Gloat about adaptive cruise control

If you include the fuel saving in the picture, it maybe 1/3? And further include the reliability of Prius for low maintenance cost, then it maybe 1/4???

GLOAT

 

Dude, get comma.ai, and then take your friend for a drive on the highway.

 

This is one reason I don't use DRCC on the Prime. In my experience, the braking and acceleration is just too abrupt; like slamming on the brakes and 'flooring' when it slows down or catch up.

Is there some setting that smoothens this out?

 

The only adjustable setting is the vehicle-to-vehicle distance (Owner’s Manual (PDF), page 411). The longest setting (the default) gives the control system the most time to respond, of course.

 

I'm usually the slowest vehicle out there (abiding by the speed limit), so rarely would need adaptive cruise. That said: adaptive cruise incorporates autonomous braking? That's a plus, and worth a 10% discount with ICBC* now.

* The main provincial insurer, virtually monopoly. You must use them for the liability insurance; for collision you can use other insurers, but I think most stick to one-stop-shopping.

 

This is my first DRCC vehicle, so I have nothing with which to compare. But for me, even in ECO mode, it's too abrupt unless the traffic is in "stop and creep" mode. I still use it quite a bit, but often override it like when someone pulls in front of me and I can see that they're already pulling away but the car doesn't know it and wants to slam on the brakes.

 

Nice thread. Beyond loving it generally, I had two occasions to love it yesterday in Thankgiving traffic. First, it's just awesome in stop and go. It handles all the stopping and going, and pretty smoothly at low speeds in EV mode. Second, in a heavy rain it feels like an insurance policy against coming up on someone two fast. The radar has better visibility than me. Why not use it!

 

Not quite true, I think. I've had it on the shortest setting, and it will start braking far sooner than usual if traffic has abruptly slowed down way ahead of me. In the shortest follow mode, it usually doesn't start slowing down as quickly as the farthest follow mode, but they all still have access the same data.

But overall, the furthest generally does end up being a smoother deceleration.

 

Well, it BETTER start braking far sooner on the shortest setting. There's less time to react. And it has to brake harder. Which means it can be more gentle on the longest setting. But even that is too abrupt for good economy.

I was an industrial electrician for quite a while and we were always joking about coming up with an "anticipation circuit." This would be an ideal application for such a thing, but no one has invented anything better than the human brain.

 

Drop another $1k on Comma.ai and you can have it drive itself (better than any Audi feature) on highways and mildly curvy roads.

You do lose the ability to set the distance if you let Comma.ai control the gas and brake, but it will handle stop and go traffic without you having to do anything, it'll even slow down for curves. If you just let it control the steering and use stock Toyota cruise control, you can maintain the distance setting feature, but if the car stops for longer than 3sec, you have to tell it to go again (stock).