When a vehicle speeds up, it uses energy of fuel/battery. Eventually it comes to a stop, which turns the kinetic energy into the heat of brakes. The brakes then cool down transferring the heat to the environment. So instead of heating up the brakes, can an electrical generator be installed to extract at least a fraction of the used energy? Or it won’t be able to stop a vehicle fast enough?
Edit: turns out it is a thing and called regenerative braking. I won’t delete the post though for anyone with the same question
In: Technology
It is done! The technology is called regenerative braking and it is present on nearly every electric vehicle today.
It has some limitations which prevent us from ditching friction brakes altogether, though.
1. It can provide, at best, peak accelerating force, but vehicles are always capable of braking much faster than accelerating, so peak accelerating force isn’t enough.
2. It is restricted under certain situations, such as when the battery is nearly fully charged.
3. It can only provide a braking force at the wheels that are connected to a motor. This can be non-ideal and sometimes even dangerous.
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