Regenerative braking returns to brake rotor issues

Regenerative braking

I decided I wanted to answer some common questions about regenerative braking and did some Google searches.

AI gave the first response (a technology, by the way, that really hurts my business), and turned up some surprises. The largest of these is yet another reference to problems with the regular, or friction, brakes. That which we have used to stop for a literal century.

“Regenerative braking can also affect the behavior of friction brakes, potentially leading to corrosion and rust buildup on brake rotors.”

I’ve been around the auto industry for a long, long time and first caught a glimpse of this only a few weeks ago. And the reference was oblique.

It came out of a random refence in a Tesla manual about burnishing the brakes (we reported on it here). It suggests, but never explicitly says, that the brakes going unused due to regenerative capabilities will cause problems that can be addressed by a burnishing process (defined as polish by rubbing, in this case, brake pads to the metal brake rotors).

The second reference came about as I had my rear brakes checked only to discover that the rear rotors are pitted. This more than suggests to me that when the brakes are actually used with the Kia Niro EV, that the rear brakes are virtually ignored in favor of the front.

This is normal to the extent that all cars apply more brake force to the front brakes and for good reason. What is not normal is to be so out of balance as to actually sacrifice the rear brakes to corrosion.

In fact, I’ve noted this in a complaint to NHTSA. For all of you driving EVs, use you friction brakes on occasion.

I will return to answering more practical questions about regenerative braking in the coming days.

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