By: Chris Perkins, Senior Writer and Editor, GM News Hero Image: Engineers love to chase efficiency, maximizing the potential of whatâs in front of them. With the pioneering GM EV1 â the first modern electric vehicle from General Motors â they looked in an unexpected place: The brakes. To meaningfully boost the EV1âs driving range, getting the most out of mid-1990s battery technology, GM engineers and designers left no stone unturned, creating a lightweight car with bodywork meant to slip through the air. They also reinvented the automotive braking system, setting a template for so many vehicles to come. A typical automotive braking system uses friction to convert kinetic (rolling) energy into thermal (heat) energy. When the driver pushes the brake pedal in a modern car, hydraulic fluid flows to brake pads that squeeze against a rotating disc attached to each wheel. Itâs a very effective method for slowing a car down, but all that heat energy is wasted, lost into the atmosphere. EVs, however, offer another way of slowing a car down: Regenerative braking. The same electric motor that propels the vehicle forward can also act as an electricity generator, resisting the carâs momentum and putting energy back into the battery as the car slows down. By harnessing regenerative braking, the EV1 team could generate electricity to boost driving range. Caption: A cutaway illustration of the GM EV1 highlighting many of its novel tech features. The EV1 team wanted both regenerative and friction braking, and they wanted to keep things simple for drivers, controlling both with the conventional brake pedal. To do so, they created a new and revolutionary kind of braking system: Brake-by-wire, where the brake pedal activates an electronic system that controls regenerative braking and the conventional brakes simultaneously. In a conventional automotive braking system, the brake