The market share of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) has grown year by year in the past decade, mainly due to the significant fuel saving and emission reduction benefits over the conventional vehicles, advancement of battery technology, and continuing reduction of battery cost. One of the unique features for BEVs is one pedal driving (OPD) thanks to the strong regenerative braking capability. The purpose of this study is to design and realize a spacing control algorithm for a BEV featured with OPD. First, an in-house drive-by-wire system was developed for a BEV with the OPD feature. Then, comprehensive vehicle experimental data were collected. A high-fidelity model was developed for a BEV with OPD feature in Matlab/Simulink environment and the model was validated using the experimental data. Thereafter, a two-stage inter-vehicle spacing control algorithm with application to adaptive cruise control (ACC) was developed and validated in simulation using the high-fidelity vehicle model and field testing. Simulation and experimental results demonstrated that the proposed spacing controller can achieve the desired inter-vehicle distance with regulation errors less than 1.34%. The proposed spacing control will be instrumental for developing an advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) for BEVs with OPD feature.