The Lemon Fool

(2021 ŠKODA Octavia Estate 1.4 TSI iV vRS 5dr DSG (petrol / hybrid))

I drive using a combination of electric and sport mode, depending upon the terrain: sport when going up hill because it lightens/eases the pressure on my foot when depressing the pedal. Perhaps it's because I rarely drive at night that I haven't noticed it before but recently whilst driving before sunrise (no other vehicles on the road) I noticed that whenever I'm in sport mode and take my foot of the accelerator the rear brake lights come on

Is this normal, or normal for this particular make of car or model? And if so then does it mean that for slowing down the car uses its brakes, rather than the engine easing off on the fuel?

On the Audi I had before, the same driving style, I don't recall the brake lights coming on when easing off the accelerator pedal: easing off just caused the car to slow gradually. With the Octavia I find that when easing off the braking slows the car more than i want so I have to press the pedal again.

Is it recharging the battery as you slow down? I can imagine that would make you slow more than you'd otherwise expect, and might also put the brake light on.

Scott.

Without knowing any more, I'd suspect a fault. If I were following a car whose brake lights came on every time the driver decided to coast for a bit, I'd soon get tired of it.

It should be in your owner's manuals. But it might be quicker just to ask the dealer?

BJ

[EDIT]: https://www.id3forums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=298 . Any help?

I asked on the Briskoda forum: apparently it's a regen feature. Which can double as a warning to other drivers that the car is slowing down.

brightncheerful wrote:I asked on the Briskoda forum: apparently it's a regen feature. Which can double as a warning to other drivers that the car is slowing down.

Presumably the regen feature is stronger in sports mode (guess sports mode tends to sharpen up several features) hence the brake light requirement.

So in comfort mode, or whatever the non sport option is called, the regen is either off or so mild it doesn't slow the car any more than taking your foot of the gas in a non hybrid.

Whenever I see a car that keeps tapping the brakes I always overtake them at the first opportunity because it's usually an erratic driver with other poor driving habits that I don't want to be anywhere near.

BT63 wrote:Whenever I see a car that keeps tapping the brakes I always overtake them at the first opportunity because it's usually an erratic driver with other poor driving habits that I don't want to be anywhere near.

Depends on the route. If I know I will leave them well behind, I will overtake. Otherwise I'd rather thave them where I can see them

Back to the OP, this does explani the large amount of 'comfort braking' I see these days - people dragging their brakes so the light comes on, but not actually slowing down. Often I will be coasting and slowing faster than they are so I assume they are just in a very high gear, but also on the motorway I will lift off as the traffic slows but the car in front has brake lights on yet pulls away from me.

Paul

swill453 wrote:Is it recharging the battery as you slow down? I can imagine that would make you slow more than you'd otherwise expect, and might also put the brake light on.

Scott.

On my BEV when slowing and using regen to do so it depends upon how fast you are slowing as to if the brake lights illuminate; slowing slightly more than an ICE coasting = no lights, slowing faster because of stronger regen = brake lights. The amount of regen can depend on how full the battery is and the setting the driver has chosen.

I understand there were EU proposals back a few years ago that would mandate brake lights illuminating if regen caused the car to slow by more than 1.3 m/s² and then turn back off once deceleration fell below 0.7 m/s², but whether anything came of it I don’t know.

AF62 wrote:I understand there were EU proposals back a few years ago that would mandate brake lights illuminating if regen caused the car to slow by more than 1.3 m/s² and then turn back off once deceleration fell below 0.7 m/s², but whether anything came of it I don’t know.

In principle, I get the idea of wanting the driver behind to know that you're slowing down. But if these settings fire off the brake lights off when a driver is merely not pushing ahead, then it's surely devaluing the originally intended purpose of the brake lights, which is/was to send out a warning signal of some urgency?

Brake lights are, after all, among the brightest lights on the car - four times the wattage of the rear lamps, back in the days when we still measured those things in watts. And, as such, they're really supposed to stab you in the eyes a little bit. At the very least, they demand priority treatment from your nervous system. Which is why it gets a bit wearing having to look at them so much of the time.

The bigger danger, though, is surely that they might eventually cry wolf too often, so that some drivers become desensitised and fail to react well enough when the driver ahead really does hit the anchors in earnest?

I imagine that all of this has been researched, debated and approved by the great and the good, but it might have been better if the sensors on these systems could have given us a different intermediate colour/brightness that didn't scream at us quite so loudly? Just saying.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

AF62 wrote:I understand there were EU proposals back a few years ago that I would mandate brake lights illuminating if regen caused the car to slow by more than 1.3 m/s² and then turn back off once deceleration fell below 0.7 m/s², but whether anything came of it I don’t know.

In principle, I get the idea of wanting the driver behind to know that you're slowing down. But if these settings fire off the brake lights off when a driver is merely not pushing ahead, then it's surely devaluing the originally intended purpose of the brake lights, which is/was to send out a warning signal of some urgency?

BJ

Have you driven a BEV with strong regenerative braking?

If not then you perhaps don’t appreciate that if you have them set in ‘one pedal mode’ which provides strong regenerative breaking - ‘one pedal’ because you can effectively almost drive just with the accelerator and ignore the brake - then there is no such thing as ‘not pushing ahead’. The car is either being accelerated and gaining or maintaining speed, or it is slowing and slowing fast.

Generally ‘one pedal’ modes is best used around town when you are accelerating or slowing all the time, rather than country road driving when a less aggressive regen mode is preferable if you just want to slow slightly for a corner rather than come to a halt, and with that lesser regen that is unlikely to trigger the brake lights.

To give an example, with maximum regen set if I lift off the accelerator at 70mph around 400 meters from a roundabout then the car will have slowed to 10mph or so when I reach the line. With normal regen it has probably slowed to 30mph or so.

The first is noticeable braking but the second is just like a bit of increased drag.

AF62 wrote:Have you driven a BEV with strong regenerative braking?

If not then you perhaps don’t appreciate that if you have them set in ‘one pedal mode’ which provides strong regenerative breaking - ‘one pedal’ because you can effectively almost drive just with the accelerator and ignore the brake - then there is no such thing as ‘not pushing ahead’. The car is either being accelerated and gaining or maintaining speed, or it is slowing and slowing fast.

Fair enough, I'll take your word for that. Thanks.

BJ