If you have ever driven a BMW i3, you know that you can almost drive entirely with just the gas pedal. As you let off the gas, the regenerative braking kicks in to charge the batteries. Unlike the i3, you can toggle this to a lower setting. This is nice if you are not used to how it feels, you can turn it down so it basically feels like a ICE powered car.

After driving the car for a few weeks, there are some attributes of the regenerative braking that I had not read in any reviews.
1. When driving more aggressively, the regenerative braking is actually really nice. It helps the car turn in and you can modulate the gas pedal to control this. It also feels a lot the engine braking of a higher horsepower FWD car when you are near the redline. It feels really nice.
2. When you come to a complete stop with or without the brake pedal, the regenerative braking will keep the car from rolling. It does this on a hill like a manual car with a hill brake feature but also on a completely flat surface.
3. Regenerative braking does not make the brake lights turn on.

I'm curious to see how this plays out in the snow or heavy rain. I suspect you will want to turn the regenerative braking to the lower setting so that the rear of the car doesn't want to come around on you but then again, it has stability control so it will kick in the rear brakes. With the i3 being RWD, it wouldn't be a problem but since this is FWD, things could get interesting as you put more resistance on the front wheels than you have on the back and with the less traction on the rear, any shift in body weight, the car will want to rotate too much unexpectedly.

 

you will want to change the regen braking to the minimal setting in snow and ice, based on my 5 years of experience driving i3s where you could not do that.

 

I'm fairly certain that this is false. I believe they turn on in the higher setting on a full lift. Maybe someone actually driving an SE can confirm for us. =P

Agreed on all other points, regen braking feels like engine braking, you just need to get used to it happening while your foot is still in the accelerator.

 

Regen braking absolutely makes the brake lights turn on. I've seen this in our Mini Cooper S E, just a couple of days ago, at night.

 

Oh really? I came to a stop the other day and was watching for it in the huge chrome bumper of the Ford truck behind me and never saw the brake lights. I could clearly see the brake lights when I used the brake pedal though. Hmm. Maybe it only turns on the brake lights when it reaches a certain percentage or regen? Maybe I'm just wrong!

 

I installed a visible brake-light LED that I can see in my rear-view mirror. I was disappointed at how little regen braking is required to activate the brake lights. I believe that when the needle on the Performance Display touches the first yellow regen block, the brake lights come on. I was surprised to discover the brake lights turn off after you use regen braking to bring the MINI Cooper SE to a stop.

Also, the MINI Cooper SE will roll forwards on an incline after using regen braking to come to a stop and it will roll backwards on an incline when in reverse, but it will not roll the backwards on an incline when in Drive or forwards on an incline when in Reverse.

 

This is correct. The BMW i3 system was identical and I highly recommend you keep your foot on the brake for visibility, with as much as people text and get distracted. A couple of items you can look into for visibility, coding in the rear parking lights to always be on and code the rear fogs to act as additional brake lights.