GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! Consumer reports picked up on this video and did testing which confirmed that this issue affects nearly all Hyundai/Kia E-GMP platform cars (and I very much appreciate them giving a shoutout to this video!) www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/brake-lights-can-fail-to-provide-fair-warning-on-some-evs-a9533519285/ And now! Hyundai will fix this. They're calling it a "field service campaign" and it will begin in July. Weirdly, Kia hasn't said anything yet at the time of this comment's posting. www.autoblog.com/2023/06/15/kia-hyundai-genesis-one-pedal-braking/ Now, while I'm glad Hyundai is doing the right thing (and hopefully Kia does soon), I believe we still very much need a clear, unambiguous regulation to unify brake light behavior with features like one-pedal driving. We are still leaving too much up to manufacturers right now.
Could you do a video highlighting the car's charging issues next? There's widespread issues with Level 2 charging on the Ioniq 5 when charging at higher amperages (typically over 32 amps). The service campaign they released to address the issue simply throttles charging down to unacceptably low speeds. Doesn't seem like Hyundai cares enough to issue a recall.
If you're at one of the manufacturers that does this, could you ask the team to stop doing the thing where brakelights FLASH every time you press the brake? It bothers me when I see it, because flashing your brakes already means "back off," and sending that message every time you brake is like leaning on your horn every time you have the car in gear; it just leads to alert fatigue and reduces your ability to actually communicate with the drivers around you.
@@SirBlastalot I think this happens for safety reasons, a lot more noticeable that someone is braking at night, though i'm not entirely sure how true that may be
Also turning on reverse (white) lights when unlocking a car needs to stop. This makes it appear as if a car is about to back up, but it's just being unlocked in a dark environment. It adds alert fatigue which means when someone really is backing up, you might think they're just getting in the cars. I think Chevrolet does this and it drives me nuts.
@@SirBlastalot its a safety feature so you have no excuse but to notice them braking. in motorcycle academies they advise you to, albeit manually, flash the brakes before fully braking so you can be seen. your sadly a minority
"The brake pedal was the only thing that can slow down the car enough to warrant turning on the brake light" My mangled standard transmission would like a word with you
@@BillZinck "Engine breaking" is a good way of putting it if you over-rely on it. Engine braking is a useful technique, but it should only be used for moderate speed control, like going down shallow slopes or gradual reduction on a motorway. If you're using engine braking such that it warrants a brake light to come on, you're wearing out your gearbox - brake pads are cheap compared to a new gearbox.
@@ValleysOfRain Correct sentiment, but it's the clutch disc which is going to wear rapidly instead of wrecking the gearbox by using downshifting as a service brake.
"The brake pedal was the only thing that can slow down the car enough to warrant turning on the brake light" brother don't underestimate me, I can do amazing things with a tree
Got my "optional recall" update done today. Got the notice in the mail a few weeks ago. Pretty sure you are solely responsible for getting the ball rolling on this, and thank you so much for that.
I just bought an Ioniq 5 and it works well, almost a little too aggressive on turning on brake lights when decelerating. I can't speak for any updates to existing owners, but they clearly updating it before I got mine this past week.@@Meneer456
After I had watched this video last night, I decided to talk about this video with my coworker that I was driving with. After explaining it we were stopped at a red light behind a couple cars and THAT EXACT CAR PULLED UP IN THE LANE NEXT TO ME AND FLAWLESSLEY DEMONSTRATED THE ISSUE WITH THE BRAKES. I love when things like this happen directly after learning about them
I'm happy I eventually bumped into this.. I've almost hit a few cars and felt like I somehow didn't see the brake light. It's nice to know I'm not experiencing some kind of brain malfunction. And apparently not everyone has gotten their car fixed yet. :(
technically there is a metric time that is different, but it was only used in France during the revolution and then reversed again. it has 10 hours a day 100 minutes an hour and 100 seconds a minute.
Script comment: "I was able to stop my car from 60 MPH, [or] about 96 and half KPH, in 13 seconds, or 13 seconds." I absolutely loved that bit of snark on the time conversion from seconds to seconds. I love your channel for the discussions you bring to the table, but I also find it a complete joy when you drop in little quips like this.
@@Nordic_Mechanic matric time is also base 10 but it didn't get implemented. :( How much better the world would be with 100s in a min, 100 min in an hour, 10 hours in a day, 10 days in a week and 10 months in a year? What a sad world we live in. Metric time revolution now!
@@gilgabro420 With metric time, seasons would be screwed in a matter of months if not less. I love the metric system don't get me wrong, but applying it to such a fluctuating thing is very difficult
I love how your videos range from "I'm really bothered by this very small design issue in this very specific product" to "Many people may die because engineers are lazy"
It’s not that engineers are lazy. It’s that manufactures are cheap. They can save an extra bulb and wiring. Easy money. As far as the software bmw already had this software designed into there cruise control. If it was slowing itself down it would illuminate the brakes if you were slowing down faster than some meters per second rate. This was back in 2008 as that’s what’s in my cars owners manual. People always say the Germans over engineer but they seem to actually think about the important things like brake lights. They also have a multi state brake light system so if your stomping on the brakes it illuminates a second set of lightbulbs, giving you more advanced notice as the driver behind them. They also flash your third brake light when you slam on your brakes and activate ABS. This multi stage braking system should be standard across the board for all manufactures.
@@FishFind3000 It's not that manufacturers are cheap. It's that upper management needs their $100k yearly bonus. They can charge customers the same amount and undercut production cost. Easy money.
I own a 2007 BMW, and let me tell you. It as an 'intensity' break light system. If you were press the break slightly it lights up slightly, but if you full press the pedal, the break light intensity is way higher (sorry for the redundancy). I thought it was very good, because it really makes a difference for the person behind me when they see me breaking regularly, to a hard break it shows a dramatic high intense light which definitely catches their attention and makes them aware that the breaking is being done way harder. I've never seen any other car with that system
What i don’t get: if you look at cars like the ioniq or newer Audis they all have that led bar going across the rear. It would be so intuitive to use this as „loading bar“ to indicate how much deceleration the car is currently undergoing. And yet they aren’t even able to make it light up when the car is slowing down
I talked to my friend about this very thing the other day! Im confused why this isnt standard on cars, didnt even realise that some might already have it!
Does this exist? Amazing, I just wrote a comment complaining about this very "overlooked" option of applying breaks! Which Beamer does this?! I think it ought to be standard even though I read people think it would be confusing. I really dont get how this can be, as you see the intensity change with foot pressure, or amount of regen. I think it would be highly intuitive
I love the engineers who decided to separate the rear turn signal light, and put them below the bumper, where you can see it from a distance ahead of you, but not when the vehicle is next to you, or in front of you.
I think this is Hyundai or Kia that has done this on recent models, Sportage? I don't like it, they are too far apart. I prefer all the lights to be at one level, so I don't have to glance up and down the rear of the car to know it's intentions. Plus I think they are just like what Alex complains about and I agree with, they are all red in color, not amber etc.
I see these in Aus frequently and it's absurd. We're all used to turn signals being somewhere in the middle of the cars height, about waist height, with all the other lights. And it's been like that on every car since the dawn of time. Suddenly on this car the indicators are at knee height instead and you're seeing their brake lights come on up high and it takes a second or two to realise there's an indicator down near the ground that blinking. So utterly dumb
Yes, I agree that the HYU/KIA vehicles that have their brake and turn signals Below the Bumper Covers NEED to have them recalled Immediately and wired such that the lights that are above the bumper cover are used, the Traditional Location for many reasons.
I believe this has to do with the car's back door. In Europe,turn signals must be visible at all times whether the back door is open or closed. Which means that if the door opens sideways, you can't have the indicators right next to them. You want the hazard lights to be completely visible when your car is standing at the hard shoulder of the motorway, even while you are grabbing the spare wheel from the (open) trunk. As a result, the European versions of quite a few cars have their turn signals (and tail lights) moved below the door, and only the brake lights where their American counterparts would also have the turn signals and the tail lights.
At one point about 20 years ago, there were talks of regs that would have had at least two stages of lights, one for braking, and another brighter light for HEAVY BRAKING, or lights that progressively got brighter the heavier they were used, so drivers would know if someone was merely slowing down or slamming on the brakes to avoid an obstacle. It didn't go anywhere in the government, but something that definitely should be revisited.
I NEED this! So much congestion on motorways (at least in the UK) is caused by ''they braked so I'll brake''. If someones brake lights are out is the cause of you crashing into them, frankly, you should not be driving!
Some newer cars have this, where they have normal lights but also flashing lights for heavy braking. However, I haven't seen them much since they are usually on newer, more expensive cars.
I've always wanted an "accelerator off" pedal, and progressing lights. There was actually a question on the license test I took 18 years ago. The question was "what is the purpose of the 3rd upper light on the rear of a car?" One of the incorrect multiple choices was "accelerator off light". That stuck with me and I've always thought it's a great idea to add. Combine that with the new style fancy multi bar brake lights like in the thumbnail, you could make them ramp in how many bars are lit, then rose in intensity if it's slamming on the brakes.
MY 1960 SUZUKI JIMNY HAD 4 BRAKE LIGHTS, ONE FOR NORMAL BRAKING, SECOND FOR HARD BRAKING, THIRD FOR NOT BRAKING AT ALL, FOURTH WAS FOR FALSE BRAKING TO DECEIVE A TAILGATER
As a Tesla owner, I can tell you that the brake lights come on as soon as you have any sensation of deceleration, way before you take your foot off the accelerator. It’s wild that Hundai hasn’t figured this out yet.
Every time you post a video, I'm like "wow that is a super niche topic, I'm not sure I would find this interesting" and then EVERY SINGLE TIME I am 100 percent enthralled from beginning to end.
He has a way of communicating his own interest in the topic so well that it makes yourself invested. I follow this channel since a while and learned about a lot of interesting topics that I wouldn't have looked up otherwise.
23:26 Thank you for converting the time to metric time. I was watching this with a friend from the UK, and it really helped him understand that 13 seconds US meant 13 seconds for him.
this is technically incorrect since you've to add the time the light takes to hop over the pond. 😂 rumor has it, your British friend is still looking for this donut chain you told him about, but can't find a anything resembling your spelling 🤣
As a truck driver I appreciate bringing up these nuances. As we need more time to stop and anticipate what's the driver in front thinking of doing, or usually not even thinking about it, it's very hard to see at a great distance. When you actually notice the car is showing down without the brake lights you are getting dangerously close.
As a fellow truck driver Ive been aware of this problem, but in trucks, not cars. Alot of trucks can change the operation of the jakes based on the position of the cruise control switch and if your using your jakes in throttle release mode, depending on the gear your in, you can be decelerating just as fast or faster than an EV without illuminating your brake lights. I personally only use that mode to maintain speed on a hill and all other scenarios have it set to activate when i touch the brakes so that people know im slowing down
@@yinleung4350 As someone whomst also has operated trucks, I would say that it depends on how strong the exhaust brake is. If it actually slows you down considerably like the regenerative braking or transmission retarders on heavy off highway equipment I would say yes, otherwise if it merely prevents further acceleration to higher speeds than I would say no.
Glad you mentioned the indicator issues at the beginning, I've noticed recently that die to daylight running lights, indicator lights are much harder to see as the white light overpowers the amber, at night it's not so much of an issue but it's so unnecessary.
I was a witness to the other extreme. There was an electric car in front of me on the highway and its brake lights were continuously going on and off like a Christmas tree. It was incredibly confusing and annoying, especially give the fact that the car was going at more or less a constant speed. I was very happy to take the opportunity of passing it asap.
I was just in the middle of a pileup on the freeway as traffic went from 60 to 0 due to congestion and a driver didn't notice things slowing down. The idea that there are cars out there functioning "as intended" that wouldn't signal this kind of congestion is terrifying.
Tbh when there's a congestion on the highway in my country, then people at the back of the traffic jam, but especially truck drivers, will use their hazard lights to indicate the traffic jam ahead. Not to mention that if you don't notice the entire traffic slowing down, or you're following too close to be able to appropriately react, then you shouldn't be driving a vehicle in the first place.
@@corex6109 The purpose of the break lights is to maximize your response time to the car in front slowing down. Without them you can be adding multiple seconds to the tailing driver's response time as it is now no longer immediately obvious if the vehicle is breaking.
@@Nicholas_Steel A) I never said anything about brake lights, I was talking about hazard lights and how they're used to indicate traffic jams. B) Generally when you see the vehicle up in front coming closer, that's a pretty good indicator they're getting slower. Also there shouldn't be any risk, even without brake lights, as long as you just keep the safety distance you're legally required to hold.
As does the ESP system. It's not like modern cars do not contain the hardware to make this work. Just some software is all that you need to solve this.
@@dafoex Actually, OTA updates for safety issues are still considered to be recalls. Recall doesn't mean that you have to take the car in for service. Tesla has had a number of recalls registered with NHTSA which were solved by OTA updates (such as an FSD mode which allowed you to tell the car it's allowed to roll through stop signs). "Recall" is merely a process for flagging and tracking fixes to vehicles by VIN, regardless of how that fix is accomplished.
A good youtube channel produces good content you want to watch. A great youtube channel however can produce content you don't really care about but still captivates your attention. You sir have a great youtube channel, and you are an excellent presenter!
This issue reminds me of what you are taught when riding a motorcycle. Since you can lose alot of speed from just wind and engine braking on a bike you are taught that you should always tap the rear brake just so the brake light comes on even if the brakes themsleves barely engage. It's especially important when drivers tend to find it more difficult to notice changes in speed of motorcyclists generally even when brake lights are being used.
This is a good idea for every vehicle. Tapping the brake when slowing down to make the brake lights flash on and off can wake up the people behind you. That flashing can help get them to pay more attention to things and has probably saved me from being rear-ended a half dozen times. Going from highway-speeds to traffic-slowdown speeds is easily unnoticed by dozing commuters.
Yeah I was thinking of this the whole time. It's important to be taught that, you can slow down very quickly on some bikes without touching the brakes.
I always do this when traffic is slowing down and I wanna leave a safe gap between me and the car in front of me, just do some light taps the person behind is prepared for me to start coasting more
@@jebedain the UK, people doing rapid slow-downs in situations such as you describe put on their hazards. Me, I pulse the brake (I think it's called cadence braking?) to alert following traffic, because I want to keep all my attention on the road ahead (and mirrors, in case the dopy driver behind me isn't awake and I need to switch lanes to save myself) and both hands on the wheel for max control.
hyundai employee here, thanks for making this video, i’ve been noticed this issue, maybe with your video I can bring it to the attention of corporate! thanks!
I was recently involved in a rear end collision with a late model Hyundai Elantra, and didn't notice their break light illuminating before the collision. After watching your video, I informed the insurance company that this may have been a mitigating factor. Thank-you.
That rapid stop with no brake light demonstration is terrifying! I'm very glad you had the forethought to do it on a quiet road. In my area I've notice both drivers who seem to be feathering the brakes all the time for no reason, and drivers who somehow aren't using the brakes at all (no indication) yet are rapidly slowing. Now I know why, for both cases! Software controlled brake lights, yikes...
It's not necessarily that they are software controlled It's that the software can do whatever and still be legal, like turn on with a deceleration of 1 cat/dog's year^2 or stay off even if you pull 10g as long as you do it in a certain way
Feathering the brakes can also be a sign of someone driving (poorly) with both feet on the pedals at all times. But at least that issue is visible immediately so you can drive cautiously around them!
Agreed. I'm not particularly concerned about the exact threshold; 0.7ms^2 might be low, the European 1.3ms^2 sounds fine, and 2.4ms^2 should definitely trigger brake light activation. Modern cars have accelerometers anyway so it should be trivial to add deceleration warnings.
Agreed, and it's not at all overengineered, since the implementation covers the entire problem with a trivial solution that requires extremely reliable hardware that's already built in.
This actually explains a few close calls I've had on the highway recently, where cars in front of me that I was keeping pace with massively slowed down by 30+ mph in a short distance without warning. This, coupled with a construction zone with signs forewarning of a speed enforcement camera has created an extremely hazardous condition of traffic suddenly decelerating from 75+mph to 50mph (the whole highway is a 55) and often without warning due to the traffic backing up out of sight of the signs.
@@freedustin Check your jurisdiction, this typically would be equal fault at best and solely your fault at worst. Also have some dash cam footage ready to show there was no brake light.
Explains why I got honked at the other day... might have to install an accelerometer inline to the brakes my damn self, I dont see this regulation being fixed (let alone going into effect) until at least 2035
This is something experienced motorcycle riders have been aware of for years. Many bikes have aggressive engine braking, so much so it could easily cause a collision. Wise riders will engage a touch of rear brake just enough to engage the switch, especially when someone is following closely behind.
I do this when I downshift in my car as well, as I noticed that people tended to tailgate me a lot due to the engine braking actually being a thing. So you just get into the habit of tapping the brakes enough to activate the lights but not engage whenever you downshift. They see oh - muscle car - it behaves a little differently but still predictable - must be driving manual.
Some clever bods have recognised this and one can now get inertia switches that tie into the brake light, so that when on trailing throttle, the sensor is activated by the g forces and lights up the brake light automatically,=. I'm thinking of getting one; sounds like a good idea. Not sure of where, just yet.
@@slots1407 I could see this being quite helpful on smaller bikes as they tend to suffer from this more due to lower weight and more gears ( as a rule ).
a little fun fact: after the French revolution of 1789, France converted everything into the metric system. Including time (now called Decimal Time). Each day was 10 hours, each hour was 100 minutes, and each minute was 100 seconds.
@@sowianskizonierz2693I would've love that. Current system has 86,400 unit seconds, but this way you get 100,000 unit seconds. It's 16% difference. Not so much different I guess. Also months sould be decimal, I hate when it's change between 30 and 31. Yeah 12 was round number back in days and also has many dividers to work with it but do we need anymore!?. We should've change that when year was 2000.
@@Alliendo I agree. The metric time system would have been a huge improvement. But I understand why it was so difficult to change systems in the 1700s. Although we have no excuse in the age of computers
This is a common issue with motorcycles. Because engine braking is so strong, you use your engine for 90% of braking. You learn a habit of tapping the brakes if there is someone behind you just so they are aware.
Motorcyclists usually know this (or they aren't motorcyclists for long) but your average Midwest housewife with the Ioniq or whatever this car is, isn't going to know that.
@@Benzinilinguine I have to admit that I do not practice this as frequently as I should. Tapping the brakes messes with my ability to downshift quickly, but staying alive is more important.
Excellent analysis. Forty years back, I used to drive an 80 ton dump truck with an extra transmission lever which brought the truck progressively to a complete stop using engine resistance without touching the brakes, even fully loaded. The rear lights were so coated with road dust and mud, even after a five minute drive that I learned to start reducing speed way before I needed to stop in order to warn any following traffic. Road ragers were not a problem as to cuss me out, they would have to climb a ladder and navigate a steel walkway to get to the cab! R (Australia)
I'm barely even remotely interested in cars, let alone brake lights. But you've somehow managed to keep it entertaining enough for me to watch all the way through.
It's a general topic of interest though, because most people drive and might be affected by this. So probably helps it be engaging, even if you're not a brake light nerd.
I rarely subscribe and always I thumb down any videos asking viewers to thumb up and subscribe. The content of the video should determine whether I do those and not shameful begging because the videos aren't good. I lost touch with this poster and stumbled back across him today and after watching two of his video subscribed so I don't lose touch again. I rarely have the patience for videos more than 5 minutes long but like you enjoyed this one and watched all the way through.
It's actually pretty interesting that as a motorcyclist one of the safety tips I was given was to use the brakes even just a little when using engine braking, since engine braking doesn't activate the break light
Yep same problem in manual cars when you brake with the engine's compression. My instructor taught me to lightly apply the brake too for the lights. And funnily enough... he used to be a biker.
I've found that if I want to turn off a road without slowing the flow of traffic behind me, then after I signal, lightly applying the brake gives the vehicle(s) behind a chance to back off whilst I get a lead. I can then brake quickly and pull into the junction without the other drivers slowing down much behind me.
i think this issue with motorcycles is really an important point that gets missed when discussing this topic. Bikes can slow quite rapidly when simply letting off the throttle and things like the euro standard mentioned are great it brings up that all these bike basically would need to be retrofitted to comply. yes as a biker you should use your brake to communicate when slowing and honestly i think people over use engine braking but that is besides the regulatory point.
Yeah he definitely hasn't driven a manual or I don't think he would've thought to title th video this way. first time I drove a dirt bike I power shifted into 2nd and then completely let off the throttle because I thought I'd coast like an automatic. Almost flipped over the handle bars. Lol
thank you for making this issue known. i saw a review of this car, and the unsafe brake light was the only major downside i saw (but it was major enough that i wouldve not bought it). hopefully this issue is fixed by now on all models
I wasn’t in the mood for a discussion about death today so Hank Green led me here. Really informative video!! I can now say I know a ton more about car lights than I ever thought I would.
I was so excited to see Hank link to this video! I have a hybrid and I never even thought to check what the brake lights were doing, hope some US regulation comes soon!
Thats awesome, i was happy to see him give the shoutout. They both have shouted out each other in the past, so cool to see. Both channels have been a blessing over the past few years
I almost ran into an Ionic on the motorway last week because it started slowing down but I didn't see any brake light come on only that the cars in front were coming closer and realized he was slowing down. Now I realize what happened. I also hate the animations they have on the lights and the fact the signals are now apparently all the colors under the sun except yellow.
I just gave this a test on my US model Kia EV6 using an OBD dongle to measure the brake light value and sure enough, it behaves exactly as you described. This is even after the ELE292/SA533 software update for i-Pedal. Hyundai really needs to get this fixed for all their eGMP vehicles!
I have a Hyundai Ioniq hybrid from 2020 and I'm planning on testing this with the level 3 regen braking with a friend soon. I will post the results when I do. I bet its exactly as described in the video. This car slows down quite rapidly with the level 3 regen on without you ever pressing the brakes. It isn't one peddle driving, but it is pretty close exactly as described in the video. I'd be shocked if the behavior was any different. This basically makes level 2 and level 3 regenerative braking unusable in my car. I will be complaining at the hyundai dealership next time I go for service, just to make them aware of it more than anything. Definitely going to actually check the behavior first though.
0:30 i'm from europe and went to the US this summer, I found it weird the turn signals were red and sometimes I felt it wasn't obvious at first cars were signaling a turn instead of braking
ปีที่แล้ว +566
When Hank said "electric car brake lights", I thought to myself that I'd be sorely disappointed if it wasn't Alec's video. I am pleased to have the reminder to watch it again.
I immediately thought of this video, and after clicking the link after watching his video, I realised I never finished this one, as it threw me right in the middle 😅
“May I remind you, I was able to stop my car from 60 miles per hour or 96 and a half kilometers per hour in 13 seconds or 13 seconds” This made my day 😂
"I was able to stop my car from 60 [imperial unit] (that’s 96 and a half [metrtic unit]) in 13 [metric unit] (or 13 [metric unit])." I think he got the order wrong.
I remember when I learned driving here in Europe. As I played lots of driving sims I really enjoyed engine braking with a manual, so I’d often use it as much as possible during driving courses. My instructor would warn me about this slowing the car, but not engaging the brake light ; and advised me that if I REALLY wanted to engine brake, I should at least rest my right foot a tiny bit on the brake pedal, since the light activation is usually super sensitive and turns on way earlier than the brake pads actually do any substantial slowing down.
Yeah... engine braking has its place (for controlling the dynamics of the vehicle under road conditions) but any driving instructor should tell you not to rely on it for proper deceleration: "brakes to slow, gears to go" as the advanced driving institutes will tell you (IAM, RoSPA, etc.)
Screw that. It's called common sense. No need to overthink. If there's someone there that realistically needs the info, brush against the pedal a couple times to get their attention. If not, don't bother. You know how often I don't use turn signals in the very same way? Lol
@@Dranok1 That's just crap. I go to 3rd for *every* normal stop, and THEN the brakes as needed. If you can't keep your eyes sweeping thru the mirrors along with everything else, why do you have a stick? You're not driving. Get you an uber instead. No point if you have an automatic 🙄 If you *are* aware of your surroundings the way you should be, you should be able to *instinctively tell* when someone needs that brake information and give it to them when it's necessary. Whole thing is about situational awareness and positioning. But some people can't figure out where the d, o, or g goes while working out how to spell "cat". 🤷♂️
The unit conversion on 13 seconds was very helpful. I don' t know how many times I have to convert from Imperial to Metric seconds in most videos. Thank you.
They actually did try to do metric time, but since everybody used hours, minutes, seconds, it never caught on. There's a video about that on TH-cam also because, of course there is.
I like the idea of "the driver doesn't care about whatever acronym you have or what is or is not a service brake, they care that it is simply slowing down."
Yeah, I mean who is like „oh they threw out an anchor causing them to slow down directly infront of me at 3GS“ „an anchor your say? Well then this is none of my concern, I only brake if people convert kinitic energy into heat“
I'm so proud of myself when I first bought my volt and tried out the steering column regenerative braking button The first thing I thought about was "oh wow I wonder what the brake lights do when I do this...?" So I had my wife follow me and was pleasantly surprised that everything worked as expected.
I had this same worry when I bought my Tesla. I haven't had anyone follow me but the little car on the screen actually shows the taillights illuminating when I let off the "gas."
Yes, that's the kind of things we think of and are curious of and examine. Others not only ignore those kind of things, they call us weird and smartypants ... No, we make the world a better place, also for them.
Great video! My 24 Impreza shows a display, like your Nissan example, when in adaptive cruise and it is nice being able to see when the lights are being applied. It adds a peace of mind for sure. We have instrument indicators for our turn signals but, for most, not our brakes. Maybe not before but now we may need brake light indicators in our instrument cluster.
The engine braking on most motorcycles can decelerate quite aggressively. I’ve always been constantly reminded to be keenly aware of the lack of brake light and therefore to feather the brake a little to activate the light when downshifting. Being very aware of traffic behind me so I don’t get rear ended eventually makes the thought second nature since my visibility is always on my mind. Absolutely excellent video as always!
The thing is if you're riding a motorcycle, you likely are not complete idiot. Most people driving cars are actually complete idiots. Everything must be automated at this point, people are getting dumber and less competent
When I first bought mine I would tap the rear brake to turn the light on. Little did I know the pedal was out of adjustment and didnt pull the spring far enough to activate the switch. I'm amazed I didn't die for that month I was riding it like that.
@@Xachremos good idea with the tapping. But yikes! Just goes to show how important it is to do a quick check of lights once in a while. I’m definitely guilty of just assuming everything is fine 😳
As someone from a land where most cars are manual I was taught in driving school to always push the brake pedal just enough to light up the brake pedals if I'm using engine braking. That being said that was for dumb cars with hardly an electronics in them, if a modern car has a one pedal mode it most definitely should automatically light the brake lights.
I'm extremely bad at remembering to do this and I wish I had a deceleration-triggered switch wired into my bike to make up for my incompetence in this regard. That said, part of why I am bad at this is finding out that my rear brake doesn't even activate the brake light until it is more than 20% depressed and significantly braking on its own.. it's hard to judge the right amount of force to use to trigger the light without excessively braking. :/
I think the brake light NEEDS to be accelerometer based, (or based on using the speedometer and calculating rate of declaration) because if you used the regen alone, it might turn your brake light on even when going a constant speed (down a hill, for example. you don't want your brake light coming on if you are maintaining the speed limit but still getting significant regen).
They shouldn't use the brakes for going downhill, that's what low gear engine assited breaking is for. For hybrids and EVs it may not matter in a practical sense, but expecting different driving behavior based on car type just open up things for more issues.
I think it's quite the opposite. The brake light SHOULD NEVER turn on when vehicle decelerates without intent by human or computer. I.e. when it's hitting the wall, there should be no lights. When you go downhill on ICE car, you (or cruise control) apply brakes and they light up the brake signal. It means that you're (or computer is) fighting against gravity, and it's good to know to me who follows you and intuits that braking on this slope is a good idea, maybe we both should do that. If your light doesn't come on, I would think that you're probably ok with going faster, because if you don't brake down the slope, you go faster. Overall lights show intent, not the actual result. Turn signals turn on when you (or your computer, maybe) is about to turn, not when your car pans right when road turns; reverse signal turns on when your switch to reverse "gear", not when you forget to pull handbrake and stepped out of the car. Just like those, brake lights should not turn on when car goes uphill, hits rough patch or decelerates, only when someone (human or otherwise) intentionally slows it down (or tries at least).
Yeah I agree that brake lights should signal intent and not what is happening. With a manual transmission ICE car it has been possible to slow down very quickly by downshifting for decades (and probably since we started adding multiple gears to cars) but I don't think any manual car turns on the brake lights when the transmission is slowing the car down.
I actually quite like accelerometer-based brake lights because they react even if you are slowing down for reasons outside of your control, which I reckon is a great safety feature. Unexpected slowdowns with no brake lights sound like a great recipe for disaster, and it's neat how it automatically takes that into account. Just don't make like GM and forget the mechanism to leave the light on when stopped :p
Yes, the value of brake lights isn't in letting the car behind you know that you're hitting the brakes, it's in letting it know that you're slowing down.
@@CarkeekW Sensing the angle is simple enough, just use 3 accelerometers pointing orthogonal directions. Then you always know where gravity is pointing and you can just sort of subtract that 9.8 m/s² from your calculation of what the car is doing. (Gravity will read a bit high or low when passing the bottom or top of a hill, and will jitter wildly when you hit bumps or washboarding, but in general I expect that isn't so hard to compensate for. It _may_ read zero for brief moments, e.g., whilst filming _Dukes of Hazzard_ episodes.)
@It’s Me yes it diminishes the significance of the light too if it comes on a lot , its why the solution is more complex and definately needs multiple sensors and software , hopefully Tesla who are good at making one item do 3 things can solve it pragmatically
One thing I wanted to add that I don't understand why it hasn't become standard is brake force displays. In my 5 series if I step on the brakes hard the brake lights will flash trying to get surrounding drivers attention and let them know I'm braking quickly. This is almost standard on European cars but for whatever reason America decided flashing lights would confuse people so brake lights are required to be solid red AKA "steady burning" as seen at 16:37. You'd think with all the innovation in the car industry something as simple as an easy way to distinguish normal braking from emergency stops would be standard worldwide by now.
I will say that I agree in principle but because of the problems with US turn signals, introducing that change on its own to the US car milieu where "blinking red" can be a turn signal sounds worse. Flashing brake lights for hard stops sound fine but if we're doing that we really need amber turn signals too.
Lol 🤣 I've been driving a lot of rental cars recently due to travel. The 3 companies the cars were from were Chevrolet, Hyundai, and Nissan. The Chevrolet had the least miles, worst interior and an obvious developing reliability issue. I think the automatic clutch was failing, with 28k miles. Lmao. Way to go GM.
An old friend of mine developed a progressive brake light as a uni project back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Gentle brakes had one light, full brakes were 3 lights. At the time it was deemed "too confusing" despite the fact I feel like it should be a requirement these days.
It would have no real impact these days but sure at it to the ever increasing regulations list that has caused cars to become the bloated monsters they are today
@@michaelkeha Regulations that make it safer than ever for you, your family and everyone else sharing the roads. They save lives. You should be thankful as there was no safer time to crash than today.
@@allastor actually many regulations run contra to safety as they have to compromise to fulfill other regulations like environmental ones and keep in mind all of this is added to what you have to pay for a car while making people more likely to take risks they didn't before due to that increased safety
Regarding monitoring the stop lights... my grandparents had a Cadillac land yacht about 30 years ago that had fiber optic cables running from each of the exterior indicator lights and headlights up to little outputs at the top of the hood. Not only did it tell you when the lights were on, it also let you know when the bulbs had gone out. I wish we had that kind of monitoring in modern cars.
Given that most of power distribution and switching is/has moved to PDMs/electronic control units, it's completely possible to do it. Just monitor current, and if it's too low, you now a bulb has gone out. Although with current LED lights, there's no bulbs to replace.
Ever seen or been into a car that the turn signal switched way too fast compared to normal? Yeah, that's how they indicate burnt bulbs. Unfortunately, computer controlled turn signals don't have that feature anymore.
modern cars basically already do that...they tell you if the bulbs are out, or if the system has failed. lack of such information saying they are on, means they are working.
Thanks for Bringing it to alls attention. I drive a 2019 Kia, which has this feature without the label I-pedal, first I’m hearing about this. I thought this was part of the radar adaptive cruise control feature, and have been paying attention to the brake lights as I drive in Atlanta where folks ride close behind you. Thanks again
@Mikey T if someone rear ends you and says its because they couldn't see tail lights (either because you purposefully blacked them out or the lightbulbs burnt out) you will be found at fault for the accident
@@Official_MikeyT Of course it would matter. Brake lights are there so you can keep your distance. You see a break light so you break too, keeping your distance. If there is no taillight, then you have to judge from the environment about the car speed, which takes more time, therefore you need to brake harder because you just slipped in too close probably.
@@venosaur121212 And if you brake harder than the person behind you expected (because you were trying to not rear-end the person in front of you with essentially non-functioning brake lights), you are also now at risk of being rear-ended yourself, especially in this day with so many people driving impaired/distracted
and they could work in parallel. So pedal activated system will turn the lights on even in case of electronic fail. Of course there is a chance of electronic fail turned on, but it will be easier to be noticed by the driver than opposite. Is not the worst Boy-Cry-Wolf situation. Talking Boy-Cry-Wolf problem I agree that should exist regulation about how much acceleration it have to flash on. But ANOTHER Boy-Cry-Wolf problem will still remain: even under regulated G there are still situation where car naturally slow down and you DON'T want to say "I am breaking": For example: climbing a hill. If the lights turn on the car behind with already also naturally fell the deceleration will think you are stopping, so they will also break unnecessarily. The traffic will be worse in some places, it will be annoying, and when you are really stopping the guy will not really know (the Boy-Cry-Wolf problem). BUT IT ALSO CAN BE SOLVED: just putting exception on accelerometer action based on level, it would be also cheap, once normal smartphone accelerometer also can measure the level. Everything I said is extremely cheap to mass product, maybe not very very cheap to develop properly.
Using an accelerometer would also help when the car slows down suddenly for "unintended" reasons, like when hitting deepish water, a pothole, or another vehicle. In all those cases, it would help other drivers to have the brake lights come on.
If my memory serves me correctly, there were NYC taxis that had a yellow (amber) light that came on when decelerating. It may have flashed, and I don't know if it went off if the brake pedal was depressed.
It appears I should have had more faith in the land of amber turn signals! Apparently you've had a quite sensible regulation on the books since 2015. The thing that was just approved in March was a UN thing not adopted by the EU - oops! Apologies from this American, I shouldn't have doubted you. Here's the current in-force regulation: eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A42015X1222%2801%29
I h@t3 that they made my cars turn signal in the rear red so much that i replaced the clear bulb with a green led behind the red lens that equals something close to amber. But you know whats worse than combining the brake signal with the turn signal, those new cars that have it when the front turn signal is on, the headlight turns off, like who thought that was a good idea
This is the same issue that Manual transmissions have. With my '05 GTO with a 6 speed manual... I do 90% of my driving with NO brakes... even in rush hour traffic... I can drive with "1 foot" as well, well, 2 because - clutch. But yes, manual transmissions have had this issue since the beginning of time.... so this is not new...
This is astounding, I can at least confirm my 2024 Toyota Corolla Cross XLE doe in fact coast without brake lights when coasting, and illuminates when applying a stopping force in Adaptive cruise. Sadly it does not have Amber's in the rear, but at least 2 sets of reds, one that can indicate turn, and those dedicated as brake and night illumination only. But hey, be safe in yours!
This comes back full circle to the behavior cars used to have when everyone had manual gearshifts; I've had people flag me down for having "blown brake lights" when I downshift to slow down.
You can still engine brake in some automatic cars as well, and even some CVTs. I only engine brake to prevent the car from speeding up when going downhill, so I don't think brake lights are necessary for that, but if you actually use it to slow down then it could be a problem.
Yeah I've practiced coming to a full stop in my Miata without using the normal brakes in case I ever have brake failure, and I definitely check behind me before doing it because shifting into 2nd at 65mph slows you down really quickly.
I have a manual transmission on a Mazda MX5. I try to stay away from everybody at all times because no-one sees me. I use a very long break so as to take off from 2cnd from a stop as there is still room to do so. If cars are around me I typically use my breaks...
As a software engineer, I have so little trust for software based ANYTHING when it comes to operating a car. I am perfectly happy in my car that's almost 20 years old, thank you. ❤
@@muhilan8540 No, it was entirely mechanical back then. Heck, my 2006 still has a physical throttle linkage. Drive by wire didn't start to become commonplace until the early 2010s.
@@muhilan8540 I'm not much of a car gal so I only know the basics, but I can't think of anything that is completely software-based in my car. Doesn't mean that there isn't things that are electric, such as radio/AC.
@@makarambles after doing some research, the fuel injection system is most likely an EFI controlled by a computer as that was the first part to be computerized in almost all cars
Being from New-England and driving in a lot of ice and snow, I think brake lights being tied to deceleration is needed. Yet they definitely need to be tied to the brake pedal position as well in case people lose traction. It's really important to those driving behind to help indicate when they aren't slowing but are braked and sliding I think.
@Robbie it seems you dont understand... Knowing the person in front of you is skidding might help you avoid doing the same thing with tail lights possibly warning of ice or obstacles ahead that the front vehicle encountered first. It doesn't always matter how far back you are because rearending isn't always the first threat. Lol
@hawk 7886 by that logic brake light's don't need to exist at all... The whole point is a warning light to make people aware of what they ideally already would be if humans were perfectly attentative. That's especially important when people may not actually have visibility of vehicles further ahead of them in harsh winter conditions, but where a bright break light might pierce through.
As a manual car driver, I was taught to make sure to apply the brake lights when slowing down. What I mean by this is, you can down shift and use engine braking to slow an ICE car and when you do so, you should still lightly apply the brake so the lights come on.
When I was a teen taking driver education classes, my instructor stressed that manual cars can decelerate by downshifting without engaging their brake lights so always be extra attentive to the relative distance between yourself and the person in front of you
While true, anyone braking a car or larger vehicle by downshifting wont have a functioning transmission for long~ Its a good back up method to slow down if your brakes fail but doing this often will almost guarantee an early trip to the shop~ *Before!* you comment to tell me how you engine break and automatics do this or that, maybe read the entire thread first....
I drove a manual for 20 years. For truckers engine braking saves on pads. For cars you would be an idiot to risk your transmission over cheap brake pads once a year or two. Nobody driving an average car is engine braking in normal driving and if they are, they are an utter moron.
My brother used to drive a very light manual motorcycle, and he'd complain about the fact that he could usually decelerate by just switching down gears, but he'd have to at least touch his brake to turn on his lights. So I really think this should be applicable to all vehicles
I set my rear brake light switch to illuminate the light at lesser pressure than needed to activate the brake so that a light touch whilst using engine braking turns on the brake light.
Yeah, I drive an old VW with a higher compression engine. I can slow down quite a bit by downshifting and letting off the gas - and I usually tap the brake pedal to let cars behind me know I’m slowing down. (Old VW - when I say “tap” I actually mean I have to press hard enough to engage the hydraulic pressure switch in the brake system. One day I want to install some kind of switch such that any pressure to the PEDAL will turn on the brake lights. )
The difference here is that a motorcycle has two brakes and you're almost always easily able to use one of them and the brake light switch can easily be activated without doing any actual braking. It's just a matter of being mindful which is something that's important on a motorcycle always. Any time I've been on a motorcycle and using engine braking it's never been an annoyance to simply slightly squeeze the brake lever to light up the brake lights.
Just this video and the one on amber turn signals makes this channel worth it's weight in gold. Every other video is just added bonuses. Keep preaching the sanity! You could make a trifecta if you did a video on GM making the reverse lamps double as perimeter lighting!
G.M.'s reverse lights are annoying AF. Have waited countless minutes for those cars to back up when actually they are parked. I will take a hammer to them soon!
Finally I have a explanation of why I'm seeing so many odd braking on road lately, as I'm trucking down the road I'm always keeping watch for brake lights. The opposite problem also exists I've seen cars who brake lights come on for apparently no reason, this explains what's going on. Edit: Should have kept watching lol
@@DouglasRosser even if it is only one foot, some drive really weird. Seen an aunt drive alternating between accelerating then lightly pressing brakes. This is all in a straight road with no one braking in front if her.
Yeah, that used to be an indication of some idiot driving with his left foot resting lightly on the brake pedal. There was a brief period when two-footed driving was thought to be a good idea (in automatics). I think it was a rumor spread by brake repair shops.
@@JamieSmith-fz2mz The next Tesla I see without amber indicators is getting fired into space to sit along with the original designers car. Eberhearts Tesla sport is still up there orbiting some random planet.
@@marksmanmerc1 I've considered importing amber combo tail lights from Europe for my Chevy spark. Get anxiety every time I'm ahead of someone and making a turn.
Having driven manual transmissions all my life (30+ years and now having an EV) made me aware of two things: 1) Don't expect the driver behind you to see you're slowing down just because you're slowing down. Don't overly use compression braking if someone's too close behind. 2) EV's one pedal driving is easier than I thought to be accustomed to!
I always find it a little jarring to drive an automatic. It takes me a few miles to get used to going from three pedals to two. And you made the leap straight to one pedal. You have my respect, sir.
This one-pedal driving seems to me to be the first length of a path that will lead to drivers who don't know how to drive other vehicles. Much like how manual transmissions today are almost an anti-theft device.
@@kapriolenpfeifer I used that once in a Bronco against a state cop who was tailgating me at 40MPH so closely I couldn't see his windshield in my rear-view mirror. After he swerved into the breakdown lane, he stopped tailgating me.
I have a Chevy Volt, and from the sound of it its one-pedal mode is an adaptation of the Bolt’s. Biggest difference is that it doesn’t come to a stop on its own, so that issue of now having the lights at that point doesn’t exist. It’s also probably worth mentioning, that additional paddle that gives stronger regen braking does just also turn in the brake lights.
My stance has always been that if the car can automatically turn on its brake lights, it should have a dash light indicating when they are on or off. Like the Nissan example you provided. There are times when you need to turn on your brake lights while still coasting to let people behind you know that you will be slowing down. And on the flip side, if you are slowing down a little and the brake lights come on, you should know because it does affect how people behind you drive when your lights come on.
My Subaru with adaptive cruise had a vehicle icon that would indicate when the brakes were being applied by the system (also if you manually appled them too). My current car doesn't have that, but it does physically move the brake pedal when its braking.
I'm thinking about adding that functionality to my bike while I'm adding a flasher. For me it's more an issue of realizing I've been barely riding the rear brake for the last 5 minutes 😅
Or the brake light should have multiple states (turned off, pulsing or always on, maybe some sort of progress bar instead) to indicate what is going on. Many other important clues are hard to signal to other drivers, such as when you give passage to someone or won't give passage. Also turn signals should be way more visible than nowadays, including big side LEDs over the car's doors.
In my opinion, the solution is the operator not being an idiot. Hitting the brake pedal if you're slowing down to let people know it, even if youre not on the brakes, is an easy solution.
Should we insist on non US creators using metric time as it was intended. With each hour consisting of 100 metric minutes, and each metric minute consisting of 100 metric seconds.
I've been behind several hoopties with no brake lights, whether broken or intended insurance fraud. It's absolutely terrifying in the moment you realize they're slowing.
@@miscbits6399seen a couple with reverse lights on at all times or broken rear housing. Feels like a flashbang is driving in front of you. Also it absolutely baffles me how many people dont want to spend 20 bucks for a new headlight and instead drove around with a single one. Or maybe they dont even notice, thatd be even worse.
@@toadwine7654 vehicle inspections are only done so often. Where im from theyre done every 2y yet it feels like every 20th car with halogen bulbs has their light set up incorrectly.
As much as you give GM flak for "overcomplicating" it with the accelerometer that checks the vehicles actual motion, that solution is fairly resistant to future technology changes down the line we haven't thought of. It gets to act as a catchall for anything weird happening that might be making the car slow down, including mechanical malfunctions in other systems.
It can be done using a simple relay, similar to what the brake pedal uses in a conventional car. Press the brake pedal, it sends a signal to light up the brake lights. Electric cars with regen could use a similar thing, only when you let off the accelerator. It's really not difficult. Just shows a serious lack of thought. The car shown in the video is as ridiculous as it is dangerous.
I think the accelerometer solution is just plain better than the pedal position solution. If you're going up a steep hill and don't have regen braking turned on, the accelerometer solution will still active the brake lights when you lift off the gas pedal.
I don't understand why using an accelerometer isn't the obvious go-to solution. It would be independent of the selected driving mode and even type of car.
Where do you live? I have plenty of USB cables... I'm kidding, of course. Ridiculous oversight, and an unacceptable response from the manufacturers. A modern car should not be easier to steal than a 1980s car!
What's crazy is those same cars in Canada have an immobilizer system. I'm pretty sure it is required by law. Hyundai/Kia was just really cheap. Immobilizer or not the lock cylinder should not be that easy to remove. My 30 year old Camry is harder to steal. Thats impressive considering I have three random Toyota keys from other cars that will start mine.
As someone who drives a manual, the deceleration at low gear is quite noticable and I'm always weary of someone not paying attention. So I always dab the brakes even though I don't need to. Just wishing that whoever is writing the regulations doesn't forget about the good old manuals.
Agreed. Less than a minute into the video 0:50 and he says "The brakes are the only thing capable of slowing the vehicle down enough to warrant turning on the brake lights", I was shocked. Usually so scrupulous, how could he overlook manual transmission cars with more engine braking? Not every manual is a low-displacement, low compression econobox incapable of appreciable slowing under engine braking alone. And certainly the behavior of the vehicle when lifting off the throttle is dramatically different for those vehicles than for almost every automatic.
Same thing when I'm on my motorcycle. Realistically, I am able to almost entirely stop just by downshifting. However, I still dab the foot brake just to illuminate the taillight, because, you know, I don't really want to be hit by a much larger unit.
Yep same. When I still had a manual I always signaled when I was going to slow down a lot without braking. Just press the brake very lightly so you don't brake but the light still goes on.
Thank you for this video. I was unaware of the one-pedal driving modes, and constantly annoyed as a pedestrian by drivers that seemed to be stopping for me, but wouldn't bring the car to an actual halt for a stupidly long time. Now I know they're electric drivers waiting for their car to finally feather in the disc brakes. I feel like it's worth wasting a minute amount of energy to better communicate to pedestrians that the car will actually stop, but I'll likely be pragmatic now and just risk my life, knowing most people are relatively decent and just like technology too much to use more than one control
I actually encountered this a few days after first seeing this video. Coming off the highway behind an ionic and it was slowing down quite fast without any lights showing while I was on the brakes quite firmly. I was prepared since I was turning off with it but I can absolutely see this being an issue if someone is coming up on them faster or not paying full attention
@@LigmaGootch Anyone who's been out on the road knows that's asking too much of people these days. If "pay attention" is the answer you have to lacking safety features, that's only that many more deaths on the road. Honestly, driving a car is one of the most dangerous things your average person does on any given day, by a huge margin. While paying attention is good, having fewer hazards is better, because the odds of being hurt or killed in a car are already way higher than most people would be willing to accept under any other circumstance. We're all just sort of detached from that by familiarity with them, and often... too much trust in safety features. I can pay full attention and see problems like these, react accordingly. But I don't like that I have to react to it in the first place. Kinda rather the dangerous situation hadn't presented itself to begin with.
People driving vehicles need to pay full attention like owning a firearm. You can easily kill someone or many people if you're not paying attention while driving.
Why can't both be true? We should require everyone to pay attention. We should also give them every tool that we can that assists them in not hurting themselves or others. Making mistakes is human, being attentive or not. Not sure how you could ever make an argument _against_ something that objectively makes a dangerous activity slightly less dangerous.
I remember during my time at Ford, they had a suggestions box, so I threw one in saying that there was no visual difference in the brake lights for someone braking normally vs someone performing an emergency stop, which could be rectified easily with a few lines of software code in the body control module for the brake light switch and the abs accelerometer. I was laughed at by my colleagues, why would anyone ever need that? Years after I'd left, I saw a Ford Focus perform an emergency stop and the brake lights flashed rapidly. It brought a smile to my face, knowing that I'd made a small but significant difference.
@@tgj42495 On my own? Maybe not, but if I was one of a few likeminded people that suggested it enough to get it noticed by the development team, then that's good enough for me. What does it matter to you though?
Your videos are so informative, and I love the little jabs you put in like the "60mph or 96kmph in 13seconds (freedom units) or 13seconds (everyone else)"
There is an additional scenario where traditional brake lights turn on even when not decelerating: when driving downhill and using brakes to maintain speed. Sure, downshifting is an option in some vehicles that will not turn the lights on, but it would still be helpful for anyone behind you who is picking up speed on the slope to know that you are using some braking force.
GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! Consumer reports picked up on this video and did testing which confirmed that this issue affects nearly all Hyundai/Kia E-GMP platform cars (and I very much appreciate them giving a shoutout to this video!)
www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/brake-lights-can-fail-to-provide-fair-warning-on-some-evs-a9533519285/
And now! Hyundai will fix this. They're calling it a "field service campaign" and it will begin in July. Weirdly, Kia hasn't said anything yet at the time of this comment's posting.
www.autoblog.com/2023/06/15/kia-hyundai-genesis-one-pedal-braking/
Now, while I'm glad Hyundai is doing the right thing (and hopefully Kia does soon), I believe we still very much need a clear, unambiguous regulation to unify brake light behavior with features like one-pedal driving. We are still leaving too much up to manufacturers right now.
Great news - thanks for debugging the laws! ❤🖖
nice work
Could you do a video highlighting the car's charging issues next? There's widespread issues with Level 2 charging on the Ioniq 5 when charging at higher amperages (typically over 32 amps). The service campaign they released to address the issue simply throttles charging down to unacceptably low speeds. Doesn't seem like Hyundai cares enough to issue a recall.
"Field Service Campaign" Is that what we're calling "recalls" now? 😂
@@McDewgoutgamers know it as the release day patch.
As a software engineer I feel qualified to say that one man's software can also be the same man's nightmare.
Agreed 😂
nightmware
"can also" ? as someone who's almost two decades doing this. software IS nightmare.
@@tsartomatonighware
I feel called out.
I’m an automotive lighting, safety engineer, and just shared this with my team. Keep up the good work 😇
If you're at one of the manufacturers that does this, could you ask the team to stop doing the thing where brakelights FLASH every time you press the brake? It bothers me when I see it, because flashing your brakes already means "back off," and sending that message every time you brake is like leaning on your horn every time you have the car in gear; it just leads to alert fatigue and reduces your ability to actually communicate with the drivers around you.
@@SirBlastalot in DFW area in Texas a lot of the dealers do an aftermarket device that flashes the brake lights.
@@SirBlastalot I think this happens for safety reasons, a lot more noticeable that someone is braking at night, though i'm not entirely sure how true that may be
Also turning on reverse (white) lights when unlocking a car needs to stop. This makes it appear as if a car is about to back up, but it's just being unlocked in a dark environment. It adds alert fatigue which means when someone really is backing up, you might think they're just getting in the cars. I think Chevrolet does this and it drives me nuts.
@@SirBlastalot its a safety feature so you have no excuse but to notice them braking. in motorcycle academies they advise you to, albeit manually, flash the brakes before fully braking so you can be seen. your sadly a minority
"The brake pedal was the only thing that can slow down the car enough to warrant turning on the brake light"
My mangled standard transmission would like a word with you
I guess he has never driven a manual transmission in anything and never heard of engine breaking.
Unless its a diesel with an engine brake you are not getting that much engine braking to warrant the brake light
@@LucGreco I’d like to see where the line is drawn, though.
@@BillZinck "Engine breaking" is a good way of putting it if you over-rely on it. Engine braking is a useful technique, but it should only be used for moderate speed control, like going down shallow slopes or gradual reduction on a motorway. If you're using engine braking such that it warrants a brake light to come on, you're wearing out your gearbox - brake pads are cheap compared to a new gearbox.
@@ValleysOfRain Correct sentiment, but it's the clutch disc which is going to wear rapidly instead of wrecking the gearbox by using downshifting as a service brake.
"The brake pedal was the only thing that can slow down the car enough to warrant turning on the brake light" brother don't underestimate me, I can do amazing things with a tree
Got my "optional recall" update done today. Got the notice in the mail a few weeks ago. Pretty sure you are solely responsible for getting the ball rolling on this, and thank you so much for that.
wait what,they actually did something about it unlike Ford?
Do you have a source for this?
what source mate are you blind,it's literally pinned by the guy who made the video@@Meneer456
I just bought an Ioniq 5 and it works well, almost a little too aggressive on turning on brake lights when decelerating. I can't speak for any updates to existing owners, but they clearly updating it before I got mine this past week.@@Meneer456
source: literally him
After I had watched this video last night, I decided to talk about this video with my coworker that I was driving with. After explaining it we were stopped at a red light behind a couple cars and THAT EXACT CAR PULLED UP IN THE LANE NEXT TO ME AND FLAWLESSLEY DEMONSTRATED THE ISSUE WITH THE BRAKES. I love when things like this happen directly after learning about them
Thanks Hank green
I'm happy I eventually bumped into this.. I've almost hit a few cars and felt like I somehow didn't see the brake light. It's nice to know I'm not experiencing some kind of brain malfunction. And apparently not everyone has gotten their car fixed yet. :(
Thank you for the imperial seconds to metric seconds conversion.
Yes I didn't need to pull out my calculator to convert.
Brake lights work like in gta san andreas that's your fault, Americans!
technically there is a metric time that is different, but it was only used in France during the revolution and then reversed again. it has 10 hours a day 100 minutes an hour and 100 seconds a minute.
@@flori5296 imagine if they stuck to the old Roman calendar of 10 months lol
I second that.
Script comment:
"I was able to stop my car from 60 MPH, [or] about 96 and half KPH, in 13 seconds, or 13 seconds."
I absolutely loved that bit of snark on the time conversion from seconds to seconds. I love your channel for the discussions you bring to the table, but I also find it a complete joy when you drop in little quips like this.
Metric seconds are more reliable. Doesnt rely on the amount of time a king takes to shit 🤣🤣
@@Nordic_Mechanic matric time is also base 10 but it didn't get implemented. :(
How much better the world would be with 100s in a min, 100 min in an hour, 10 hours in a day, 10 days in a week and 10 months in a year?
What a sad world we live in. Metric time revolution now!
I laughed out loud when you uttered that statement! So damn funny!
@@gilgabro420 It was actually awful and that's why it was never adopted
@@gilgabro420 With metric time, seasons would be screwed in a matter of months if not less.
I love the metric system don't get me wrong, but applying it to such a fluctuating thing is very difficult
Oh boy new car light episode dropped. Making my lunch break much better.
for us non patron viewers this dropped right before i started to eat some mcdonald’s
I love videos about car signals!
Wake Up, Babe
@@Bukki13madeline
Don't you mean *Brake*
I'll show myself out.
I love how your videos range from "I'm really bothered by this very small design issue in this very specific product" to "Many people may die because engineers are lazy"
I could be totally wrong and this could be unwarranted but it definitely looks like you've been working out man. Looking amazing. Keep that s*** up 👍
It’s not that engineers are lazy. It’s that manufactures are cheap. They can save an extra bulb and wiring. Easy money.
As far as the software bmw already had this software designed into there cruise control. If it was slowing itself down it would illuminate the brakes if you were slowing down faster than some meters per second rate. This was back in 2008 as that’s what’s in my cars owners manual.
People always say the Germans over engineer but they seem to actually think about the important things like brake lights.
They also have a multi state brake light system so if your stomping on the brakes it illuminates a second set of lightbulbs, giving you more advanced notice as the driver behind them. They also flash your third brake light when you slam on your brakes and activate ABS. This multi stage braking system should be standard across the board for all manufactures.
@@FishFind3000 It's not that manufacturers are cheap. It's that upper management needs their $100k yearly bonus. They can charge customers the same amount and undercut production cost. Easy money.
Sometimes there's a fine line between the two. Sometimes not even that.
@@TaleDreamer prioritizing profits over safety, as usual.
I own a 2007 BMW, and let me tell you. It as an 'intensity' break light system. If you were press the break slightly it lights up slightly, but if you full press the pedal, the break light intensity is way higher (sorry for the redundancy). I thought it was very good, because it really makes a difference for the person behind me when they see me breaking regularly, to a hard break it shows a dramatic high intense light which definitely catches their attention and makes them aware that the breaking is being done way harder. I've never seen any other car with that system
@@mayito_76 * brake / braking
What i don’t get: if you look at cars like the ioniq or newer Audis they all have that led bar going across the rear. It would be so intuitive to use this as „loading bar“ to indicate how much deceleration the car is currently undergoing. And yet they aren’t even able to make it light up when the car is slowing down
never heard of this. it doesnt make any sense and probably would just confuse me and many others
I talked to my friend about this very thing the other day! Im confused why this isnt standard on cars, didnt even realise that some might already have it!
Does this exist? Amazing, I just wrote a comment complaining about this very "overlooked" option of applying breaks! Which Beamer does this?! I think it ought to be standard even though I read people think it would be confusing. I really dont get how this can be, as you see the intensity change with foot pressure, or amount of regen. I think it would be highly intuitive
I love the engineers who decided to separate the rear turn signal light, and put them below the bumper, where you can see it from a distance ahead of you, but not when the vehicle is next to you, or in front of you.
I think this is Hyundai or Kia that has done this on recent models, Sportage? I don't like it, they are too far apart. I prefer all the lights to be at one level, so I don't have to glance up and down the rear of the car to know it's intentions. Plus I think they are just like what Alex complains about and I agree with, they are all red in color, not amber etc.
I see these in Aus frequently and it's absurd. We're all used to turn signals being somewhere in the middle of the cars height, about waist height, with all the other lights. And it's been like that on every car since the dawn of time.
Suddenly on this car the indicators are at knee height instead and you're seeing their brake lights come on up high and it takes a second or two to realise there's an indicator down near the ground that blinking. So utterly dumb
Yes, I agree that the HYU/KIA vehicles that have their brake and turn signals Below the Bumper Covers NEED to have them recalled Immediately and wired such that the lights that are above the bumper cover are used, the Traditional Location for many reasons.
If you can't see the bumper it's considered tailgating in France but you're right too
I believe this has to do with the car's back door. In Europe,turn signals must be visible at all times whether the back door is open or closed. Which means that if the door opens sideways, you can't have the indicators right next to them. You want the hazard lights to be completely visible when your car is standing at the hard shoulder of the motorway, even while you are grabbing the spare wheel from the (open) trunk. As a result, the European versions of quite a few cars have their turn signals (and tail lights) moved below the door, and only the brake lights where their American counterparts would also have the turn signals and the tail lights.
At one point about 20 years ago, there were talks of regs that would have had at least two stages of lights, one for braking, and another brighter light for HEAVY BRAKING, or lights that progressively got brighter the heavier they were used, so drivers would know if someone was merely slowing down or slamming on the brakes to avoid an obstacle.
It didn't go anywhere in the government, but something that definitely should be revisited.
I NEED this! So much congestion on motorways (at least in the UK) is caused by ''they braked so I'll brake''. If someones brake lights are out is the cause of you crashing into them, frankly, you should not be driving!
Some newer cars have this, where they have normal lights but also flashing lights for heavy braking. However, I haven't seen them much since they are usually on newer, more expensive cars.
I've always wanted an "accelerator off" pedal, and progressing lights. There was actually a question on the license test I took 18 years ago. The question was "what is the purpose of the 3rd upper light on the rear of a car?" One of the incorrect multiple choices was "accelerator off light". That stuck with me and I've always thought it's a great idea to add. Combine that with the new style fancy multi bar brake lights like in the thumbnail, you could make them ramp in how many bars are lit, then rose in intensity if it's slamming on the brakes.
MY 1960 SUZUKI JIMNY HAD 4 BRAKE LIGHTS,
ONE FOR NORMAL BRAKING,
SECOND FOR HARD BRAKING,
THIRD FOR NOT BRAKING AT ALL,
FOURTH WAS FOR FALSE BRAKING TO DECEIVE A TAILGATER
@@Rana.Naveed49based fourth brake light
How this guy gets me and 2 million other people to watch a 29 min video about "another brake light problem" is pure magic. 🧙
Because this is Technology Connections, I love his videos to!
Bro I'm thinking the exact same thing lmao
TBF, I'd watch the sequel to this 😅
Petty complaining unifies "people"
being surprised about learning things is strange honestly
I haven't once heard someone mention this in more than a dozen electric vehicle reviews and many more related videos. I really appreciate your channel
As a Tesla owner, I can tell you that the brake lights come on as soon as you have any sensation of deceleration, way before you take your foot off the accelerator. It’s wild that Hundai hasn’t figured this out yet.
Every time you post a video, I'm like "wow that is a super niche topic, I'm not sure I would find this interesting" and then EVERY SINGLE TIME I am 100 percent enthralled from beginning to end.
Yeah, problem is this isn't a niche topic, this is a class action in the works.
He has a way of communicating his own interest in the topic so well that it makes yourself invested. I follow this channel since a while and learned about a lot of interesting topics that I wouldn't have looked up otherwise.
I don't even own an EV or plan to any time soon, but still watched the whole thing. Good info in case I happen to be behind one.
23:26 Thank you for converting the time to metric time. I was watching this with a friend from the UK, and it really helped him understand that 13 seconds US meant 13 seconds for him.
Common mistake, the UK actually uses a mix of metric and imperial, so 13 seconds is known as 13 seconds here.
Weird. Normally 15 seconds in the us is 16.7 seconds here
Relatively speaking, the seconds differ in duration because international dateline and England=mc2
Ah, but he's still calling it a gas pedal. You can't covert Americans way from stupid
this is technically incorrect since you've to add the time the light takes to hop over the pond. 😂
rumor has it, your British friend is still looking for this donut chain you told him about, but can't find a anything resembling your spelling 🤣
As a truck driver I appreciate bringing up these nuances. As we need more time to stop and anticipate what's the driver in front thinking of doing, or usually not even thinking about it, it's very hard to see at a great distance. When you actually notice the car is showing down without the brake lights you are getting dangerously close.
As a truck driver, do you think the brake light should come on when the exhaust brake alone is in action?
@@yinleung4350 good question. definitely not with a full load.
As a fellow truck driver Ive been aware of this problem, but in trucks, not cars. Alot of trucks can change the operation of the jakes based on the position of the cruise control switch and if your using your jakes in throttle release mode, depending on the gear your in, you can be decelerating just as fast or faster than an EV without illuminating your brake lights. I personally only use that mode to maintain speed on a hill and all other scenarios have it set to activate when i touch the brakes so that people know im slowing down
@@yinleung4350 As someone whomst also has operated trucks, I would say that it depends on how strong the exhaust brake is. If it actually slows you down considerably like the regenerative braking or transmission retarders on heavy off highway equipment I would say yes, otherwise if it merely prevents further acceleration to higher speeds than I would say no.
This. ⭐️
Glad you mentioned the indicator issues at the beginning, I've noticed recently that die to daylight running lights, indicator lights are much harder to see as the white light overpowers the amber, at night it's not so much of an issue but it's so unnecessary.
Can't be. At least in Europe. DRLs dimm substantialy or turn off when using indicator. At least thats what I see in traffic
I was a witness to the other extreme. There was an electric car in front of me on the highway and its brake lights were continuously going on and off like a Christmas tree. It was incredibly confusing and annoying, especially give the fact that the car was going at more or less a constant speed. I was very happy to take the opportunity of passing it asap.
This is hilarious 😂
Like at 21:30?
yes, especially with super bright instant LED lights
Yeah might as well not have any brake lights if they're going to be on all the time.
And I wouldn't be surprised if the driver had no idea
I was just in the middle of a pileup on the freeway as traffic went from 60 to 0 due to congestion and a driver didn't notice things slowing down. The idea that there are cars out there functioning "as intended" that wouldn't signal this kind of congestion is terrifying.
Tbh when there's a congestion on the highway in my country, then people at the back of the traffic jam, but especially truck drivers, will use their hazard lights to indicate the traffic jam ahead.
Not to mention that if you don't notice the entire traffic slowing down, or you're following too close to be able to appropriately react, then you shouldn't be driving a vehicle in the first place.
Whenever things slow down more than expected on a highway you should use your hazard lights
absolutely, its almost a case of intentionally designing potential harm into a system.
@@corex6109 The purpose of the break lights is to maximize your response time to the car in front slowing down. Without them you can be adding multiple seconds to the tailing driver's response time as it is now no longer immediately obvious if the vehicle is breaking.
@@Nicholas_Steel A) I never said anything about brake lights, I was talking about hazard lights and how they're used to indicate traffic jams.
B) Generally when you see the vehicle up in front coming closer, that's a pretty good indicator they're getting slower. Also there shouldn't be any risk, even without brake lights, as long as you just keep the safety distance you're legally required to hold.
The accelerometer was free. The airbag control module has one. It constantly streams the g-levels (10ms) onto its CAN bus.
As does the ESP system. It's not like modern cars do not contain the hardware to make this work. Just some software is all that you need to solve this.
@johnnyvvlog
And since its such a modern car, you could add that software with an OTA update, no need to recall the car at all
@@dafoex Actually, OTA updates for safety issues are still considered to be recalls. Recall doesn't mean that you have to take the car in for service. Tesla has had a number of recalls registered with NHTSA which were solved by OTA updates (such as an FSD mode which allowed you to tell the car it's allowed to roll through stop signs). "Recall" is merely a process for flagging and tracking fixes to vehicles by VIN, regardless of how that fix is accomplished.
@@dafoex If it's a Tesla, not sure about the others.
@@dadbain Of course cars other than Tesla get OTA updates. It's not 2010 anymore.
A good youtube channel produces good content you want to watch. A great youtube channel however can produce content you don't really care about but still captivates your attention. You sir have a great youtube channel, and you are an excellent presenter!
This issue reminds me of what you are taught when riding a motorcycle. Since you can lose alot of speed from just wind and engine braking on a bike you are taught that you should always tap the rear brake just so the brake light comes on even if the brakes themsleves barely engage. It's especially important when drivers tend to find it more difficult to notice changes in speed of motorcyclists generally even when brake lights are being used.
This is a good idea for every vehicle. Tapping the brake when slowing down to make the brake lights flash on and off can wake up the people behind you. That flashing can help get them to pay more attention to things and has probably saved me from being rear-ended a half dozen times. Going from highway-speeds to traffic-slowdown speeds is easily unnoticed by dozing commuters.
Yeah I was thinking of this the whole time. It's important to be taught that, you can slow down very quickly on some bikes without touching the brakes.
yeah and also i feel like cars tailgate bikes a lot more than other cars since bikes barely obstruct the view
I always do this when traffic is slowing down and I wanna leave a safe gap between me and the car in front of me, just do some light taps the person behind is prepared for me to start coasting more
@@jebedain the UK, people doing rapid slow-downs in situations such as you describe put on their hazards. Me, I pulse the brake (I think it's called cadence braking?) to alert following traffic, because I want to keep all my attention on the road ahead (and mirrors, in case the dopy driver behind me isn't awake and I need to switch lanes to save myself) and both hands on the wheel for max control.
This man has more passion for car signals than most people have for their marriages. Truly the hero we needed but dont deserve
Marriage is overrated anyway
And heat pumps.
@@alexanderrobins7497 Well heatpump is everywhere, it is foundational. That's how the universe works otherwise everything just stops.
I don't see a ring on his finger, so I don't think he has enough brainspace or passion left over for much else.
@@alexanderrobins7497 And lanterns.
hyundai employee here, thanks for making this video, i’ve been noticed this issue, maybe with your video I can bring it to the attention of corporate! thanks!
Spread the word, godspeed to you! ;)
How did it go?
@@lompatinhe’s a janitor
Get your poop box disposable vehicles of our roads ! Absolute junk !
Also tell them to stop making the BCM casing impossible to open
I was recently involved in a rear end collision with a late model Hyundai Elantra, and didn't notice their break light illuminating before the collision. After watching your video, I informed the insurance company that this may have been a mitigating factor. Thank-you.
So, you admit to not being aware of your surroundings while operating a multi-ton vehicle at killing speeds?
wow genius, Elantra don’t have i-pedal, being a careless driver just admit it, but u choose to become an insurance scammer, shame on you
How about pay attention? Stick shift cars can also decelerate rapidly by downshifting. Pay attention! It was 100% your fault.
That rapid stop with no brake light demonstration is terrifying! I'm very glad you had the forethought to do it on a quiet road.
In my area I've notice both drivers who seem to be feathering the brakes all the time for no reason, and drivers who somehow aren't using the brakes at all (no indication) yet are rapidly slowing. Now I know why, for both cases! Software controlled brake lights, yikes...
It's not necessarily that they are software controlled
It's that the software can do whatever and still be legal, like turn on with a deceleration of 1 cat/dog's year^2 or stay off even if you pull 10g as long as you do it in a certain way
Feathering the brakes can also be a sign of someone driving (poorly) with both feet on the pedals at all times. But at least that issue is visible immediately so you can drive cautiously around them!
Cars with manual transmissions may not activate the brake lights if the driver only uses engine braking.
@@Ice_Karma engine braking, or downshifting without braking
@@Ice_Karma I've got an older automatic with drum brakes, so I often disable overdrive (4th gear) or shift into 2nd to avoid stressing the brakes.
Honestly the accelerometer is a good idea that covers a bunch of weird scenarios that even normal vehicles and brakes don't cover.
Agreed and uses existing hardware because thanks to stability control newer cars already have accelerometers in them.
I bet there’s already accelerometers in the car for crash detection
Like engine breaking!
Agreed. I'm not particularly concerned about the exact threshold; 0.7ms^2 might be low, the European 1.3ms^2 sounds fine, and 2.4ms^2 should definitely trigger brake light activation. Modern cars have accelerometers anyway so it should be trivial to add deceleration warnings.
Agreed, and it's not at all overengineered, since the implementation covers the entire problem with a trivial solution that requires extremely reliable hardware that's already built in.
This actually explains a few close calls I've had on the highway recently, where cars in front of me that I was keeping pace with massively slowed down by 30+ mph in a short distance without warning. This, coupled with a construction zone with signs forewarning of a speed enforcement camera has created an extremely hazardous condition of traffic suddenly decelerating from 75+mph to 50mph (the whole highway is a 55) and often without warning due to the traffic backing up out of sight of the signs.
just slam into them, they aren't using their brake lights so they are at fault. free body work!
@@freedustin you can't just rear end someone and expect not to pay, you bozo
@@freedustin Check your jurisdiction, this typically would be equal fault at best and solely your fault at worst. Also have some dash cam footage ready to show there was no brake light.
Explains why I got honked at the other day... might have to install an accelerometer inline to the brakes my damn self, I dont see this regulation being fixed (let alone going into effect) until at least 2035
Fuck speed cameras
Dude.... for some reason you appeared on my feed, and I'm loving not only your content ,but your delighttfull personality.
This is something experienced motorcycle riders have been aware of for years. Many bikes have aggressive engine braking, so much so it could easily cause a collision. Wise riders will engage a touch of rear brake just enough to engage the switch, especially when someone is following closely behind.
I do this when I downshift in my car as well, as I noticed that people tended to tailgate me a lot due to the engine braking actually being a thing. So you just get into the habit of tapping the brakes enough to activate the lights but not engage whenever you downshift. They see oh - muscle car - it behaves a little differently but still predictable - must be driving manual.
Some clever bods have recognised this and one can now get inertia switches that tie into the brake light, so that when on trailing throttle, the sensor is activated by the g forces and lights up the brake light automatically,=. I'm thinking of getting one; sounds like a good idea. Not sure of where, just yet.
@@slots1407 I could see this being quite helpful on smaller bikes as they tend to suffer from this more due to lower weight and more gears ( as a rule ).
our last MC was a 1973 Suzuki GT380 -- not a lot of engine braking with a 2-stroke ;-)
I was thinking the same thing watching this.
23:22 Thank you for the conversion of imperial seconds to metric seconds, it's little details like these that make your videos worth watching
a little fun fact: after the French revolution of 1789, France converted everything into the metric system. Including time (now called Decimal Time). Each day was 10 hours, each hour was 100 minutes, and each minute was 100 seconds.
what
@@sowianskizonierz2693 that dreaded demonic revolution
@@sowianskizonierz2693I would've love that. Current system has 86,400 unit seconds, but this way you get 100,000 unit seconds. It's 16% difference. Not so much different I guess. Also months sould be decimal, I hate when it's change between 30 and 31. Yeah 12 was round number back in days and also has many dividers to work with it but do we need anymore!?. We should've change that when year was 2000.
@@Alliendo I agree. The metric time system would have been a huge improvement. But I understand why it was so difficult to change systems in the 1700s. Although we have no excuse in the age of computers
This is a common issue with motorcycles. Because engine braking is so strong, you use your engine for 90% of braking. You learn a habit of tapping the brakes if there is someone behind you just so they are aware.
Motorcyclists usually know this (or they aren't motorcyclists for long) but your average Midwest housewife with the Ioniq or whatever this car is, isn't going to know that.
@@Benzinilinguine I have to admit that I do not practice this as frequently as I should. Tapping the brakes messes with my ability to downshift quickly, but staying alive is more important.
sounds like they need an accelerometer brakelight
Or even manual cars.
Yeah I used to do that when downshifting aggressively with my civic
Excellent analysis. Forty years back, I used to drive an 80 ton dump truck with an extra transmission lever which brought the truck progressively to a complete stop using engine resistance without touching the brakes, even fully loaded. The rear lights were so coated with road dust and mud, even after a five minute drive that I learned to start reducing speed way before I needed to stop in order to warn any following traffic. Road ragers were not a problem as to cuss me out, they would have to climb a ladder and navigate a steel walkway to get to the cab! R (Australia)
I'm barely even remotely interested in cars, let alone brake lights. But you've somehow managed to keep it entertaining enough for me to watch all the way through.
It's a general topic of interest though, because most people drive and might be affected by this. So probably helps it be engaging, even if you're not a brake light nerd.
Oh I saw u sing with ghost in the car NOICE WORK MY GUY 👦
I rarely subscribe and always I thumb down any videos asking viewers to thumb up and subscribe. The content of the video should determine whether I do those and not shameful begging because the videos aren't good. I lost touch with this poster and stumbled back across him today and after watching two of his video subscribed so I don't lose touch again. I rarely have the patience for videos more than 5 minutes long but like you enjoyed this one and watched all the way through.
@@H0n3yMonstah Even non-drivers benefit this, as exterior lighting is one way drivers can communicate with the pedestrians.
@@MrWhaatayshort form content probably messed with your attention span.
I'm glad as a software developer you added the industry standard lightning sound effect when mentioning software
haha same
@@JokeswithMitochondria was curious about ur username so cIicked on ur profiIe. Wasn't disappointed haha
It's actually pretty interesting that as a motorcyclist one of the safety tips I was given was to use the brakes even just a little when using engine braking, since engine braking doesn't activate the break light
Yep same problem in manual cars when you brake with the engine's compression. My instructor taught me to lightly apply the brake too for the lights. And funnily enough... he used to be a biker.
I've found that if I want to turn off a road without slowing the flow of traffic behind me, then after I signal, lightly applying the brake gives the vehicle(s) behind a chance to back off whilst I get a lead. I can then brake quickly and pull into the junction without the other drivers slowing down much behind me.
Same in the truck I drive for work; no brake lights when using engine braking.
i think this issue with motorcycles is really an important point that gets missed when discussing this topic. Bikes can slow quite rapidly when simply letting off the throttle and things like the euro standard mentioned are great it brings up that all these bike basically would need to be retrofitted to comply. yes as a biker you should use your brake to communicate when slowing and honestly i think people over use engine braking but that is besides the regulatory point.
Yeah he definitely hasn't driven a manual or I don't think he would've thought to title th video this way. first time I drove a dirt bike I power shifted into 2nd and then completely let off the throttle because I thought I'd coast like an automatic. Almost flipped over the handle bars. Lol
thank you for making this issue known. i saw a review of this car, and the unsafe brake light was the only major downside i saw (but it was major enough that i wouldve not bought it). hopefully this issue is fixed by now on all models
I wasn’t in the mood for a discussion about death today so Hank Green led me here. Really informative video!! I can now say I know a ton more about car lights than I ever thought I would.
I was so excited to see Hank link to this video! I have a hybrid and I never even thought to check what the brake lights were doing, hope some US regulation comes soon!
Thats awesome, i was happy to see him give the shoutout. They both have shouted out each other in the past, so cool to see. Both channels have been a blessing over the past few years
Same here
Did he tweet about it or something? I ended up here out of interest but kind of wished I caught it with the rest of the club lol
@@DungeonMetal It was in a vlog around a week and a half ago! He put it in the description
I almost ran into an Ionic on the motorway last week because it started slowing down but I didn't see any brake light come on only that the cars in front were coming closer and realized he was slowing down. Now I realize what happened. I also hate the animations they have on the lights and the fact the signals are now apparently all the colors under the sun except yellow.
I just gave this a test on my US model Kia EV6 using an OBD dongle to measure the brake light value and sure enough, it behaves exactly as you described. This is even after the ELE292/SA533 software update for i-Pedal. Hyundai really needs to get this fixed for all their eGMP vehicles!
Thank you! Good to have confirmation it's also happening on the EV6
My Nissan Leaf brake lights function with the E peddle
I have a Hyundai Ioniq hybrid from 2020 and I'm planning on testing this with the level 3 regen braking with a friend soon. I will post the results when I do. I bet its exactly as described in the video. This car slows down quite rapidly with the level 3 regen on without you ever pressing the brakes. It isn't one peddle driving, but it is pretty close exactly as described in the video. I'd be shocked if the behavior was any different. This basically makes level 2 and level 3 regenerative braking unusable in my car. I will be complaining at the hyundai dealership next time I go for service, just to make them aware of it more than anything. Definitely going to actually check the behavior first though.
I just got the SC273 software update installed (from the "voluntary recall") and can confirm that it fixes the problem on the EV6!
0:30 i'm from europe and went to the US this summer, I found it weird the turn signals were red and sometimes I felt it wasn't obvious at first cars were signaling a turn instead of braking
When Hank said "electric car brake lights", I thought to myself that I'd be sorely disappointed if it wasn't Alec's video. I am pleased to have the reminder to watch it again.
I saw this video when it came out, but it made me really happy to see hank shout it out! This channel deserves some love
I immediately thought of this video, and after clicking the link after watching his video, I realised I never finished this one, as it threw me right in the middle 😅
I immediately thought of this video too, I'm glad Hank didn't disappoint us
Same!
As a software engineer, that "SOFTWARE.... " moment hit me deep in my soul
“May I remind you, I was able to stop my car from 60 miles per hour or 96 and a half kilometers per hour in 13 seconds or 13 seconds” This made my day 😂
As a certified horologist myself, I can confirm that 13 seconds is in fact equivalent to 13 seconds.
They may both sound like seconds but only one is FREEDOM SECONDS
@@kobunnight Those damned seconds conversions, a real thinker, that one.
Thank god metric time never became a thing!
😂
I got a ad for the exact Hyundai that he talk’s about in the start of the video.
The comedy writing while ranting is why i pay money for this content.
"13 seconds (or 13 seconds)" really got me
We europeans keep our standard second under glass in a vacuum. I´ts the best second.
I'm glad somebody else noticed this 😂
I didn't even notice he did this. I think I'm too used to disregarding the imperial conversions.
@@Grundoko i recommend "chyrosran22", he does the best conversions.
"I was able to stop my car from 60 [imperial unit] (that’s 96 and a half [metrtic unit]) in 13 [metric unit] (or 13 [metric unit])."
I think he got the order wrong.
I remember when I learned driving here in Europe. As I played lots of driving sims I really enjoyed engine braking with a manual, so I’d often use it as much as possible during driving courses. My instructor would warn me about this slowing the car, but not engaging the brake light ; and advised me that if I REALLY wanted to engine brake, I should at least rest my right foot a tiny bit on the brake pedal, since the light activation is usually super sensitive and turns on way earlier than the brake pads actually do any substantial slowing down.
Yeah... engine braking has its place (for controlling the dynamics of the vehicle under road conditions) but any driving instructor should tell you not to rely on it for proper deceleration: "brakes to slow, gears to go" as the advanced driving institutes will tell you (IAM, RoSPA, etc.)
When I go downhill and do engine braking, I would slightly tap on a brake if I see somebody in rear mirror approaching me
That's something they mentioned when I took a motorcycle course as well.
Screw that. It's called common sense. No need to overthink. If there's someone there that realistically needs the info, brush against the pedal a couple times to get their attention. If not, don't bother.
You know how often I don't use turn signals in the very same way? Lol
@@Dranok1 That's just crap.
I go to 3rd for *every* normal stop, and THEN the brakes as needed.
If you can't keep your eyes sweeping thru the mirrors along with everything else, why do you have a stick?
You're not driving. Get you an uber instead. No point if you have an automatic 🙄
If you *are* aware of your surroundings the way you should be, you should be able to *instinctively tell* when someone needs that brake information and give it to them when it's necessary.
Whole thing is about situational awareness and positioning. But some people can't figure out where the d, o, or g goes while working out how to spell "cat".
🤷♂️
The unit conversion on 13 seconds was very helpful. I don' t know how many times I have to convert from Imperial to Metric seconds in most videos. Thank you.
THANK YOU! I'm glad I wasn't the only one that appreciated the conversion. We need more creators giving us these types of conversions.
I still get confused about how many pints and quarts in an imperial second
They actually did try to do metric time, but since everybody used hours, minutes, seconds, it never caught on. There's a video about that on TH-cam also because, of course there is.
@@FamilyHomeTheater”Decimal Time" != "Metric Time"
Such content is what I love on TH-cam. Great topic!
“13 seconds or 13 seconds” conversion joke got me 😂
Came to say this hahaha
I caught that too and was going to post the same thing. Cracked me up.
Took me a second to wonder what happened and then twigged and had a wry smile. Subtle!
Same
This is interesting, I thought I was the only one fascinated by car lights to this degree.
I like the idea of "the driver doesn't care about whatever acronym you have or what is or is not a service brake, they care that it is simply slowing down."
Yeah, I mean who is like „oh they threw out an anchor causing them to slow down directly infront of me at 3GS“ „an anchor your say? Well then this is none of my concern, I only brake if people convert kinitic energy into heat“
I'm so proud of myself when I first bought my volt and tried out the steering column regenerative braking button The first thing I thought about was "oh wow I wonder what the brake lights do when I do this...?" So I had my wife follow me and was pleasantly surprised that everything worked as expected.
Only problem is the spontaneous fired lol
I had this same worry when I bought my Tesla. I haven't had anyone follow me but the little car on the screen actually shows the taillights illuminating when I let off the "gas."
@@toomanymarys7355 Volt not Bolt, unless there was some past fire problem with Volts you are referencing that I'm not aware of...?
Yep. Same with my grandfather’s electric Volkswagen Golf. It works perfectly
Yes, that's the kind of things we think of and are curious of and examine.
Others not only ignore those kind of things, they call us weird and smartypants ... No, we make the world a better place, also for them.
Great video! My 24 Impreza shows a display, like your Nissan example, when in adaptive cruise and it is nice being able to see when the lights are being applied. It adds a peace of mind for sure. We have instrument indicators for our turn signals but, for most, not our brakes. Maybe not before but now we may need brake light indicators in our instrument cluster.
The engine braking on most motorcycles can decelerate quite aggressively. I’ve always been constantly reminded to be keenly aware of the lack of brake light and therefore to feather the brake a little to activate the light when downshifting. Being very aware of traffic behind me so I don’t get rear ended eventually makes the thought second nature since my visibility is always on my mind.
Absolutely excellent video as always!
The thing is if you're riding a motorcycle, you likely are not complete idiot. Most people driving cars are actually complete idiots. Everything must be automated at this point, people are getting dumber and less competent
When I first bought mine I would tap the rear brake to turn the light on. Little did I know the pedal was out of adjustment and didnt pull the spring far enough to activate the switch. I'm amazed I didn't die for that month I was riding it like that.
@@Xachremos good idea with the tapping. But yikes! Just goes to show how important it is to do a quick check of lights once in a while. I’m definitely guilty of just assuming everything is fine 😳
As someone from a land where most cars are manual I was taught in driving school to always push the brake pedal just enough to light up the brake pedals if I'm using engine braking. That being said that was for dumb cars with hardly an electronics in them, if a modern car has a one pedal mode it most definitely should automatically light the brake lights.
I'm extremely bad at remembering to do this and I wish I had a deceleration-triggered switch wired into my bike to make up for my incompetence in this regard.
That said, part of why I am bad at this is finding out that my rear brake doesn't even activate the brake light until it is more than 20% depressed and significantly braking on its own.. it's hard to judge the right amount of force to use to trigger the light without excessively braking. :/
I think the brake light NEEDS to be accelerometer based, (or based on using the speedometer and calculating rate of declaration) because if you used the regen alone, it might turn your brake light on even when going a constant speed (down a hill, for example. you don't want your brake light coming on if you are maintaining the speed limit but still getting significant regen).
This is a fair point! However, lots of people ride the brake to keep a constant speed going downhill so I'm not sure how different it would really be.
They shouldn't use the brakes for going downhill, that's what low gear engine assited breaking is for.
For hybrids and EVs it may not matter in a practical sense, but expecting different driving behavior based on car type just open up things for more issues.
@@didikohen455 Oh, they shouldn't, but they do.
I think it's quite the opposite. The brake light SHOULD NEVER turn on when vehicle decelerates without intent by human or computer. I.e. when it's hitting the wall, there should be no lights. When you go downhill on ICE car, you (or cruise control) apply brakes and they light up the brake signal. It means that you're (or computer is) fighting against gravity, and it's good to know to me who follows you and intuits that braking on this slope is a good idea, maybe we both should do that. If your light doesn't come on, I would think that you're probably ok with going faster, because if you don't brake down the slope, you go faster.
Overall lights show intent, not the actual result. Turn signals turn on when you (or your computer, maybe) is about to turn, not when your car pans right when road turns; reverse signal turns on when your switch to reverse "gear", not when you forget to pull handbrake and stepped out of the car. Just like those, brake lights should not turn on when car goes uphill, hits rough patch or decelerates, only when someone (human or otherwise) intentionally slows it down (or tries at least).
Yeah I agree that brake lights should signal intent and not what is happening. With a manual transmission ICE car it has been possible to slow down very quickly by downshifting for decades (and probably since we started adding multiple gears to cars) but I don't think any manual car turns on the brake lights when the transmission is slowing the car down.
I actually quite like accelerometer-based brake lights because they react even if you are slowing down for reasons outside of your control, which I reckon is a great safety feature. Unexpected slowdowns with no brake lights sound like a great recipe for disaster, and it's neat how it automatically takes that into account. Just don't make like GM and forget the mechanism to leave the light on when stopped :p
Yes, the value of brake lights isn't in letting the car behind you know that you're hitting the brakes, it's in letting it know that you're slowing down.
It needs to know the cars angle too as going down or up a slope it would read incorrectly because gravity .
@@CarkeekW Sensing the angle is simple enough, just use 3 accelerometers pointing orthogonal directions. Then you always know where gravity is pointing and you can just sort of subtract that 9.8 m/s² from your calculation of what the car is doing. (Gravity will read a bit high or low when passing the bottom or top of a hill, and will jitter wildly when you hit bumps or washboarding, but in general I expect that isn't so hard to compensate for. It _may_ read zero for brief moments, e.g., whilst filming _Dukes of Hazzard_ episodes.)
@It’s Me yes it diminishes the significance of the light too if it comes on a lot , its why the solution is more complex and definately needs multiple sensors and software , hopefully Tesla who are good at making one item do 3 things can solve it pragmatically
@@ps.2 hopefully the car already has one to tap into , bridge jumping an EV down the lanes hmm , that would leave a few sparks
One thing I wanted to add that I don't understand why it hasn't become standard is brake force displays. In my 5 series if I step on the brakes hard the brake lights will flash trying to get surrounding drivers attention and let them know I'm braking quickly. This is almost standard on European cars but for whatever reason America decided flashing lights would confuse people so brake lights are required to be solid red AKA "steady burning" as seen at 16:37. You'd think with all the innovation in the car industry something as simple as an easy way to distinguish normal braking from emergency stops would be standard worldwide by now.
I will say that I agree in principle but because of the problems with US turn signals, introducing that change on its own to the US car milieu where "blinking red" can be a turn signal sounds worse. Flashing brake lights for hard stops sound fine but if we're doing that we really need amber turn signals too.
"Because General Motors suffers from this chronic condition called being GM"
and thousands of its customers as well.... litteraly....
Biden removed regulations on EV ... So they could be pushed out the door . That's why this problem is happening, yet he didn't address it ...
HYUNDAI has also suffer being HYUNDAI😂
Lol 🤣 I've been driving a lot of rental cars recently due to travel. The 3 companies the cars were from were Chevrolet, Hyundai, and Nissan. The Chevrolet had the least miles, worst interior and an obvious developing reliability issue. I think the automatic clutch was failing, with 28k miles. Lmao. Way to go GM.
An old friend of mine developed a progressive brake light as a uni project back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Gentle brakes had one light, full brakes were 3 lights. At the time it was deemed "too confusing" despite the fact I feel like it should be a requirement these days.
Most cars do similar but different manner: in the event of a sudden hard brake, either flashing the brake lights, or hazard lights activate.
It would have no real impact these days but sure at it to the ever increasing regulations list that has caused cars to become the bloated monsters they are today
@@michaelkeha Regulations that make it safer than ever for you, your family and everyone else sharing the roads. They save lives. You should be thankful as there was no safer time to crash than today.
@@allastor actually many regulations run contra to safety as they have to compromise to fulfill other regulations like environmental ones and keep in mind all of this is added to what you have to pay for a car while making people more likely to take risks they didn't before due to that increased safety
@@michaelkeha Actually, all I read was excuses and not a single trusted source. So you said nothing.
Regarding monitoring the stop lights... my grandparents had a Cadillac land yacht about 30 years ago that had fiber optic cables running from each of the exterior indicator lights and headlights up to little outputs at the top of the hood. Not only did it tell you when the lights were on, it also let you know when the bulbs had gone out. I wish we had that kind of monitoring in modern cars.
You know, we had one of those Cadillacs when I was a kid, and I honestly thought there were tiny bulbs in those things.
Given that most of power distribution and switching is/has moved to PDMs/electronic control units, it's completely possible to do it. Just monitor current, and if it's too low, you now a bulb has gone out.
Although with current LED lights, there's no bulbs to replace.
Ever seen or been into a car that the turn signal switched way too fast compared to normal? Yeah, that's how they indicate burnt bulbs.
Unfortunately, computer controlled turn signals don't have that feature anymore.
modern cars basically already do that...they tell you if the bulbs are out, or if the system has failed. lack of such information saying they are on, means they are working.
old cars were designed by people who really thought about details and wanted the best for customer, it's not the case today at all
Thanks for Bringing it to alls attention. I drive a 2019 Kia, which has this feature without the label I-pedal, first I’m hearing about this. I thought this was part of the radar adaptive cruise control feature, and have been paying attention to the brake lights as I drive in Atlanta where folks ride close behind you. Thanks again
I was following an Ioniq 5 last evening and experienced the lack of brake lights while it decelerated at a significant rate. Hope this gets addressed.
I was following a 1994 Lumina with 14 brake lights. You know how many worked when the brakes were pressed?
ONE.
Don't tailgate and that wouldn't matter. 🤷♂️
@Mikey T if someone rear ends you and says its because they couldn't see tail lights (either because you purposefully blacked them out or the lightbulbs burnt out) you will be found at fault for the accident
@@Official_MikeyT Of course it would matter. Brake lights are there so you can keep your distance. You see a break light so you break too, keeping your distance. If there is no taillight, then you have to judge from the environment about the car speed, which takes more time, therefore you need to brake harder because you just slipped in too close probably.
@@venosaur121212 And if you brake harder than the person behind you expected (because you were trying to not rear-end the person in front of you with essentially non-functioning brake lights), you are also now at risk of being rear-ended yourself, especially in this day with so many people driving impaired/distracted
I like the idea of accelerometer activated brake lights, in addition to the pedal operated switch.
and they could work in parallel. So pedal activated system will turn the lights on even in case of electronic fail. Of course there is a chance of electronic fail turned on, but it will be easier to be noticed by the driver than opposite. Is not the worst Boy-Cry-Wolf situation.
Talking Boy-Cry-Wolf problem I agree that should exist regulation about how much acceleration it have to flash on.
But ANOTHER Boy-Cry-Wolf problem will still remain: even under regulated G there are still situation where car naturally slow down and you DON'T want to say "I am breaking": For example: climbing a hill. If the lights turn on the car behind with already also naturally fell the deceleration will think you are stopping, so they will also break unnecessarily. The traffic will be worse in some places, it will be annoying, and when you are really stopping the guy will not really know (the Boy-Cry-Wolf problem). BUT IT ALSO CAN BE SOLVED: just putting exception on accelerometer action based on level, it would be also cheap, once normal smartphone accelerometer also can measure the level.
Everything I said is extremely cheap to mass product, maybe not very very cheap to develop properly.
yeah really those are pretty reliable.
Using an accelerometer would also help when the car slows down suddenly for "unintended" reasons, like when hitting deepish water, a pothole, or another vehicle. In all those cases, it would help other drivers to have the brake lights come on.
@Eugene you mean redundant. Brakes need redundancy it's very much not superfluous at all
If my memory serves me correctly, there were NYC taxis that had a yellow (amber) light that came on when decelerating. It may have flashed, and I don't know if it went off if the brake pedal was depressed.
It appears I should have had more faith in the land of amber turn signals! Apparently you've had a quite sensible regulation on the books since 2015. The thing that was just approved in March was a UN thing not adopted by the EU - oops! Apologies from this American, I shouldn't have doubted you. Here's the current in-force regulation:
eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A42015X1222%2801%29
I still want a 4 wheel steering electric clutch for my cybertruck. warthog.
I h@t3 that they made my cars turn signal in the rear red so much that i replaced the clear bulb with a green led behind the red lens that equals something close to amber. But you know whats worse than combining the brake signal with the turn signal, those new cars that have it when the front turn signal is on, the headlight turns off, like who thought that was a good idea
Three consecutive utterances of "aluminium" and "autumn", and you are duly forgiven.
This is the same issue that Manual transmissions have. With my '05 GTO with a 6 speed manual... I do 90% of my driving with NO brakes... even in rush hour traffic... I can drive with "1 foot" as well, well, 2 because - clutch. But yes, manual transmissions have had this issue since the beginning of time.... so this is not new...
@@mrquackers8986 Or the front turn signals all clear with a tiny amber light, which is not visible in sun light.
This is astounding, I can at least confirm my 2024 Toyota Corolla Cross XLE doe in fact coast without brake lights when coasting, and illuminates when applying a stopping force in Adaptive cruise. Sadly it does not have Amber's in the rear, but at least 2 sets of reds, one that can indicate turn, and those dedicated as brake and night illumination only. But hey, be safe in yours!
This comes back full circle to the behavior cars used to have when everyone had manual gearshifts; I've had people flag me down for having "blown brake lights" when I downshift to slow down.
Another thing is that with polarized sunglasses often I don't see led blinkers
You can still engine brake in some automatic cars as well, and even some CVTs. I only engine brake to prevent the car from speeding up when going downhill, so I don't think brake lights are necessary for that, but if you actually use it to slow down then it could be a problem.
Yeah I've practiced coming to a full stop in my Miata without using the normal brakes in case I ever have brake failure, and I definitely check behind me before doing it because shifting into 2nd at 65mph slows you down really quickly.
I have a manual transmission on a Mazda MX5. I try to stay away from everybody at all times because no-one sees me. I use a very long break so as to take off from 2cnd from a stop as there is still room to do so. If cars are around me I typically use my breaks...
I knew I would find Miata owners in this comment and I was right
As a software engineer, I have so little trust for software based ANYTHING when it comes to operating a car. I am perfectly happy in my car that's almost 20 years old, thank you. ❤
Yeah. Same occupation, think alike
So how exactly were cars controlled back then? Surely it wasn’t all mechanical in 2003. So cars didn’t have embedded systems in them back then?
@@muhilan8540 No, it was entirely mechanical back then. Heck, my 2006 still has a physical throttle linkage. Drive by wire didn't start to become commonplace until the early 2010s.
@@muhilan8540 I'm not much of a car gal so I only know the basics, but I can't think of anything that is completely software-based in my car. Doesn't mean that there isn't things that are electric, such as radio/AC.
@@makarambles after doing some research, the fuel injection system is most likely an EFI controlled by a computer as that was the first part to be computerized in almost all cars
Being from New-England and driving in a lot of ice and snow, I think brake lights being tied to deceleration is needed. Yet they definitely need to be tied to the brake pedal position as well in case people lose traction. It's really important to those driving behind to help indicate when they aren't slowing but are braked and sliding I think.
they really don't need to
stop tailgating, driving close to other vehicles, and maybe you wouldn't have the issue
@Robbie it seems you dont understand...
Knowing the person in front of you is skidding might help you avoid doing the same thing with tail lights possibly warning of ice or obstacles ahead that the front vehicle encountered first. It doesn't always matter how far back you are because rearending isn't always the first threat. Lol
@@kestrel4521 you're doing something horribly wrong if you somehow can't tell a car is sliding unless brake lights are on.
@hawk 7886 by that logic brake light's don't need to exist at all...
The whole point is a warning light to make people aware of what they ideally already would be if humans were perfectly attentative. That's especially important when people may not actually have visibility of vehicles further ahead of them in harsh winter conditions, but where a bright break light might pierce through.
Agreed, in addition to a mechanical switch, all cars should illuminate at least the 3rd light when deceleration speed exceeds a set amount.
As a manual car driver, I was taught to make sure to apply the brake lights when slowing down. What I mean by this is, you can down shift and use engine braking to slow an ICE car and when you do so, you should still lightly apply the brake so the lights come on.
When I was a teen taking driver education classes, my instructor stressed that manual cars can decelerate by downshifting without engaging their brake lights so always be extra attentive to the relative distance between yourself and the person in front of you
While true, anyone braking a car or larger vehicle by downshifting wont have a functioning transmission for long~ Its a good back up method to slow down if your brakes fail but doing this often will almost guarantee an early trip to the shop~
*Before!* you comment to tell me how you engine break and automatics do this or that, maybe read the entire thread first....
Most people driving a manual you’ll hear downshift
@@TheDigitalThreatwhat? Downshifting is done all the time on cars.. lol
@@TheDigitalThreatsaves your brake pads, just buy solid transmission mounts to prevent worn out mounts
I drove a manual for 20 years. For truckers engine braking saves on pads. For cars you would be an idiot to risk your transmission over cheap brake pads once a year or two. Nobody driving an average car is engine braking in normal driving and if they are, they are an utter moron.
My brother used to drive a very light manual motorcycle, and he'd complain about the fact that he could usually decelerate by just switching down gears, but he'd have to at least touch his brake to turn on his lights. So I really think this should be applicable to all vehicles
I set my rear brake light switch to illuminate the light at lesser pressure than needed to activate the brake so that a light touch whilst using engine braking turns on the brake light.
Yeah, I drive an old VW with a higher compression engine. I can slow down quite a bit by downshifting and letting off the gas - and I usually tap the brake pedal to let cars behind me know I’m slowing down.
(Old VW - when I say “tap” I actually mean I have to press hard enough to engage the hydraulic pressure switch in the brake system. One day I want to install some kind of switch such that any pressure to the PEDAL will turn on the brake lights. )
doesn't need to be light. even harley baggers slow downb just fine with engine braking
The difference here is that a motorcycle has two brakes and you're almost always easily able to use one of them and the brake light switch can easily be activated without doing any actual braking. It's just a matter of being mindful which is something that's important on a motorcycle always. Any time I've been on a motorcycle and using engine braking it's never been an annoyance to simply slightly squeeze the brake lever to light up the brake lights.
aka, engine braking
Just this video and the one on amber turn signals makes this channel worth it's weight in gold. Every other video is just added bonuses. Keep preaching the sanity! You could make a trifecta if you did a video on GM making the reverse lamps double as perimeter lighting!
G.M.'s reverse lights are annoying AF. Have waited countless minutes for those cars to back up when actually they are parked. I will take a hammer to them soon!
How much does a youtube channel weigh?
@@sandraaiden8587 Depends on how heavy the advertising is.
1:18 subscription earned, lmaooooo
lol even
Bro Even I wanted to subscribe but when I tried to saw that I am already subscribed😂
Finally I have a explanation of why I'm seeing so many odd braking on road lately, as I'm trucking down the road I'm always keeping watch for brake lights. The opposite problem also exists I've seen cars who brake lights come on for apparently no reason, this explains what's going on.
Edit: Should have kept watching lol
Brake lights come on unnecessarily when people drive with two feet and let their left food ride the brake pedal.
@@DouglasRosser even if it is only one foot, some drive really weird. Seen an aunt drive alternating between accelerating then lightly pressing brakes. This is all in a straight road with no one braking in front if her.
@@popenieafantome9527blimey! Did you call her on it?
Yeah, that used to be an indication of some idiot driving with his left foot resting lightly on the brake pedal. There was a brief period when two-footed driving was thought to be a good idea (in automatics). I think it was a rumor spread by brake repair shops.
@@jeepien maybe it was a bunch of rogue kart racers trying to revolutionize driving
Thanks for also clarifying the 13 seconds in metric seconds. You had me quite confused by all those imperial units.
I loved this joke so much.
🤪
Oh man this was great
I'm sooooo happy there is somebody as passionate about amber indicators as I am.
You are not alone. The idea of red on red is absurd.
@@JamieSmith-fz2mz The next Tesla I see without amber indicators is getting fired into space to sit along with the original designers car. Eberhearts Tesla sport is still up there orbiting some random planet.
The amount of times I couldn't tell if someone was braking, turning or had their hazards on is ridiculous.
@@marksmanmerc1 I've considered importing amber combo tail lights from Europe for my Chevy spark. Get anxiety every time I'm ahead of someone and making a turn.
You are THE BEST! Thank you for the in-depth content. I clicked so fast when I saw this.
Having driven manual transmissions all my life (30+ years and now having an EV) made me aware of two things:
1) Don't expect the driver behind you to see you're slowing down just because you're slowing down. Don't overly use compression braking if someone's too close behind.
2) EV's one pedal driving is easier than I thought to be accustomed to!
As a 20 years manual transmition driver and a 1 year Polestar 2 driver, halleluiah
I always find it a little jarring to drive an automatic. It takes me a few miles to get used to going from three pedals to two.
And you made the leap straight to one pedal. You have my respect, sir.
As a manual driver, I can shift down to slow down. Guess what, no break lights as well.
This one-pedal driving seems to me to be the first length of a path that will lead to drivers who don't know how to drive other vehicles.
Much like how manual transmissions today are almost an anti-theft device.
@@kapriolenpfeifer I used that once in a Bronco against a state cop who was tailgating me at 40MPH so closely I couldn't see his windshield in my rear-view mirror.
After he swerved into the breakdown lane, he stopped tailgating me.
That old brake light/turn signal video was what got me into your channel in the first place so many years ago. Good to see a follow-up on it, Alec.
The most shocking thing in this whole video is the fact that GM made some good decisions.
I mean, every so often they do. Though they usually seem to screw it up anyway.
Whichever engineer did it was probably canned that year or the next.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
GM has a pretty damn good engineering team, it’s the rest of the management that makes them unreliable
And they solved the PRNDL/brake light problems too!
I have a Chevy Volt, and from the sound of it its one-pedal mode is an adaptation of the Bolt’s. Biggest difference is that it doesn’t come to a stop on its own, so that issue of now having the lights at that point doesn’t exist. It’s also probably worth mentioning, that additional paddle that gives stronger regen braking does just also turn in the brake lights.
You consistently produce some of the most informative and digestible content available on TH-cam. Thank you.
He forgot about gas engine compression with manual transmission.
"we have no choice but to control the brake lights with ... software" 😳
I'm a software developer and this was perfect.
*choice
@@JoeTaber Another software developer here, I agree 100%.
@@unvergebeneid thanks. Corrected 👍
My stance has always been that if the car can automatically turn on its brake lights, it should have a dash light indicating when they are on or off. Like the Nissan example you provided. There are times when you need to turn on your brake lights while still coasting to let people behind you know that you will be slowing down. And on the flip side, if you are slowing down a little and the brake lights come on, you should know because it does affect how people behind you drive when your lights come on.
Cars should have brake light repeaters on the dashboard anyway, even if they don't have automated systems to activate the brakes.
@@mglenadel And then you can find out if your brake likgt doesn't work in the first place.
My Subaru with adaptive cruise had a vehicle icon that would indicate when the brakes were being applied by the system (also if you manually appled them too). My current car doesn't have that, but it does physically move the brake pedal when its braking.
I'm thinking about adding that functionality to my bike while I'm adding a flasher. For me it's more an issue of realizing I've been barely riding the rear brake for the last 5 minutes 😅
Or the brake light should have multiple states (turned off, pulsing or always on, maybe some sort of progress bar instead) to indicate what is going on. Many other important clues are hard to signal to other drivers, such as when you give passage to someone or won't give passage. Also turn signals should be way more visible than nowadays, including big side LEDs over the car's doors.
In my opinion, the solution is the operator not being an idiot. Hitting the brake pedal if you're slowing down to let people know it, even if youre not on the brakes, is an easy solution.
I am glad he added the metric seconds, I hate when the US content creators only use imperial seconds.
We don't use imperial seconds, we use customary seconds.
metric users when there are 60 seconds in a minute instead of 100
@@ashtonhoward5582 Sorry, come again? I only understand metric English.
Should we insist on non US creators using metric time as it was intended.
With each hour consisting of 100 metric minutes, and each metric minute consisting of 100 metric seconds.
Pretty sure it's sloppy seconds
I've been behind several hoopties with no brake lights, whether broken or intended insurance fraud. It's absolutely terrifying in the moment you realize they're slowing.
It's worse when the brake lights are permanently ON, as they're blinding
@@miscbits6399seen a couple with reverse lights on at all times or broken rear housing. Feels like a flashbang is driving in front of you.
Also it absolutely baffles me how many people dont want to spend 20 bucks for a new headlight and instead drove around with a single one. Or maybe they dont even notice, thatd be even worse.
@Reulorics if you're behind such a hooptie it's a given that you'll give a lot more than 2 seconds following distance
there arent mandatory vehicle inspections where you live?
@@toadwine7654 vehicle inspections are only done so often. Where im from theyre done every 2y yet it feels like every 20th car with halogen bulbs has their light set up incorrectly.
As much as you give GM flak for "overcomplicating" it with the accelerometer that checks the vehicles actual motion, that solution is fairly resistant to future technology changes down the line we haven't thought of. It gets to act as a catchall for anything weird happening that might be making the car slow down, including mechanical malfunctions in other systems.
And these days, accelerometers are really cheap.
It can be done using a simple relay, similar to what the brake pedal uses in a conventional car. Press the brake pedal, it sends a signal to light up the brake lights. Electric cars with regen could use a similar thing, only when you let off the accelerator. It's really not difficult. Just shows a serious lack of thought. The car shown in the video is as ridiculous as it is dangerous.
I think the accelerometer solution is just plain better than the pedal position solution. If you're going up a steep hill and don't have regen braking turned on, the accelerometer solution will still active the brake lights when you lift off the gas pedal.
I don't understand why using an accelerometer isn't the obvious go-to solution. It would be independent of the selected driving mode and even type of car.
@kirkdarling4120 Not to mention it's dirt cheap.
As someone with an incredibly easily stolen car, I have a few other questions I'd like to ask Kia and Hyundei too.
Where do you live? I have plenty of USB cables...
I'm kidding, of course. Ridiculous oversight, and an unacceptable response from the manufacturers. A modern car should not be easier to steal than a 1980s car!
Question like...?
@@dashcamandy2242 The 80s car might be harder to steal, just because the thieves don't know how to drive stick.
Check to see if you got the recall, there’s a class action against them now making chipped keys free for owners with unchipped turnstile ignitions
What's crazy is those same cars in Canada have an immobilizer system. I'm pretty sure it is required by law. Hyundai/Kia was just really cheap.
Immobilizer or not the lock cylinder should not be that easy to remove. My 30 year old Camry is harder to steal. Thats impressive considering I have three random Toyota keys from other cars that will start mine.
As someone who drives a manual, the deceleration at low gear is quite noticable and I'm always weary of someone not paying attention. So I always dab the brakes even though I don't need to. Just wishing that whoever is writing the regulations doesn't forget about the good old manuals.
This has been my experience too.
Agreed. Less than a minute into the video 0:50 and he says "The brakes are the only thing capable of slowing the vehicle down enough to warrant turning on the brake lights", I was shocked. Usually so scrupulous, how could he overlook manual transmission cars with more engine braking? Not every manual is a low-displacement, low compression econobox incapable of appreciable slowing under engine braking alone. And certainly the behavior of the vehicle when lifting off the throttle is dramatically different for those vehicles than for almost every automatic.
Same thing when I'm on my motorcycle. Realistically, I am able to almost entirely stop just by downshifting. However, I still dab the foot brake just to illuminate the taillight, because, you know, I don't really want to be hit by a much larger unit.
Yep same. When I still had a manual I always signaled when I was going to slow down a lot without braking. Just press the brake very lightly so you don't brake but the light still goes on.
@@haphazard1342 Hey now, that '95 civic in my driveway can stop pretty good! Now if only it could keep the acceleration it has below 25, above 25!
23:25 Thank you for converting 13 seconds for us! Was completely confused by that point but you've saved the day.
Love his sense of humor.
I had to rewatch that to make sure I heard it.
its good to know other people caught this joke
I loved his subtle jab. made my day!
Thank you for this video. I was unaware of the one-pedal driving modes, and constantly annoyed as a pedestrian by drivers that seemed to be stopping for me, but wouldn't bring the car to an actual halt for a stupidly long time. Now I know they're electric drivers waiting for their car to finally feather in the disc brakes. I feel like it's worth wasting a minute amount of energy to better communicate to pedestrians that the car will actually stop, but I'll likely be pragmatic now and just risk my life, knowing most people are relatively decent and just like technology too much to use more than one control
I actually encountered this a few days after first seeing this video. Coming off the highway behind an ionic and it was slowing down quite fast without any lights showing while I was on the brakes quite firmly. I was prepared since I was turning off with it but I can absolutely see this being an issue if someone is coming up on them faster or not paying full attention
Well... Pay attention.. Lol
Lmao yea okay
@@LigmaGootch Anyone who's been out on the road knows that's asking too much of people these days. If "pay attention" is the answer you have to lacking safety features, that's only that many more deaths on the road.
Honestly, driving a car is one of the most dangerous things your average person does on any given day, by a huge margin. While paying attention is good, having fewer hazards is better, because the odds of being hurt or killed in a car are already way higher than most people would be willing to accept under any other circumstance. We're all just sort of detached from that by familiarity with them, and often... too much trust in safety features. I can pay full attention and see problems like these, react accordingly. But I don't like that I have to react to it in the first place. Kinda rather the dangerous situation hadn't presented itself to begin with.
People driving vehicles need to pay full attention like owning a firearm. You can easily kill someone or many people if you're not paying attention while driving.
Why can't both be true? We should require everyone to pay attention. We should also give them every tool that we can that assists them in not hurting themselves or others. Making mistakes is human, being attentive or not. Not sure how you could ever make an argument _against_ something that objectively makes a dangerous activity slightly less dangerous.
I remember during my time at Ford, they had a suggestions box, so I threw one in saying that there was no visual difference in the brake lights for someone braking normally vs someone performing an emergency stop, which could be rectified easily with a few lines of software code in the body control module for the brake light switch and the abs accelerometer.
I was laughed at by my colleagues, why would anyone ever need that?
Years after I'd left, I saw a Ford Focus perform an emergency stop and the brake lights flashed rapidly. It brought a smile to my face, knowing that I'd made a small but significant difference.
wow
You think your comment in the suggestion box is why they implemented that feature…
@@tgj42495 On my own? Maybe not, but if I was one of a few likeminded people that suggested it enough to get it noticed by the development team, then that's good enough for me.
What does it matter to you though?
@@tgj42495 it might be not. But he is right.
@@tgj42495Unless there is documented evidence showing it was in the works before then, yes, and OP should have been compensated.
Your videos are so informative, and I love the little jabs you put in like the "60mph or 96kmph in 13seconds (freedom units) or 13seconds (everyone else)"
It's Kph. The metric system doesn't use the ‘m’ when associated with speed.
@@Cdr_Mansfield_Cumming you are so confidently incorrect, here in Canada (a metric system using country) its km/h
@@Cdr_Mansfield_Cumming I have never used kph in my life living here in Europe. It has always been km/h for me
@@Cdr_Mansfield_Cumming k = kilo. m = metres. without the m, it could be kilo anything!
I only use km/h but kph is used in Formula-1.
There is an additional scenario where traditional brake lights turn on even when not decelerating: when driving downhill and using brakes to maintain speed. Sure, downshifting is an option in some vehicles that will not turn the lights on, but it would still be helpful for anyone behind you who is picking up speed on the slope to know that you are using some braking force.