Patent ID: 8855844

Claim:
A regenerative braking system for a vehicle, the regenerative braking system comprising: at least one detecting device, the at least one detecting device detecting information about at least one target object located ahead of the vehicle; an electronic control unit having a processor, the electronic control unit in electronic communication with the at least one detecting device to receive the information about the at least one target object; and a computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: receive information about a velocity of the vehicle, determine a velocity of the at least one target object based on the information from the at least one detecting device, determine a maximum deceleration of the vehicle that can be reached by the regenerative braking system without ever applying physical brakes of the vehicle, and determine an optimal braking point to begin maximum regenerative braking, the optimal braking point being a point in time at which maximum regenerative braking can sufficiently slow the vehicle to achieve one of a time gap for following the target object and a distance gap for stopping behind the target object without ever applying the physical brakes of the vehicle.