Why is Regen so high in sport mode? eHybrid

[Davehaslanded]

The sport mode regen on the FR eHybrid is so excessive, & it’s impossible to turn it off as you can in any other drive mode. It’s impossible to do any lift or coast. Anything less than 30% throttle appears to start the regen braking in some circumstances. One pedal driving isn’t suitable for sport driving. Some regen is fine, as it’ll work like engine braking. But the default setting is far too strong.

 

[Kaxolo]

Did you change to sport after starting the car? When I change to sport in the middle of the drive it goes into one pedal driving. But if you start the car already on sport it starts normal

 

[Davehaslanded]

Did you change to sport after starting the car? When I change to sport in the middle of the drive it goes into one pedal driving. But if you start the car already on sport it starts normal

I haven’t tried that. But that’s a weird bug. My car is gone into the garage on the fifth for a software update. I’m hoping it’s going to fix some of the issues I’ve been having, such as the interior lighting, not remembering what it set to, and any CarPlay maps, glitching out after a few minutes. But perhaps it could also fix the problem with the regen. It’s just bizarre that it completely ignores any settings, but you choose in the car menu.

 

[adrianator]

I have the same issue but I think it's by design. I'm think of 2 reasons why is the reg braking so aggressive.

1. If you don't need to accelerate, the car will brake.... Because it's sport mode?
2. Sport mode is using a lot of battery for boosting so the car needs to regen as much power as possible in order to keep up. Speaking of this, does it happen when your battery is above 20% or above the minimum threshold that you set?

 

[Kaxolo]

I think is just a bug. Like I said it only happesn if I change into Sport mode in the middle of driving. If I turn off the car on Sport so it starts the next time it Sport it doesn´t do it.

 

[Davehaslanded]

I have the same issue but I think it's by design. I'm think of 2 reasons why is the reg braking so aggressive.

1. If you don't need to accelerate, the car will brake.... Because it's sport mode?
2. Sport mode is using a lot of battery for boosting so the car needs to regen as much power as possible in order to keep up. Speaking of this, does it happen when your battery is above 20% or above the minimum threshold that you set?

Considering Cupra compete in Formula E & ECTR, it’s likely they were going for a similar feel in their road cars under EV, as their race cars do. The problem is that even in sport mode, Road driving rarely requires hard acceleration, followed by hard braking.

I asked the service desk when my car went in the other day, & they were unaware of it. As far as they’re aware, it’s not a feature. But it’s also worth noting that most the Seat staff, be it salesmen or service desk know very little about the EV side of the car, or its software. In fact, it was in for a software update, which they only were aware of as I mentioned I had read about it on these forums.

 

[Kaxolo]

Tried today:
Start the car on Sport: no regen
Change driving to norma: no regen
Change back to sport: Regen

So either the fact that when you start on sport doens´t regen is bug, or when you change to sport and there is regen is bug.

 

[Davehaslanded]

Tried today:
Start the car on Sport: no regen
Change driving to norma: no regen
Change back to sport: Regen

So either the fact that when you start on sport doesn't regen is bug, or when you change to sport and there is regen is bug.

Tried the other day. Had to leave it in engine mode, due to GPF needing to do a cycle. So just left it in sport mode for a couple day. No Regen at all in Sport mode though when I started in sport. Its definitely a bug. My car was updated to latest software by dealer couple weeks back. That didn't fix it either.

 

[mrtndbs]

Seat Leon FR 2021 PHEV, I'm experiencing full regen mode too when switching to Sport mode during drive. I have yet to try starting in Sport mode. A part of me thinks there might be a coding option to alter this setting, using OBDeleven perhaps..

I am also willing to believe this is by design, precisely due to the reasons mentioned by adrianator in post nr4

 

[Kaxolo]

Tried today:
Start the car on Sport: no regen
Change driving to norma: no regen
Change back to sport: Regen

So either the fact that when you start on sport doens´t regen is bug, or when you change to sport and there is regen is bug.

So just to answer to my self and to let other people know too.

When you turn off the car in sport mode, the next time you start it, it will start in sport but not the engine. What I mean is, all the other settings are in the sport mode like suspension, steering wheel, etc but the engine starts on Normal. That's why when you start in sport there is no regen. If you put it in sport mode again the engine changes to sport and the full regen comes back. I'm not sure if the fact that the engine starts on normal is a bug or if they did it on purpose to minimize emissions.

 

[mrtndbs]

So just to answer to my self and to let other people know too.

When you turn off the car in sport mode, the next time you start it, it will start in sport but not the engine. What I mean is, all the other settings are in the sport mode like suspension, steering wheel, etc but the engine starts on Normal. That's why when you start in sport there is no regen. If you put it in sport mode again the engine changes to sport and the full regen comes back. I'm not sure if the fact that the engine starts on normal is a bug or if they did it on purpose to minimize emissions.

Thanks for the observations, that indeed adds up to how I remember the car to behave.

"if they did it on purpose to minimize emissions." -> I am fairly sure that's the reason since, if I'm not mistaken, starting in full Sport mode (including Engine) would automatically kick in the ICE upon a harder push of the throttle, regardless of the Drive mode selected. On the other hand, keeping the engine setting in Normal does not start ICE (unless you push throttle past the kick-down point) as long as you have the Drive mode set to E-MODE.
The main point of the hybrid system is to remain carbon neutral / in E-MODE for as much of the time as possible.