Camry cruise control doesn’t brake / hold speed on descents

sounds like our 2008. the '13 is better, but still lacking for some reason. hopefully, they got it right on gen 3.

 

My Gen 1 Prius cruise control would not hold speed on descents unless I shifted to B mode.

It was as if the cruise control in Gen 1 was simply transplanted from a regular car, designed only to work the go pedal, so it would have no descent-holding effect unless B was selected, to slow more aggressively when the go pedal is released.

Then I got my Gen 3 liftback, and discovered it will not even allow B and cruise to be selected together, which irritated me, until I realized the Gen 3 cruise control now has descent-speed-holding built in, so without selecting B it has the same behavior as the Gen 1 cruise control in B.

Could the Camry setup be more like the Gen 1? Does it have a B selection, and does it allow selecting that mode when cruise is on?

 

The Camry hybrid does have a B 'gear', though it may not be labeled as such. The current one even has a range of B-ness by way of selecting different gears on the shifter.

The hybrid is a variant of the ICE Camry, so it easily could have the same cruise control as the standard model. In a fist gen Camry hybrid, the odds of this are higher.

 

My 2015 would hold the speed going downhill. I'm not sure about the older ones.

 

My 2018 LE Camry Hybrid scared the pants off me the first time it "Jake Braked" going down a steep hill. I'd say the cruise does a great job maintaining speed overall. The radar feature is sweet as well.

Can't speak to the older versions.

 

Old-school cruise control is all about reading the speed and then controlling the engine (via throttle) until the speed hits the setpoint. That's great when you're cruising on flat land or up hills, but you don't get a brake effect when going downhill.

Many new cruise controls read the speed and then tell the transmission what to do to seek the setpoint. The transmission in turn controls the engine via throttle.

When the transmission is running the show, downshifting for braking effect is on the menu, when it wasn't before.

 

Gen 1 Prius re-used a cruise control that only acted the first way (as if it controlled the engine throttle), but the transmission could be put in a mode (B) where it would treat "no go pedal pressure" as "please slow down" and the end effect would sort of work out as you wanted.

Kind of funny, because the actual logic making up the Gen 1 cruise control was found in the hybrid-vehicle ECU, not in the engine controls or acting on a real throttle ... but it was just as if they sort of copy-pasted some existing cruise logic from a different model onto the HV ECU circuit board.

Then in the later generations they integrated it better.