Quote:
Originally Posted by Heel n Toe
...I also wonder if there's any way to use the motor for deceleration, or if it's all on the brakes...
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Yep, thats what the regenerative braking is.
I work for a company that does that with our latest electric vehicle, not quite on such a grand scale though. It uses an AC electric motor and all the braking (except emergency braking) is done by running the motor in regenerative mode. The motor then works like a generator and puts the energy it develops back into the battery pack. It manages to put back something in excess of 30% of all the energy it consumes.