I remember a post where someone mentioned that switching between regen and motor has efficiency loses, and that made sense. I started to pay attention lately on how often regen kicked in during a normal drive, and it was a lot. Maybe it was because my foot control is not as good as others, but I found it difficult to get the car into no regen frequently, especially in city traffic. So, I tried setting the regen level to 0 using the paddle, but keeping auto/smart regen on. It takes a bit of time to get used to the car cruising when you take your foot off the go pedal, but it was a much smoother drive, and more comfortable for passengers. The smart regen slows you down when approaching other vehicles, and if need be, you can then touch the brake to slow even more, adding more regen. Using this system, you control when regeneration comes on, and it comes on much less than using any other regen level. That would seem to be more efficient. It’s true that you need to touch the brake pedal more often, but you touch the accelerator pedal less. I don’t have the equipment or expertise to measure efficiencies, but I would like to hear from someone that can, and I bet it is more efficient with 0 regen over other levels, in spite of the fact that the manufacturers and others recommend one pedal driving for efficiency. I don’t believe it anymore. Hyundai doesn’t even allow us to set 0 regen as a standard setting, but I wish I could. I bet this will generate some discussions!!!
On my 21 model I have kept the regen level at 1 (as opposed to 3 on my previous 19 model) with auto regen enabled and still have the same efficiency readings, sometimes as low as 90 Wh/ km (and still shows over 400km @ 80% SOC). As you said, it is a much more comfortable drive and easier on the drivetrain. Touching the brake pedal will give you a ton of additional regen as observed on the electricity use/ drivetrain power consumption screen.
The car has *paddles* for the regen level, which implies to me that part of the intent is to be able to change it on the fly. If the paddles instead went to a gearbox, would anyone be whining about a "default gear" or which one they wanted to drive in all the time? No, they'd be shifting in realtime to match the surroundings, without a second thought. That's how I've come to use the paddles. It is now habit to bop the right-hand one to 0 when starting out, and I love the free no-feet-on-pedals long glide that gives, but on well-anticipated slowdowns or some downhills I'll kick it to 1, just like I'd "gear down" on any manual-shift setup to bring in that bit of extra drag. I rarely use 2 or 3, but have occasionally to limit runaway on really steep downslopes. It's all adaptive use, and is an entirely appropriate user interface when thought of as "shifting", or "10 degrees of flap", or however you prefer. Treating regen like it was a preset you are then stuck with is pretty misguided in this setup. _H*
I tried to ride on "0" regeneration with left paddle braking, but the best results gives riding on maximum regeneration, which allows practically "one pedal drive" with minimal braking just before stopping. In many cases, I don't even have to touch the brake, because the lights change and the predecessor moves before I reach it. When driving like this, I also have much lower energy consumption.
The question effectively posed was: is auto regen more efficient than 0 regen? The answer is presumably a matter of if the auto regen is smarter and smoother at anticipating the slowing leading cars than the driver could, because in the end both modes are still using "regen" to slow down. But at very low speeds the use of the brake pedal in regen 0 will cause the disks to be engaged, not necessarily a bad thing for efficiency. If you use the left-paddle-hold you're forced into a high deceleration rate which is unlikely to be ideal in most circumstances. Certainly the auto recuperation is going to be consistent and will not get impatient when the gaps between the cars ahead stretches out further than you think they should.
Maybe my 2019 battery is failing. I don't get that kind of km on an 80% charge anymore. Yes, I usually drive in regen 1, but then paddle to 0 when I remember! I used to get 485 or so km on 100%, but even before the charge was set to 80% I was only getting around 425km. Now I get around 345 on 80% charge, but the battery in 2.5 years old now. Looking forward to a new battery!! Hope it doesn't take too long. I guess the 2019 you traded-in will have the recall on it.
