Does regen activate the brake lights?

How dare you Sir, don’t you know I am the yardstick by which the rest of the universe is measured! (We really need a sarcastic font option on this forum.)

It is both enjoyable and frustrating at the same time to try and reverse engineer all the nuances of this car. So I offer the following with apologies to Rod Serling:

Imagine a dimension of sight but not sound; of words and images silently crossing the ether at relativistic speeds. Where avatars of unknown souls who will never meet are destined to spend eternity in a fruitless attempt to reverse engineer a humble conveyance from the land of the rising sun. Next stop ..... the Clarity Zone.
Cue music:
dah-dee-dah-dah, dah-dee-dah-dah

 

There is no requirement for manual transmission vehicles. I have on purpose and by accident downshifted too many gears to the point of causing wheel skidding before clutching again.

Also on my big V-twin motorcycles that I had modified with more aggressive gearing for better acceleration at the expense of lower top speed, chopping the throttle at high rpm in, for example, 2nd or 3rd gear causes a lot more decel than any of my plug-ins could ever think about. The negative is this causes a lot more rear tire wear from using engine braking instead of brake pads. Using the bike's throttle to slow down is the equivalent of what car drivers refer to as one pedal driving.

 

I remembered that I saw it on the Volt forum back when I was more active there so that greatly narrowed down my search. See post #4 in this archive:

https://gm-volt.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-181089.html

Spoiler: the technical terms are fairly meaningless to the average joe like me.

 

So this is what I was looking for, it seems they have set a standard, although it only applies to electric vehicle regen:

"Electric regenerative braking systems as defined in paragraph 2.17., which produce a retarding force upon release of the accelerator control, shall generate the signal mentioned above according to the following provisions:

≤ 0.7 m/s² The signal shall not be generated
> 0.7 m/s² and ≤ 1.3 m/s² The signal may be generated
> 1.3 m/s² The signal shall be generated"

This refers to meters per second per second. In the U.S. we would relate better to MPH per second, or even better MPH per ten seconds, which would look like this (rounded):

≤ 15 MPH deceleration per 10 seconds - The signal must not be generated
> 15 MPH deceleration per 10 seconds - The signal may be generated
> 30 MPH deceleration per 10 seconds - The signal must be generated

So ICE cars are ignored, thus you can lightly tap the brakes and activate the brake lights even though you are barely slowing down. Manual transmission is ignored, so you can downshift and do heavy deceleration without activating the brake lights.

I think the same standard should apply to all vehicles. Instead similar to pedestrian warning sound they only seem to make regulations for EV, even though ICE cars can also be nearly silent when coasting at slow speeds. It's time to get the brake lights standardized, after all a driver has no way to know if the car ahead of them is EV/PHEV or an ICE with automatic transmission or an ICE with manual transmission.

In my proposed method brake light activation for all vehicles would be mandatory above 0.7 m/s² and flashing brake lights above 1.3 m/s². Of course there will be several years of overlap since it is not feasible to retrofit previously build vehicles except as optional aftermarket, but that was true with third brake light also. But the sooner they standardize then within about ten years most cars will work the same. Of course maybe all new cars will be electric by then, who knows, but either way if they delay this then it will just be that much longer with brake lights becoming increasing indecipherable, or I should say even more so than they already are.

 

Yep hill and also yield signs / roundabouts are very useful for the paddles, or when approaching a stoplight before you are too close. Even @ 4 the car doesn't really slow down enough to stop, but works well for slowing and yielding