Electric driven Vehicles (EV) can help reduce CO2 emissions caused by traffic. High acquisition costs and the limited driving range of electric vehicles are their major drawbacks. In the last few years many efforts in research have been made to increase the usability of EV's.

A Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) consists mainly of an electric motor and a battery. Both components allow regenerative braking, where kinetic energy can be transformed back to electric energy and stored in the battery during braking.

Several types of Regenerative Braking Systems (RBS) already exist. These systems differentiate from each other by the concepts and strategies used, and therefore have different potential to increase the driving range of electric driven vehicles. Furthermore, the potential depends on the actual traffic situation and the actual state of the vehicle components.

In this paper, a review of the actual concepts proposed for regenerative braking and their impact on driving range will be made. The concepts will also be evaluated for different driving & traffic situations.

The concept of an Adaptive Regenerative Braking System (ARBS) will also be introduced and its applications will be discussed.

For the development and evaluation of an appropriate system a Vehicle Simulation Model (VSM) with traffic simulation was used. The developed system was validated afterwards on an institute owned Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV).