Braking is an essential part of motoring and the latest in the braking technology is the regenerative braking. To understand it fully you must know how regenerative braking works. While you are driving your car, every time you step on the brake pedal you are wasting energy by way of losing the kinetic energy that is used to move your car forward. As energy can neither be created nor destroyed a form of energy is converted into another form of energy. Usually kinetic energy is converted into heat energy in the ordinary cars.
In the present day electric vehicles the primary concern of the engineers is to keep the battery charged at all times in all possible manners. Towards this the regenerative braking system has been designed to put more power into the batteries whenever you apply brakes in your electric vehicle. When you study how does the regenerative braking system works you will be surprised to find the same electric motors that move your car forward by taking power from the batteries give back power to them acting as a generator whenever you apply brake.
By using the regenerative braking system you can easily recapture much of the car’s kinetic energy and is converted into electricity and this is sent back to the battery to add to the mileage range of the electric car. This type of regenerative braking system is found in most of the high end electric vehicles and the best part of the system is that it is becoming more popular now. This technology is being extended even to the electric bicycles and even in Formula one race cars.
By knowing how does a regenerative braking works you can easily understand, that this system is totally different from the conventional braking system we find in the oil run vehicles. The traditional braking system uses brake pads to increase friction with the moving parts of the wheels of the vehicles to reduce the speed or stop it altogether. Additional friction develops between the slowing down wheel and the surface of the road and this leads to the generation of heat.
But in the regenerative braking system the braking is done with the use of the same motors or the power train that drives the wheels of the electric wheel. When you press the brake pedal in the electric vehicle the driving motor itself brings in the braking effort by just changing the direction of rotation of the motor and makes it run in reverse direction thereby dragging the wheels and making them reduce speed or come to a halt. During this reverse motion the motor that was drawing power from the batteries generate electricity just like a generator and this electricity is fed into the batteries and stored for use.
Though, this is a simple schematic description of how does regenerative braking system works, it uses many related technologies to bring in more braking power as well as capture more electricity for the batteries to get charged every time you are applying the brakes. In case of a hybrid vehicle or an all electric vehicle these regenerative brakes work more efficiently at certain situations and at certain speeds and to avoid unnecessary panic in drivers back up friction based brakes are also available in certain vehicles.
In the present day electric cars the regenerative braking system has advanced much and the driver is given more options to select which type of braking must be used in a given situation. Advancements in electronics have made it possible for the driver to have a variety of options to make use of this advanced braking system in an efficient manner. However it is necessary that you must know how does regenerative braking system works to use it in the best way and achieve better recharging of your batteries even when you are driving your electric vehicle.
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