Brembo’s new “Sensify” braking system takes that one step further, eliminating the hydraulic system entirely and relying instead purely on electronic brake-by-wire and electric motors. Brembo is positioning its system as a plug-and-play solution that can be integrated at both the platform level (as part of a dedicated zonal architecture) or as part of an existing ecosystem, perhaps as part of a supplemental ADAS package.
“Designed as a scalable and adaptable solution, Sensify is engineered to support a wide range of advanced vehicle architectures, from next-generation driver assistance systems to fully autonomous applications, marking a key milestone in the evolution of braking toward a truly software-defined future,” Brembo said in its announcement.
But officer, I couldn’t pull over. The care kept telling me “Update in progress. 93% complete.”
Hope the “off” state is brake on
Honestly I was shocked when I learned brakes don’t automatically clamp when a brake line fails (the hard way, I was lucky it was a back road and I could just swerve until I was going slow enough to pull into a parking lot.)
Is there an engineering reason calipers don’t automatically clamp if there’s too little pressure?
I don’t like this. Hydraulics, even when vacuum boosted, give great instant analog pedal feedback, are simple, reliable, and very safe with modern ABS systems. Losing that feedback is just one more forced disconnection from the road surface to the driver.
The point is that in modern cars your steering wheel, accelerator, and brake pedal are not physically connected. There’s a potentiometer and electric motor that actuates the steering and throttle (on a ice). So why keep the brake circuit around if it’s not actually connected to anything.
I’m on your side for loss of feedback. Electric steering is terrible.
As much as EPAS sucks, it still transmits some amount of real forces unlike steer by wire that may simulate “real road feeling”. If you’ve ever driven an older Citroen, with their fully hydraulic brakes that use the central pump from the hydropneumatic system and you just push on a valve to brake, you would know how hard they are to balance on the edge because there’s absolutely no feeling through the pedal. It won’t matter for most people though as they’re completely oblivious to anything around them and ABS likely will save their asses.
There are many pluses for electronic brakes though as the computer just acts directly on the brakes instead of pulsing the ABS pump to brake and unload any given wheel like they do today.
It won’t matter for most people though as they’re completely oblivious to anything around them
Key point there.
eliminating the hydraulic system entirely and relying instead purely on electronic brake-by-wire and electric motors.
The announcement was light on details about both the system itself and how its fail-safes are implemented
So… It uses electricity? Sounds like something that will be interesting to read about when they are ready to provide any details.
For example, details?
How fast a software update will make them stop working.
(half /s)
