Love how people in this post believe THE brake manufacturing company, single supplier for virtually all competition-level vehicles, not to mention billions of road vehicles, are a bunch of dumbasses who can't design a different version of their MAIN PRODUCT.
this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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I don’t have an issue with a new system per se. This gives me pause though.
The announcement was light on details about both the system itself and how its fail-safes are implemented
The system they propose is a brake by wire system that uses electric motors. What happens when you have no power? On an EV this might be moot. What happens after an accident and this system is damaged? I’ve seen plenty of cars start to roll after an accident until the driver applies the brakes. Tesla and their door handles not working is an example of critical systems not working after accidents. I’m mostly curious about what failsafes are in place in this new system. Seems premature for name calling without all the information.
For this system to catch on it needs to either be better than the current systems by a large enough margin, cheaper, or more reliable(aka less warranty claims).
We already have electronic parking brakes on cars. Motor spins the piston in and it has far more clamping force than a drum on hat or lever style caliper or conventional drum. Problem is I live in New England and regularly see them come in with errors because the wires rotted off, while the hydrolics brake lines are still in tact. What's funny about that is I work in a 4x4 shop where we set up a lot of ram steer systems (hydrolics ram used to steer the wheels) and unless it's a buggy we set them up in conjunction with ur standard steering linkage (all mechanical links to the knuckles) because not having linkage is considered a safety hazard on the road and illegal. However, it's totally fine that the cyber truck rear wheels are steered purely via electronics 🙄 I would NEVER trust a pair of 16 gauge wires to tell my brakes to make me stop. I've blown the rear brake line in my 40 year old jeep and I just vice grips the rear line shut and drove home with the front brakes only. If a wire rots off at the connector as they always do you need to replace the connector, and odds of u having spares handy and de-pinning tools and extra wire and heat shrink and crimpers etc on board are a lot lower than having a set of leathermans or vice grips or using a rock on the side of the road to ash the line and pinch it shut it before the break.
You realize that one break connection being dead on a wired connection doesn’t mean the whole system takes a crap, right?
If your hydraulic line takes a shit, you’ve gotta clamp it or you eventually don’t have breaks. If an electrical wire disconnects, the electrons don’t fall out, the system throws a warning/error and the other breaks keep working.
What if the "brake pedal" (potentiometer) fails? The control unit? What if a rat chews one wire of the 30 coming out of the box that controls this system? Sometimes KISS method is best, and relying on computerized controls to stop 2 tons of metal is just crazy to me. I'm not saying this is wrong or whatever, I'm just sharing my opinion lol. Call me a dinosaur but some things are pretty tried and true and hydrolic brakes are good and reliable! Air brakes can fail if a hose rubs or a tank rots and bursts but when they loose air pressure the brakes lock. These electric systems need a good fail safe
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Love how people are going on about regenerative brakes when this is simply deleting the hydraulic lines for wires and actuators in a normal friction brake system.
We should make cars with same break as the saw stop.
It'll be fun to watch.
Especially in the Midwest during winter.
Well that sounds terrifying. There's a reason why the brake hydraulicsystem is actually two separate hydraulic systems, for diagonally opposite wheels. The only single-point-of-failure is the brake pedal.
Their leaving out the critical details on how this will electric system will be fail safe, or even legal.
The announcement was light on details about both the system itself and how its fail-safes are implemented.
Maybe they'll return to spring actuated mechanical brakes that are released when everything is working. (More common in heavy industry, and I believe also truck brakes)
Yeah no. Hydraulic brakes can fail at any of the slave cylinders or the master cylinder.
If a single slave cylinder fails there is still the other pair in a tandem system but braking effectiveness is substantially reduced.
The tiniest tear in the seals of a master cylinder will lead to total and absolute brake failure. Your only brake left is the hand brake.
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This is a terrible idea.
Braking systems need MORE redundancy. Not less.
Electronics are mostly solid state and are therefore virtually wear-free.
If it’s designed well, they could actually be more reliable than pushing fluids through tubes. But pushing fluids through tubes is already pretty fucking reliable.
I think the main point is to eliminate rusting brake discs from EVs, which rely largely on regenerative braking anyway. I know mine are constantly crusty; like I can always hear them scraping for the first few hundred meters of driving. Which is prolly not great.
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That's going to be very interesting to see failure rates and modes on the road over time.
We at least know it could potentially have really low failure rates since airplanes have the same type of systems today, and that's highly regulated
I'm more concerned about the failure mode than the failure rates. Mechanical and hydraulic brakes can experience gradual failure, giving the driver a chance to pull over get the car repaired.
EVs usually have a single motor and a single inverter , both of which can fail suddenly. Electronics usually work perfectly fine until they suddenly don't work at all (blown fuse, bad connection, blown capacitor etc)
How are they gonna build redundancy so that no single component failure means youre freewheeling downhill on the highway
single component failure means youre freewheeling downhill on the highway
Do people really think Professional Engineers are stupid?
No, but their bosses might be.
Ain't that the truth
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I drive solely using one pedal on my Bolt, and brake only when I need to stop faster. As long as it's reliable and safe this should be fine. Regenerative braking is really fun.
and brake only when I need to stop faster
So you don't drive solely using one pedal then? Sometimes you use the brakes?
To add, I truly never take my car off of one pedal mode, and solely keep it in one pedal mode.
By "I drive solely using one pedal on my Bolt" with the word "drive" I imply that means normally how I drive. Such that, when I introduce the exception, "brake only" that is not typically how I drive, but rather a precautionary necessity, not a part of how I normally drive. So semantically, yes I should have added "normally" before the word "drive", or maybe "I drive 99% of the time using one pedal".
To which I would conclude that hydraulic brakes are still required equipment, even if used less frequently.
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I'm sure no more messy bleeding the brakes will be cheered by those who need to do brake fluids (I dislike doing it on my motorcycles). Multiple motors and pistons should still mean adequate redundancy, but more details from the manufacturer would be nice.
I have a honda with linked brakes, the precursor to ABS implementation. Rotation in the front left caliper applies one of 3 rear pistons, rotation of the rear caliper applies 1 of 6 front pistons. I have like 5 bleed valves on the 3 calipers and 2 or 3 valves inside the frame.
But it's very difficult to lock up the rear wheel. I've never had it happen in a straight line.
In fact, according to BMW, drivers of current EVs pretty much never activate their mechanical braking systems, relying instead on their electric motors to handle the job.
I didn't think the regen could bring a car to a complete stop, like at a stop sign or a red light. They're certainly not using the motors to hold your place on a hill, are they?
Or are they just saying BMW drivers never stop when they're supposed to?
Electric vehicles should actually ditch disk brakes and return to drum. Disk brakes are great for heat dissipation (not a problem on EVs because regen is the primary braking system) but they corrode and rust if not used regularly (as happens on EVs). Drum brakes, on the other hand, can be basically maintenance free until you wear out the shoes and are fully sealed. Lots of trailers have 20 year old drum brakes that still work!
I didn’t think the regen could bring a car to a complete stop
Yes, it can. Newer axial motors can actually put -700hp of stopping power per wheel, and the whole motor hub assembly weighs less than a brake assembly. All that energy was previously wasted as heat by braking.
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