and park 'gears'. I am trying to understand why you would ever want to switch to neutral?

My understanding is 'Park' locks the wheels with the breaks and should be switched to before putting on handbrake (stopping the car or on a hill in traffic). Neutral is no good in those situations. If I am stopping at a roundabout I should be in Drive the whole time (with the break fully pressed), then just hitting the accelerator.

The only situation I can think that Neutral is useful is if you are either pushing / towing the car somewhere which is supposed to be bad for EVs anyways.

In fact while we are at it why is there even a Park gear if the handbrake should really be put on whenever you are stopping?

Apologies if these are really very dumb questions the car instructions are pretty uninformative :pac:

KCross

Neutral is for towing

Park is for, well, parking!

You don’t want the car in drive mode as soon as you turn it on. Hence the need for park and then you change it to drive. It’s how all automatic cars work. It’s not an EV thing.

n97 mini

Park doesn't use the brakes. It locks the transmission.

DesperateDan

Okay makes sense so basically there actually is no need for neutral except towing.

They all seem superfluous. If I was chief EV designer in Hyundai for the day my logic would be to hide the neutral button under the bonnet, automatically switch it to park whenever the car is stationary and switch to drive when it is not, and merge the drive / reverse buttons into one toggle button.

So 4 buttons become 1

zilog_jones

For automatics in general: If I'm stopped in traffic for a long time I would put it into neutral and apply the parking brake. Putting the transmission into Park in this situation usually causes the car to rock forwards or backwards a bit, which could cause concern to other drivers, and I don't know about EVs specifically but switching to P may cause more wear and tear than going to N. Also it's easier to go back into D from N than P (don't need to apply brakes, closer on linear gear selector). Otherwise I'd just keep my foot on the (service) brakes.

I'd also use N if I wanted to push the car, or test the friction brakes (as there would be no regen in neutral).

Absolutely no need to use the parking brake for hill starts in an automatic - most modern ones have some hill assist or auto-hold function, and even without that it's easier to just brake with your left foot.

PS: I'm saying "parking brake" instead of "handbrake", as many automatics use a third pedal for this and not a hand-operated lever.

DesperateDan

Okay that's pretty interesting, it sounds like it's a bit of a hang over from automatic ICEs and maybe in the future car designers will come up with a way of making it even simpler and smooth out the transition from park to drive. The manual seems to just assume you know that info, all it says for Neutral is: "The wheels and gear are not engaged"

patmac

Would it be good idea if we had a sticky for people like me who have just bought electric, the whole thing is bit of a mine field especially when some garages havent the knowledge or interest regarding grants, installations etc.

Shefwedfan

I have electric and diesel auto

In the electric it wont start unless in P, then put into R or D depending and which way you want to go. I will leave in D all the time. The eGolf does have a N because it has the same setup as a combustion engine but I leave in D all time till I stop.

In the diesel I will flick into N if sitting for a period of time and then back into D. I do this because someone mentioned once it is not good to leave in D for a sustained period if standing still. No idea if true or not.

The eGolf does have auto hand brake, so once you come to stop it will kick in, it wont move then till you press down on accelerator

mordeith

I'm the same in the i3. I'll use neutral and apply handbrake if stopped at lights or anywhere where it'll be a reasonable amount of time. Pop it into D when ready to go and the handbrake auto disengages. When I park up and press the off button the car automatically goes into Park and applies the handbrake. I don't I've ever actually manually put the car in Park.

KCross

DesperateDan wrote: »

Okay that's pretty interesting, it sounds like it's a bit of a hang over from automatic ICEs and maybe in the future car designers will come up with a way of making it even simpler and smooth out the transition from park to drive. The manual seems to just assume you know that info, all it says for Neutral is: "The wheels and gear are not engaged"

Its about as simple as it can get though.

99% of the time you are going from Park to Drive or vice versa and thats just one button press or one flick of the switch.

You dont really need to select/use neutral. I cant see how it can be made easier.

DesperateDan

KCross wrote: »

Its about as simple as it can get though.

99% of the time you are going from Park to Drive or vice versa and thats just one button press or one flick of the switch.

You dont really need to select/use neutral. I cant see how it can be made easier.

Well mordeith has just said he's never manually used the park button and I think I will be in the same boat.

I like as little to be thinking about because it just removes any margin for error even if you do pick everything up in muscle memory very quickly, a computer is always going to be more efficient at making decisions than I am at least. Leaves more room for cup holders or something :pac:

I've always thought manuals should have ceased to exist as soon as automatics became very reliable. I also think the e-pedal is a great idea, maybe we will see EVs without even break pedals in the future

Twenty Grand

In a similar note Toyota is reducing the need to is the brake pedal on the new Leaf

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/06/new-nissan-leaf-has-one-pedal-driving-mode-for-both-accelerating-and-braking