Do Electric Cars Take Longer To Stop Than Petrol Or Diesel Cars?
Monday, 23. September 2019
Yes they do! It’s all well and good having a car that sweeps you up to 60 miles per hour in 4 seconds but that’s no good if you can’t stop the bloody thing. OK, it may not be that bad but tests carried out by various car magazines have revealed some surprising results.
In the first place an electric car doesn’t have an engine, it has an electric motor but add in the bank of batteries and the weight shoots up making an equivalent EV much heavier that takes longer to stop even with upgraded brakes.
The next factor is the rolling resistance of the tyres. In order to maximise the efficiency of the car it must be fitted with as low rolling resistance tyres as possible. Unfortunately, this means that whilst some low rolling resistance tyres have very good grip they don’t tend to be as good as those fitted as standard to petrol and diesel cars.
Tyre technology improves constantly so the EV car manufacturers are expecting the situation to improve as new tyres developed specifically for just EV’s are launched.
Finally, there is the regenerating braking technology that takes unused energy that would normally be lost and transfers it back to the battery. These systems can be set in such a way as to slow the car down as soon as you take your foot off the accelerator. This can give the feeling of not braking so aggressively when you apply the brake.
However, this should not affect the braking in an emergency braking situation. Clearly, more work needs to be done here! By Graham Hill
