[Tell It Right]

this seems to imply that using the brake pedal only engages the physical friction brake pads, and never the regen. I don't think that's the case- unless you hit the brake pedal hard, it just engages regen, unless I am completely misunderstanding the instrument panel. I honestly don't see why using hand paddle vs brake pedal would be any different at all.

I live in an area that's very hilly. It's a part of Alabama that has the southernmost of the Appalachian Mountain Range. In my area it's stretching the truth to call them mountains, but they are big hills and sometimes steep. Yet a lot of our main roads and highways have smoothed out the drive. Some roads have a lot of both -- long stretches of relatively flat driving followed by long stretches of climbs and drops like riding a roller coaster.

On Auto my I5 can't detect these road changes well. Thus I use
+ the hand switches to toggle my regen up and down depending on how much I want to coast going downhill to preserve the speed vs slowing down some with regen (especially with as heavy as the I5 is and building up speed going down LOL). Plus, it's kinda fun, like when I used to drive a stick-shift. LOL

 

[Tell It Right]

I'm still discovering the car (3rd week ;-)) so just an intermediary observation so far: driving in town (50-70 km/h, some hills), I get similar efficiency numbers of 13-16 kWh/100 km (6.2-7.7 km/kW) in ECO with Lv3 regen AND in ECO with Auto regen (set to hard deceleration); my wife notices that passenger's experience is somewhat more to her liking with Auto regen.

iPedal feels less efficient -- but I only have driven in that mode for ~15 km (did not particularly like it), so more tests are required... twist my rubber arm, I'll go for a drive! 🤣

2022 US Limited RWD owner here in a pretty hilly area. At first I saw no difference among regen levels (including I-Pedal) as long as I was in Eco mode. But the more I get used to it, the more I-Pedal seems to increase efficiency. However, I still often turn off regen completely to coast downhill and maintain momentum and wait until my speed slows back to my desired speed before reactivating regen. For that reason, if I'm in a very hilly area I sometimes keep my regen at level 1 just to make it easier to turn off and on with one pedal pull (Level 1 to Level 0 then back to Level 1 then Level 0 again a few seconds later, etc.) than multiple pedal pulls. I also sometimes keep it at Level 1 if I have a passenger to reduce the # of times I jerk around my passenger like I used to do when I drove a manual stick-shift. LOL Except for those situations, I lean towards I-Pedal.