Not a good advert for brake by wire. You can't beat a hefty pedal, a heavy connecting rod and a servo. Very little to fail in that set up.

Goodness have we really reached brake solely by wire, not on any car i own it won't be, nor steering by wire either!

I had assumed by electronic failure, that all or part of the assistance had failed, which in a modern car i assumed would be an electric driven pump to assist instead of the old vacuum servo, but the brakes would still be mechanically connected, albeit with no assistance (especially if driven barefoot) it would take massively more foot pressure to make the brakes work at all.

MB W211 E class could suffer such electronic assistance failure via the SBC pump, from what i have read you lose about 90% of braking ability...when W211 was facelifted around 2006 that system was dropped.

I agree with you though, the good old servo and traditional master cylinder system wasn't broke, and did not need fixing.

Talking to a Yaris hybrid owner who was moaning about the amount of brake dust on the rear wheels.

Seems the braking has several stages:

1. Light braking engages re-generation.

2. Slightly heavier braking engages more re-generation

3. Heavier braking engages rear discs (front end already being retarded by re-generation).

4. Ok, balls out, lets use the front brakes and ABS if necessary!