Every electric motor is also an electric brake. But even that’s not enough to stop a Porsche EV, so the automaker integrated regen directly into its conventional braking system.
Getting back energy every time you brake? It’s not magic, it’s called regenerative or recuperative braking. Porsche explains how the Taycan can turn your forward motion into power for the battery every time you touch the brake pedal.
Braking Wastes Massive Amounts of Energy
![Porsche Porsche Taycan Regenerative BrakingRegenerative Braking Porsche Taycan Regenerative Braking](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.gearjunkie.com/uploads/2022/06/P19_0705_a3_rgb.jpg)
Regen braking, which is how we’re going to refer to it going forward, isn’t new. It’s been part of every successful EV and even hybrid cars as long as they’ve been on the market. It’s still a bit of a mystery to most, and not every system offers the same capabilities.
Porsche’s example supposes that you’re cruising at 125 mph when a delivery van changes lanes in front of you. In both a Taycan EV and a 911 coupe, you slow to half that speed to follow safely, but the two do it very differently.
A 911 (or any gas vehicle) turns the kinetic energy of the 125mph slowdown (call it a 60mph change in speed) into heat through the brake pads and rotors. That heat is useless for you, and the 911 sends it into the air around the car.
Regen Braking Turns Kinetic Energy Into Electrical
![Porsche Taycan Regenerative Braking Porsche Taycan Regenerative Braking](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.gearjunkie.com/uploads/2022/06/b-taycan3.jpg)
Why Porsche Doesn’t Do One-Pedal EVs
![Porsche Taycan Regenerative Braking Porsche Taycan Regenerative Braking](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.gearjunkie.com/uploads/2022/06/b-taycan2.jpg)