You Now Only Need 1 Pedal to Drive the Nissan LEAF

When you first drive an electric car, you may find it a little difficult to adapt to the extremely high low end torque and sharp regenerative braking when you lift off. It's part of the nature of electric cars, but once you get used to it the driving experience can be fairly intuitive. Even with the Tesla Model S, you rarely need to step on the brakes if you have the regenerative braking at its maximum setting. 

But Nissan is planning to go one step further, with total control over the movement of the car with just one pedal. They're calling it the e-Pedal, and they plan to implement it in their new Nissan LEAF. With just one switch, the accelerator pedal becomes a direct controller of speed- that is to say, when you come off the pedal completely the car will try to come to a dead stop, even accounting for hills and the like. 

It's a little bit of clever programming, but Nissan feels that it would make driving a little less stressful and a little more exciting. If we had to wager a guess, the throttle is reprogrammed not to demand torque but to represent speed- with the throttle pedal off it will try to get to 0 km/h as quickly as possible through regenerative braking, and at full throttle it will deliver full power until you reach it's maximum speed.