The next Nissan LEAF is coming on the 6th September, but today today Nissan have announced something incredibly important. They want 1 pedal to do it all. The LEAF will come with an e-Pedal, a technology that could have serious flow-on effects for other vehicles and transform the way we drive.
The way it works is you flip of a switch, and your accelerator transforms into a pedal to accelerate, decelerate and stop. Sounds weird right. In what they claim is a world first design, the one-pedal operation is like a 0-100% mechanism. If you don’t keep pressing it, you stop. To resume driving, you simply press it again. This may sound similar to how your right pedal works now, but the difference is the brakes are applied if you’re not accelerating. This means you’ll slow, much more rapidly than the rolling resistance of your tyres.
The brake is applied in such a way that even if you stop on a hill, you’re not going anywhere, the brakes are on (and we’re going to assume a hill-start assist of some description). As soon as you push your accelerator down, you take off, its actually a really neat concept (despite a terrible name).
The closest thing I can relate this too is when I drone the Tesla Model S, with its regenerative braking, it slowed the vehicle when you got off the accelerator. After you get used to it, its actually a really nice way to drive and if you can anticipate the traffic, you could almost never touch the brake pedal. Well Nissan are shooting for that goal and for around 90% of your driving, you could live with one pedal.
This dramatically simplifies driving (and reacton times) in heavy traffic and should make commutes a lot more bearable with a simple on/off movement with just your right foot and steering to worry about. Drivers will greatly reduce the need to shift from one pedal to the other, making your drive simpler, essentially like a big golf buggy.
Nissan says the e-Pedal technology represents another key milestone in their ongoing commitment to bring accessible, advanced driver assistance technologies to the mainstream. Set to make driving safer and more enjoyable, the development of these technologies is part of Nissan Intelligent Mobility, the company’s blueprint for transforming how cars are driven, powered and integrated into society.
By launching the Nissan LEAF, the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle, Nissan established itself as pioneer in the EV movement. Today the Nissan LEAF is the world’s best-selling electric vehicle, with more than 277,000 sold worldwide.
