Among the many delightful features on my 6 week old ESh is the emergency/parking brake automatically setting and unsetting itself. Two questions: Does it grab two wheels or all four wheels? And the big one: I have tried using it at 5mph in by driveway and I almost went through the windshield. Has anyone out there used this (manually, of course) as a true “emergency” brake at say, 30 or 40 mph? I’ll admit it, I’m too much of a chicken to try it out myself!

 

there's a mechanism that grabs the back wheels. it should brake if you pull on it and hold it i think. been a while since i used any ebrake functions so forget how it works.

 

Yes the parking brake sets itself once in park. However, once you shift to park, don't immediately let go of the brake pedal, give it 2-3 seconds and you should hear/feel the parking brake engage. You can manually engage the parking brake by pulling the switch and disengage it by pushing the switch located under the ignition button.

No, I wouldn't try it and it's at such a unnatural location you probably won't even have the awareness at the time to reach at such an awkward position to engage it.

 

The E-brake holds the rear two wheels.
While driving if you pull it up, the BAS will kick in and engage full brakes.


When on automatic, E-brake engages by itself when you put it in Park and dissengage when you pull the gear level out of park but only if you are buckled. If not, you will have to disengage it manually by pressing the button.
Never activate the E-brake without pressing the brake pedal.
When you park the car on uphill/downhill and you activate it manually or automatically by shifting in P, hold the brake pedal fully pressed until the E-brake fully engages. In that case the car will be held by E-brake and not the transmission park pin.

 

Another function tied to the Parking (not Emergency) Brake are the lights. If you do not use the Automatic PB feature
and start the car in the daytime, the DRL's will come on and at night the full lighting comes on. If you have set the PB
either manually or Automatically then no lights come on at engine start up, manually or remotely. When you pull it out
of Park or manually disengage the PB then either the DRL's or main lights come on based on ambient lighting.
Just as you digest all of that... if you set the PB while the engine is running, the various lights Do Not shut back off.