My ZE50 isn’t being delivered until June. Meanwhile I’m getting mildly obsessed with understanding everything about the car! For example - can it be driven in B mode ‘all’ the time? I.e. dropped into B anytime you’d generally be in D, driving? Assuming that is that the driver likes the extra braking effect, of course. Any downside with leaving it in B (almost) all the time?
There are peculiarities with B-mode, I will talk from my experience with the ZE50, I do not know about i3, Tesla and others.
My experience has been that you can keep B-mode engaged at all times. Above 70km/h (45mph), B-mode is not going to slow down the car aggressively, it behaves more like D-mode. Under 70km/h it starts to feel a bit strong. Under 50km/h (30mph) it is quite strong.
B-mode is limited in performance when the battery is cold and when the battery is full (above 93%). The car still slows down at what I perceive to be similar rate of deceleration as if the battery would be warm/not full, but I assume it's done with friction braking.
You get used to it, but if you come from ZE20 or ZE40... you'll miss the regen from those older models. B-mode may seem finicky at first, but you may get used to it.
Please note that Zoe has decoupled brakes (controlled by software), so whether you press the brakes or use B-mode, you're likely to get the same level of regen, unlike Tesla in which using the brake pedal activates the friction brakes.