Most New Cars Have Ditched Manual Handbrakes For Electric
With more and more new cars switching to electric parking brakes, you can’t help but wonder just how many vehicles are left on sale with a traditional manual handbrake.
Thanks to a study from CarGurus, we now know - in the UK, it’s a dismal 37 per cent of new models, and it seems likely that proportion will fall further. Dacia and Suzuki are the only mainstream manufacturers to have the old-fashioned arrangement on each of its models, while Audi, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes and Porsche now only sell cars with either electronic or foot-operated parking brakes.
It’s not hard to see why: in a lot of ways, electronic brakes are superior. There’s less chance of making a mistake with one, as a kick-off - it’s either on or off. Engaging/disengaging takes minimal effort, and most systems will release automatically if you pull away without turning them off. Finally, there are packaging benefits - a little switch is much easier to accommodate, after all.
That’s all well and good, but those benefits will seem like a weak consolation prize the next time you fancy a cheeky handbrake turn in an empty gravel car park…
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I don’t mind these electric handbrakes, but I do hate how stupidly they are placed occasionally. The best (or rather: worst) example I know of is the Volvo V60. The handbrake switch isn’t on the centre console where it belongs, no, it’s all the way on the left below the steering wheel, where you would usually be looking for the bonnet release. You push to engage it and you pull to disengage it, exactly the other way around to what you would usually be doing. It’s such a ridiculous design, I can’t believe that anybody designed it, approved it and put it into production.
Other than that, they are fine, I guess. They make hill starts much easier, but it’s not really a comfort feature that I miss when I don’t have it.
Outrage
This type of technology makes cars less safe to drive! You cannot engage the emergency brake in an emergency properly!
How has nobody mentioned the awful sound that they make?! I don’t like how we are removing the mechanical fail safe measures from cars in favour of electronics that require weighty motors for simple mechanical inputs from the customer.
Most new cars will not be purchased by me or most common sense petrolheads.
I would agree with manual gearbox, handbrake. Trying to avoid labeling it as a “manual parking brake”. Having a full-size, manual pickup, obviously never had a handbrake. Hillstarts, you get really good at being quick from the brake to the clutch. I personally agree that safety things (i.e. these, Alfa’s electric-braking thing, refer to Matt Farah’s video for that, and arguably throttle and fly-by-wire for situations where you need to boot it to get out of harm’s way) shouldn’t be electric. Steering as well. The majority of people nowadays become far too reliant on the vehicle and the people who have programmed it. Call be stubborn, but the old way worked very well for however many decades people went by it. No need to complicate things.
“…electronic brakes are superior…”
Not even close mate.
Can you imagine learning to drive in like 20 years with all these mad braking assists blind spot monitoring, hell maybe you won’t even learn to drive the future is going to be mad, and not in the good way
My driving ed car was a relatively new car and i find it bad that there are some people who then get in a old golf 2 or something and have a crash because they cant drive it anymore i would find it better to have driving education in a mk1 golf diesel
#deathtoelectronichandbrakes
the day your car is stuck in a garage with a dead battery and you need it to be towed you need to jumpstart your car to be able to move it, its great !!!