In alt.autos.ford FanJet > wrote:

> How's that? To use regenerative braking, the car needs to be moving.

Brakes produce heat. That's wasted energy.
During normal braking, a Ford Escape Hybrid doesn't use the brakes at all
for the majority of the braking. What would be wasted as heat is captured
to the batteries.
Cars.com: "To test this claim, I poked my finger through the spokes and
touched the discs after 30 minutes of stop-and-go driving. The front ones
were cold to slightly warm. The rear discs were searing hot, though, which
makes sense because the rear wheels don't perform regenerative braking."

When the dam was built at Lake Shasta in the late 40's, the downhill
conveyor belts used to haul excavated rock from the dam site down to the
onsite concrete plant were slowed by conventional brakes which burned out
frequently. These were replaced with motor generators that in turn power
most of the construction project.

The school bus in Point Arena, CA, had a bank of resistors at the front of
the bus, tied to generators on a PTO. Going downhill, the PTO generated
heat, wasted out those resistors, and didn't use the brakes at all.