02-03-2023, 01:51 PM
In most cases, an accelerometer is involved in the decision to light the brake lights or not.
I don't know if simply touching the brake pedal over-rides that, or if you have to brake to produce a certain amount of retardation first. Different manufacturers will have different ideas.
I had a Ford Puma for a week that uses the 1.0 micro-hybrid. The normal 1.0 Ecoboost is quite a nice engine to drive, but the mild hybrid - just a 48V system, with a belt-driven alternator/motor - made it quite a bit nicer. Mild hybrids generally can't move the vehicle on battery alone, but they fill in at the bottom to give the engine more torque at revs below the point where the turbo can work, and can also assist the engine to give a bit more power, and to cover the initial turbo-lag. That enables the use of a bigger turbo, meaning more power. Currently, the 1.0 Ecoboost can do over 150 bhp with battery assistance!
We've recently gone from a normal 1.0 Ecoboost (125 BHP) to a 1.5 Ecoboost with 150 BHP. The bigger engine obviously has better low-down torque, so is much easier to "launch" and is basically effortless in traffic. Still does between 40 and 50 mpg. We got a peak of 58 mpg from the 1.0 on a long run once. The Puma did a bit better than either of our non-hybrid cars would do, which included a fair bit of town driving, so the mild hybrid definitely helps under those conditions. The tiny battery not adding weight probably helps a lot compared to a conventional self-charging hybrid (which I agree don't really make sense).
One of my recent cars had cruise control with braking. Not a full radar-based active cruise control, just something that would squeeze the brakes for you when going downhill. I wish that was more widespread - the hardware is in every car now. I don't miss the car hugely (we decided to sell it last year as it was worth what we bought it for, and we'd been thinking about going down to one car for a while), but the cruise control with braking is probably the feature I miss most. The auto box was really nice too. Plenty that I don't miss though, so we did make the right decision...
Anyway, that didn't light the brake lights ordinarily. But if you resumed cruise control from a higher speed than previously set, it would brake down to the speed (fairly gently, but positively - not harshly), and under those conditions it often lit the lights. As is the case in many cars, you could see a bit of "spill" around the high-level brake light when it is dark, so it was easy to understand how it worked. Amazing how many sensors are in modern cars - not just accelerometers for braking and stability control, but tilt sensors to help the auto gearbox adapt and light sensors, rain sensors, cameras for city safety and high-beam assist, radar for adaptive cruise and other city safety stuff. Scary really...
I don't know if simply touching the brake pedal over-rides that, or if you have to brake to produce a certain amount of retardation first. Different manufacturers will have different ideas.
I had a Ford Puma for a week that uses the 1.0 micro-hybrid. The normal 1.0 Ecoboost is quite a nice engine to drive, but the mild hybrid - just a 48V system, with a belt-driven alternator/motor - made it quite a bit nicer. Mild hybrids generally can't move the vehicle on battery alone, but they fill in at the bottom to give the engine more torque at revs below the point where the turbo can work, and can also assist the engine to give a bit more power, and to cover the initial turbo-lag. That enables the use of a bigger turbo, meaning more power. Currently, the 1.0 Ecoboost can do over 150 bhp with battery assistance!
We've recently gone from a normal 1.0 Ecoboost (125 BHP) to a 1.5 Ecoboost with 150 BHP. The bigger engine obviously has better low-down torque, so is much easier to "launch" and is basically effortless in traffic. Still does between 40 and 50 mpg. We got a peak of 58 mpg from the 1.0 on a long run once. The Puma did a bit better than either of our non-hybrid cars would do, which included a fair bit of town driving, so the mild hybrid definitely helps under those conditions. The tiny battery not adding weight probably helps a lot compared to a conventional self-charging hybrid (which I agree don't really make sense).
One of my recent cars had cruise control with braking. Not a full radar-based active cruise control, just something that would squeeze the brakes for you when going downhill. I wish that was more widespread - the hardware is in every car now. I don't miss the car hugely (we decided to sell it last year as it was worth what we bought it for, and we'd been thinking about going down to one car for a while), but the cruise control with braking is probably the feature I miss most. The auto box was really nice too. Plenty that I don't miss though, so we did make the right decision...
Anyway, that didn't light the brake lights ordinarily. But if you resumed cruise control from a higher speed than previously set, it would brake down to the speed (fairly gently, but positively - not harshly), and under those conditions it often lit the lights. As is the case in many cars, you could see a bit of "spill" around the high-level brake light when it is dark, so it was easy to understand how it worked. Amazing how many sensors are in modern cars - not just accelerometers for braking and stability control, but tilt sensors to help the auto gearbox adapt and light sensors, rain sensors, cameras for city safety and high-beam assist, radar for adaptive cruise and other city safety stuff. Scary really...
