PawTouch: Pedal-Input-Based Real-Time Haptic Feedback for Battery-Aware Sustainable Driving in Electric Vehicles

초록

As the electric vehicle (EV) market expands, managing battery State of Health (SOH) has become a core challenge for sustainable mobility. Aggressive driving behaviors, such as rapid acceleration and hard braking, are major contributors to battery degradation. However, drivers often struggle to recognize and adjust these effects in real time. Existing driving behavior evaluation systems largely rely on post-hoc visual feedback, which limits their effectiveness in promoting immediate behavior modification during driving. To address these limitations, we propose a haptic feedback system designed to detect aggressive driving maneuvers, based on acceleration and deceleration patterns directly associated with battery degradation, and to guide drivers toward a more sustainable style. We developed a unique zootropic robot paw placed on the driver’s thigh that provides gentle, immediate tactile intervention, complemented by ambient lighting, upon detecting sudden, aggressive use of the acceleration or brake pedals. The system collects pedal inputs in real time to quantitatively identify rapid acceleration and deceleration events. To evaluate the proposed haptic system, we conducted a pilot study (N=18) in an environment simulating aggressive driving situations with frequent abrupt acceleration and braking. We share the design insights obtained through the development of this tactile interface and discuss the potential impact of our haptic guiding system on drivers’ sustained driving behaviors. Furthermore, this work offers HCI design implications for in-vehicle interfaces supporting sustainable electric vehicles and promoting battery longevity. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

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