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No more brakes for cars of the future:
Electric cars of the future could be able to ditch conventional brake technology in favour of powerful regeneration by battery-powered motors.
[...] Electric cars already use a combination of conventional friction braking and brake regeneration. The latter slows down vehicles using resistance from the same electric motor that propels the car, feeding that energy into the car's battery to extend its range.
DS, Citroen's luxury arm, said it is "exploring whether regenerative braking alone could eventually be the sole method to slow cars down, helping to better recharge the battery in the process, and doing away with conventional brake discs and pads".
[...] [Conventional brake pads and drums] produce "brake dust", fine particles of metallic material that separates from the pad and disc as part of the braking process.
[...] Dr Asma Beji, a non-exhaust particles expert, said in June 2021 that "the impact on health of brake wear particles is undeniable and cannot be neglected".
[...] Environmental researcher Dr Liza Selley, published a paper for the MRC Centre for Environment and Health at King's College London and Imperial College London in 2020 that suggested "diesel fumes and brake dust appear to be as bad as each other in terms of toxicity in macrophages".
[...] "Macrophages protect the lung from microbes and infections and regulate inflammation, but we found that when they're exposed to brake dust they can no longer take up bacteria.
"Worryingly, this means that brake dust could be contributing to what I call 'London throat' – the constant froggy feeling and string of coughs and colds that city dwellers endure – and more serious infections like pneumonia or bronchitis which we already know to be influenced by diesel exhaust exposure."
DS and other manufacturers including Jaguar and Porsche participate in Formula E electric car racing. The series will eliminate rear disc brakes from its next-generation machines in a bid to improve real-world research into the performance potential of purely regenerative braking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12 2022, @06:04AM
Doesn't the Segway control system do something like this?
If you can develop enough enough torque to "burn rubber" (forward), the physics should work to "burn rubber" (reverse).
What I am getting at is that under normal driving circumstances, regenerative braking should be sufficient most of the time, but if necessary, you have the power to forcibly brake, using energy to do so, but it will stop the vehicle every bit as fast as the most advanced mechanical antilock braking possible. It won't be efficient, but it will stop the car as quickly as possible, like ramming a car into reverse direction, which would likely flat take out a transmission. Kinda hard to take out a magnetic field though.
However, everything breaks, and for something as critical as braking, should the braking circuit fail, I would advise a single use mechanical brake be released to lock up the wheels, kinda like we use an air bag - not to be deployed until electronic braking malfunction detected. Once released, one would have to park the car and manually reset all four wheels. If the electronic braking is still detected to be malfunctioning upon attempted drive off, it will simply trip the mechanical brake again.
This might be useful for anti theft as well. It would force someone to use inordinate amounts of time trying to move the vehicle.
Time for the tow truck.
Of course, once the vehicle is parked, everything is powered down, and a mechanical pawl could be used in each wheel to lock all four wheels very similar to how an automatic transmission is locked up with a pawl in Park mode.
I am thinking minimal mechanical moving parts/bearings by using a hub motor in each wheel, including ability to still move the car even if only one motor still works, but severely speed limited as that single motor will also have to stop the car as well, and a panic stop will engage the emergency brake, that most likely you would have to visit each wheel to reset it. ( Gotta make emergency brake reset a PITA so people won't ignore it and glibly use their last braking system to failure).
I would not want to design something dangerous, neither would I want to design anything that leaves their owner stranded if it could have limped home.
Here's the rub though... Just how many of us would have an innate ability to comprehend the problem and be able to compensate? Stuff like this seems to come naturally to people with engineering interests, but would others comprehend the situation? I ask because about a year ago, one of my friend's wife almost made it home, with the oil light on. Only about 10 more miles and she would have made it.