If you use the daily commute, the stop-and-go nature of the congested traffic must have tried your patience many times. Today this is undoubtedly considered as one of the major reasons why city driving has become much more stressful than hours of highway drives. With the frequent slowing down and stopping of the vehicle signals, and the continuous struggle of dealing with aggressive drivers around, the city driving experience is not going to be a pleasurable one in any near future, unless some miraculous solution comes up. Among all these what might irritate and tense you up the most is the health of your car engine that might get too much worked up by constant acceleration, braking and stopping every now and then. This even affects the fuel economy, guzzling too much of fuel without crossing any significant distance. When we were discussing all this near the Pinehurst Chevrolet dealership, an expert serving there assured us with the regenerative braking technology that is being used by most of the recent vehicles as an answer to these issues.
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What is Regenerative Braking Technology
Much unlike the traditional braking systems, the regenerative braking technology is able to get hold of a certain amount of energy that otherwise gets wasted when the driver applies the brakes. The system then re-uses the same energy to supply the car with an additional amount of power. That makes enough sense in terms of conserving energy, and that is the reason why this braking system is used in the recent battery operated vehicles.
How it Works
With the regenerative brakes when you press the pedal, a part of the kinetic energy produced in the vehicle gets converted into electricity. This happens when the vehicle has an electric motor. Then when the brakes are applied, the regenerative braking system stop the motor from working towards the moving wheels of the car, and starts activating its reverse functionality, that is turning the kinetic energy automatically into electric energy.
This extra amount of electricity which gets generated through this process is sent over to the car’s battery and then stored there so that it can be used later on for acceleration purpose. This way, the batteries in electric as well as hybrid cars gather an additional electric charge whenever the driver applies the brakes.
Best for Conservation of Energy
At the same Chevrolet dealership Pinehurst, we observed the fact why majority of the electric and hybrid vehicles today are prone to using regenerative braking systems. Along with the vehicle battery technology, this regenerative braking technology has now contributed a lot in making significant advancement in the automotive industry because of its best energy conservation advantage. Today some calculations show that the existing regenerative braking systems are able to recover up to 70 percent of the acquired kinetic energy of a moving vehicle into electric energy.
The result is more than just being efficient, as this braking system translates into lowering of the fuel consumption and hence owning cost for the owners of electric and hybrid cars in comparison to the conventional counterparts.