Recently had to learn how to force a Prius to use the brakes, as the rotors were rusting up & starting to pit!
I could not get my partner to brake hard enough to really engage the brakes. They just would not do it, would not brake hard enough to actually use the real brakes, no matter the prompting & even knowing how critical it was that we start to de-rust these rotors.
What I found out is: if you put the car in neutral, there won't be regenerative braking, & the car will use the actual brakes. That's the only way I could get my partner to use the actual brakes.
I would have expected cars that have both conventional and regenerative brakes to keep track of how often the conventional brakes are being used and to automatically increase the use of the conventional brakes if they aren't being used enough to keep them in good shape.
The polestar 2 does the simpler thing of biasing towards mechanical brakes for a little while at the start of every trip. (I suspect this has the advantage of detecting brake failure in more controlled circumstances as well, but that's not specifically documented.)
I could not get my partner to brake hard enough to really engage the brakes. They just would not do it, would not brake hard enough to actually use the real brakes, no matter the prompting & even knowing how critical it was that we start to de-rust these rotors.
What I found out is: if you put the car in neutral, there won't be regenerative braking, & the car will use the actual brakes. That's the only way I could get my partner to use the actual brakes.