Pedal-pumpers and wheel-wagglers will make their passengers motion sick no matter what car they're driving. You should always be aiming to drive as smoothly as possible.
You just have to retrain your right foot in an EV with one pedal driving.
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2026
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Shitty drivers blaming the equipment as usual instead of how terrible their right foot is.
What might be making them sick is one pedal driving. It’s off by default. This option allows the driver to immediately apply regenerative breaking when letting off the accelerator pedal.
When this option is turned off, an EV coasts just like any other car.
Vehicles with a manual transmission similarly start engine braking the moment you lift your foot off the accelerator but I never attributed any sense of motion sickness to that, though the braking force likely is lesser.
The way I've always understood this is that since passengers usually sit in the rear they're looking out the side windows and that scenery flying by so fast is what causes that motion sickness and it doesn't happen to the driver or front-seat passenger so much because they're looking forward through the windshield.
I can feel sick due to engine braking and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a manual or an automatic as it happens with both. I leave my auto on the comfort setting and it can still cause sickness. The sport mode is worse and the eco mode wouldn’t cause sickness as it doesn’t have engine braking (I assume that it does the equivalent of dipping the clutch when you let off the accelerator)
As I understand it any unanticipated movement can cause motion sickness. I can’t read in a car otherwise I get sick really quickly. I can get sick in the front passenger seat even if I don’t read.
That's like saying, breaking makes you sick in a car. That doesn't make any sense.
It’s just travel sickness so I don’t know why it doesn’t make sense. Changes in speed or direction can make you feel sick
I get it as a passenger in petrol cars. I start to feel sick if the driver cuts off on the power and then goes back to accelerating too suddenly.
That sounds like it would be worse in an EV with this feature turned on.
The braking with one pedal driving is much more immediate. The car doesn’t really coast. Instead, you slowly let off the accelerator and the car drags to a stop. It takes a while to get good at, kind of the same way you have to get good at letting off a clutch in a stick shift. If you let off the accelerator abruptly, you will feel the car braking immediately. You have to let off slowly. Trying to drive the traditional way while this feature is turned on creates the “seasick” lunge.
Sorry if I’m not good at describing it. If you get a chance to test drive an EV that includes this option, try it. I mostly keep this feature turned off on my EV because I don’t really see any improvement in range with having it on.
There’s a video demonstrating it here:
I have driven multiple EVs with this feature including trains. Regenerative breaking always has a delay, because the electrical fields need to build up before they can exert force on the motor first. I'd guess it takes about 1/3 to 1/2 of a second for the full force to be applied. Again, every train breaks regeneratively as well and no one ever said in my life, that they were getting sick on a train. This article may be clickbait, that's all I'm saying.
I love one pedal, but switch off when I have passengers for this reason. Very noticeable for them.
I'm in a lot of traffic jams, and one pedal is fantastic to have that regen braking when you start and stop 50 times in a couple miles of pileup.
Also if you are an aggressive driver it is really nice.
Interesting idea. I rarely have passengers; I'd worry my driving would be a little weird for them with me adapting to switching off regen braking.
The power is either on or off instantly. A gas engine takes time to rev up and start accelerating, or for the engine to stop getting air and stop making power. On top of that My car purposefully doesn’t shut the throttle as soon as I let go of the throttle. It’s for fuel economy reasons or something. So that’s even more amplified.
With an EV as soon as you let go of the pedal not only are the electrons turned off, but the regen kicks in, and hard sometimes. As the driver you have to learn to ease off the pedal. From the power to the ground to the coasting phase, to the regen phase. As the driver you know what you’re doing, but the passenger has no clue.
Yeah.. they said the same about the first train doing 20km per hour.
Uber / Lyft / cab drivers with good throttle control + one pedal driving. Bet my bottom dollar that's the biggest issue
No they don't.
Motion sickness. Yawn