Recuperation on slippery roads: what e-car drivers need to consider

Created: 12/14/2022, 12:28 p.m

By: Julian Baumann

It is well known that when driving on slippery roads one should be careful with braking.

When recuperating e-cars, there are also a few things to consider in the current weather.

Stuttgart – A cold snap is currently bringing icy air to Germany and there has also been snowfall in many regions of the Federal Republic in the past few days.

The announced minus 50 degrees has not yet happened, but the weather services are currently warning of slippery roads throughout Germany.

Motorists should be particularly careful with the brakes on slippery roads.

Instead of braking abruptly, take your foot off the gas pedal, disengage the clutch and brake repeatedly instead of pressing your foot firmly on the pedal.

Since e-cars are now increasingly asserting themselves against the veteran combustion engines, drivers of battery-electric vehicles still need to be aware of one special feature.

With so-called recuperation, energy can be recovered in a purely electric car or a plug-in hybrid, which is normally consumed by friction when braking.

However, you should be careful with regenerative braking, especially on slippery roads, as a practical test by the

portal showed.

In addition, e-cars also face other dangers in winter when it is freezing cold.

E-car recuperation on slippery roads - speed is key

Brake energy recovery, or recuperation, in electric vehicles is quickly explained.

An electric motor can run in two directions, forward and backward.

If you press the accelerator pedal, the engine runs forward and thereby drives the wheels; if you press the brake pedal, it runs backwards, generating electricity and charging the battery.

With modern models in particular, it is usually no longer necessary to press the brake pedal to reduce speed, since the mechanical brake engages automatically as soon as you take your foot off the accelerator pedal.

However, a viewer from the

community got out of a curve with his Tesla Model 3 on a snow-covered road and blamed the regenerative braking.

Recuperation allows e-cars to regain energy when braking.

But be careful on slippery roads.

© Porsche AG

Since the mechanical brake is actuated automatically, so-called "stutter braking" - i.e. the repeated careful braking mentioned at the beginning - cannot be controlled directly by the driver.

However, as a test by

on a prepared test site of the ADAC in Leipzig-Halle showed, it depends on the speed whether an e-car can still be controlled during recuperation or braking or not.

A Tesla Model 3 with all-wheel drive, a Kia EV6 and a Skoda Enyaq with rear-wheel drive were used to test how the e-cars behave when recuperating in curves on snowy and icy roads.

E-cars in winter: Recuperation should be reduced to ensure control over the vehicle

As the test showed, recuperation in e-cars at speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour has only a minimal effect, even on slippery roads.

From a speed of 50 kilometers per hour, however, more caution is required in wintry weather with a recuperation brake.

Rear-wheel drive vehicles in particular tend to break out over the rear.

Without recuperation, and when you applied the brakes yourself, the handling of the cars remained much more stable in the test.

The Tesla Model 3 remained stable even at higher speeds despite recuperation and only broke out at speeds that should not be driven in winter - or otherwise on public roads - anyway.

In the case of slippery roads, of which there are currently massive warnings in Baden-Württemberg, the following applies: The recuperation of electric cars should at least be reduced.

In the best case, drivers switch off the function completely and also use the stutter brake.

Many modern models also already have special modes for use in winter.

At Tesla, for example, this is called “Snow Mode”.

The fact that e-cars are disadvantaged overall in winter has been refuted several times.

Last winter, an electric Porsche rescued a BMW combustion engine that got stuck in a snowstorm.