With a manual car, it was common to downshift and use the engine to decelerate. I’m wondering if electric vehicles might actually cause a return to a third pedal to re-add some of the fine tuned controls that a manual transmission allowed. Maybe the “downshift” could engage the regen brake specifically.

I did this with manual, and my EV does this with a single pedal control. Letting off of the pedal will engage regenerative breaking to the extent that you let off the pedal, it does not engage the brakes. I find that in a lot of city driving I don't need the brakes, but they do work fine when I need them. I really like this functionality. The car can also creep along at 1-2 Mph when necessary - so I don't need brakes to deal with slow traffic. (With a manual, first gear would sometimes suffice for this.)

So the premise in the title of the article does not surprise me, but I thought that the primary pollution complaint about electric vehicles was tire pollution and not brake dust.

Some EVs have that. Anecdotally, once you get used to "one pedal driving" having that sort of control (via extra input mechanisms like steering wheel pedals) is just plain annoying.

My Bolt has a hand paddle behind the steering wheel that engages regenerative brakes (and only the regenerative brakes). I make use of it extensively. When in "single pedal" (where the accelerator acts as a speed selector, i.e., the car brakes when you step off the 'gas'), it's a lot more aggressive than just lifting my foot off the pedal, and when in "simulate an automatic transmission" 2 pedal mode, I find the paddle is easier than figuring out exactly where the threshold is on my brake pedal between regen and friction brakes.

The bolt EUV has a paddle on the wheel above the turn signal stalk that is used to invoke regen braking in normal drive mode, and when used in one-pedal drive mode adds an extra bit of regen without having to use the brake pedal. It also doubles to cancel cruise control. It's in the perfect location too. And it feels very well blended, precise, constant, and smooth.

Every other EV should have this. I often get EV rental Hyundais, which have 4 levels of iPedal - 3 regen levels and "max" aka one-pedal drive. They're managed by paddle shifters on the wheel. They don't default back to one pedal and any extra re-gen is still managed by the brake pedal.

I googled to find a link to share in this comment to discover how much love (or superiority complex) the chevy regen paddle has -- https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/regen-paddle-the-superior-...

Some EVs have single pedal mode, where if you let off the gas it will bring you to a complete stop,

Some vehicles repurpose shift paddles as a way to trigger regen braking. But they're pretty gimmicky and not really useful for driving. If you want to use regen in a vehicle that supports it, the brake pedal does that. And when regen is not enough, the hydraulic brakes are also used. But a "sometimes brake" pedal that only support regen sounds like a bad idea. Vehicle controls as essential as braking need to be consistant in how they respond to input behavior.

Was it that common? Where I’m from that’s “winter driving mode” because it’s safer on slippery surfaces, but rarely anyone would do that in the summer time.

My EV is set on max regen mode though, and I sometimes drive without pressing the brakes, as there’s a paddle I can use to use regen for all my braking needs bar an emergency. It even has a name - single pedal driving.

I used to do that with a vintage 70's sportscar… later learned that it was pretty bad for the long-term life of the transmission so had to train myself out of it.

Cool idea. Perhaps a better idea would be to borrow from the brake balance adjustment in race cars, wherein an adjuster dial/knob allows the driver to alter the balance between the front vs rear brakes when the brakes are applied (very useful in wet vs dry conditions, high-speed vs low-speed sections, etc.). So, instead of adjusting the F-R brake balance, the dial could adjust the regen-vs-mechanical braking, up to the limit of the batteries to accept power input.

Another way of further reducing brake dust might be to have a higher regen setting that dumps excess power to a heat sink and cooling system, up to its limit before engaging the mechanical brake pads/discs.

'common'? When I was a young'n, I was taught that that was basically an emergency procedure to use if the brakes failed, to force the car to slow down. I can't imagine wanting to do that routinely.