Well, now you’ll just have to keep a jug of electrons on board in case they get low…
Seriously though, I have no doubt that the desire to change is there and the wheels are in motion. Once a system is fully vetted, it will have fail safe provisions perhaps using some technique or mechanism no one has yet envisioned. Maybe the rotor has magnets in it so the wheel brakes are powered as long as the rotor is spinning regardless of what happens to the chassis main power supply or something more ingenious that hasn’t yet been invented.
One thing is for sure, when they do arrive, the chicken little contingent will be out in full force
Something I just discovered today, my Subaru has no backup for the brakes, that is it doesn’t have an emergency brake at all.
The parking brake is electric. The good thing is that it will release when you step on the gas in drive or reverse so you can’t drive with it on. The bad thing, the brake will not attempt to set if the vehicle is in motion, at least not in gear. I have not tried shifting to neutral and hitting the button yet, but that is too many steps in an emergency.
Yes, it will downshift to some extent. It won’t let you downshift very many gears at a time. Its a CVT so it does not seem to have the same drag that you get from a geared transmission.
“One thing is for sure, when they do arrive, the chicken little contingent will be out in full force”
One thing for sure when and if it does arrive with its magnetic rotors and fail safe design, is that it will be twice as expensive as the braking systems today. So instead of a new $40 rotor it’ll be $140 and instead of doing pads yourself, the system will need to be reset by the dealer computer.
I don’t see why brake parts would be any more expensive on an electric braking system. The electric brakes on trailers use the same pads/shoes and rotors/drums as any hydraulic braking system.
@TwinTurbo, boy did you call it. The Chicken Littles are already out in force. You would think electric braking systems were something new. Trailers have been using electric braking systems for at least 15 years, probably longer.
Trailers have been using electric braking systems for at least 15 years, probably longer.
Mostly for the simplicity of hooking up the braking system to the car, not because it braked better.
What do Tesla and other electric cars use for power brake boosting? Since EVs don’t conveniently have a “free” source of vacuum, I’m pretty sure some other system is in use, possibly electric boost. Maybe an air pump and accumulator. I believe they do have conventional disk brakes for ultimate braking power. Doing a 0.9G deceleration of a 4700 pound car at 100 mph would mean the brake system is absorbing close to 1000 horsepower. No way this car could do that much braking with electric regenerative braking. Even a 150 ft 60 to zero stop would have the traction motors absorbing way more power than it takes to accelerate zero to sixty in four seconds.
I don’t know what Tesla uses, but the truth is that a longer brake lever (designed with a better ratio) is just as good as a vacuum boost. It’s not an unknown approach on hot rods with supercharged engines. Long brake levers are readily available for this application.
That along with the regenerative system that places generator loads on the wheels would work fine.
Of course I’m guessing they also have large discs and multipiston calipers that better distribute the pad forces, with larger pads. That helps too, I’m sure.
Yep, making the brakes electric is definitely a matter of simplicity for connecting and disconnecting, but they work well, and I’ve never had trouble with them.
I think the reason they can stand being neglected for so long is that, when your brake controller is set up correctly, the trailer brakes only provide supplemental stopping power. The bulk of stopping power is handled by the towing vehicle. When you calibrate your brake controller, the trailer brakes should barely stop both vehicles at idle speed when you apply the trailer brakes only. Surge brakes seem to be making brake controllers obsolete on lighter camper trailers.
That same argument is what will drive manufacturers to design electric brakes as the primary braking mechanism in the future. Yes, hydraulic brakes are fairly low technology compared to the prospect of electronic brakes but consider the enhancements that have already been tacked onto the hydraulic systems- e.g. ABS that have added significant cost and complexity to the system.
Elimination of the mechanical bits and pieces is one thing. No more master cylinder, proportioning valve, ABS valving module, all the tubing and interconnecting bits, fluid; those things add up and the system cost is fairly high.
But the cost of materials pales in comparison to the labor costs. Someone has to mount all that stuff, clip the lines to the chassis, fill and bleed the system…that labor and the associated overhead does not come cheap.
Now compare that to a brake module that basically attaches similar to the existing caliper, a modified rotor that mounts the same as today and a wire harness to plug in. Labor is significantly reduced. That will be the driving force for the manufacturers above all else.
The implementation may actually cost less in materials too. For example, the ABS feature will not require any additional hardware to accomplish. The master brake controller would simply pulse the wheel brake modules electrically without the need for any special hardware interface like they have now.
Will it end up costing the owner more to service the system? Maybe. But that has never been part of the equation in designing new systems for cars. They are designed to be built as inexpensively as possible so as to keep the initial purchase price in line with market demands while maximizing profitability. The vast majority of buyers never give maintenance costs a thought in the first place. Couple that with the fact that all manufacturers will adopt the technology and there will be no alternative for consumers anyway. Try and find a car without ABS today…
BTW- I would envision the permanent magnet part of the rotor assembly to be separate from the wear “ring” so the cost to replace would not be compounded by the presence of that feature.
Let us all remember back in the early 80’s many of us were running around claiming the sky was falling because cars were starting to become equipped with electronic fuel injection. IMHO EFI is one of the best improvement to cars in the past 50 years.
I remember hearing that we would no longer be able to work on our own cars, parts would be more expensive ( which there are more parts so overall there is more expense, but look at what you save on maintenance.)
So lets get off of it already, this is non sense. The time is here for our low tech dinosaur hydraulic brakes to fade away. Electric is the future!
The only reason why Mercedes electro-hydraulic system was troublesome is because they were trying to use obsolete hydraulic technology with space age electronics. If they would have dumped the hydraulics, the system would have worked fine.
Even the low rider crowd has gone away from outdated hydraulics on their vehicles. They all use air ride setups now.
Hydraulic brakes have been around for 100 years now. Let go of the past!
You can get a complete 10’’ made in the USA electric drum brake kit for a trailer for 35 bucks.
If all cars were equipped with electric drum brakes overall the vehicles braking system would be cheaper.
Disc brakes big advantage over drums is that they are able to scrub off heat much more quickly compared to the old drum and shoe design. Heat is the enemy of brakes as it can take a lot longer to stop a vehicle with overheated brakes…
But, if you have a large enough drum and shoe, they can be just as effective in slowing down a vehicle as a rotor and pad brake set-up However, drum brakes are more prone to fading when hot, because when hot the drum expands, making it more difficult to apply sufficient pressure to the surface area. If you want powerful drum brakes, just look at older semi trucks. They will haul down a 80,000 lb truck in short order.
Discs have another big advantage over drums. If drums get wet, they keep the water within the drum… they stay wet. Discs spin the water away and quickly recover.
Hydraulic brakes have been around for 100 years now. Let go of the past!
So has electricity, what’s your point?
As someone who has worked on a lot of machines, I have developed a strong KISS bias. (keep it simple, stupid!, the first rule of engineering)
There are not a whole lot of systems that can develop the clamping force of a hydraulic piston in a caliper, while weighing so little. Most certainly not elecromagetic coils. Low unsprung weight is important to handling. For that reason, I believe cars of the future will continue to use hydraulic brakes, although the will likely be even better than today’s.
I remember the 1960’s when turbines and rotary engines were going to revolutionize automobiles and piston engines were destined to be obsolete. What nobody predicted was just how good the modern piston engine was going to become. You can literally weld the hood shut on many modern cars and drive them 100,000 miles and the engine will make it.
