Having complained about the battery not warming up in my previous post I now feel that this car is lethal on winter roads. We have the best studless winter tyres (Continental Viking Contact 7), but setting off with a supposedly heated battery, we have no regen for the first 10km at sub zero temperatures. We currently have very icy roads at -15c and with no regen you HAVE to use the brakes. I have very little or no control of the car. At least with a manual ICE car you can go through the gears to slow down the vehicle, but with an electric car that’s impossible. I must stress again that we don’t have this issue with our Kona regardless of the outside temperatures. Mazda needs to sort it urgently as serious accidents will happen!
Not using regen on a 2wd drive car on limited traction roads is understandable. It would be as dumb as using cruise control under similar conditions. But friction brakes would be expected to work like any regular car. Is there an option to disable regen braking? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Yes there is the option to turn off the regen using the paddle shifters on the steering wheel. Actually the regen to slow down the car is safer than using the friction brakes, just like a manual car by using the gears.
This depends on if the regen brakes all 4 wheels. If it does, I agree. But does it? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Not sure about MX3 (is it FWD or Rear) , but on Kona the regen energy is transferred to the traction battery from the front drive wheels, nothing on the rear wheels, which can under heavy regen conditions cause the front wheels to skid under extreme wet or snow conditions. I tend to keep the regen level set to level 1 (a little but not much) regen, until the conditions get better. An all wheel drive system providing regen to all 4 wheels would definitely be more beneficial c/w traction control.
Speaking as a Leaf owner here but imagine most EVs handle this the same way. There are two things at work. First when any battery is cold and at a relatively high state of charge the amount of available regen is limited to sometimes zero. Secondly, if traction control detects even the slightest amount of wheel slip regen is immediately cancelled. On a FWD vehicle the regen is only going to affect the front wheels. The brakes work on all four. It's just something you need to get used to.
