Automatic Braking Feature

The car will brake/slowdown when it detects the front car is getting close. I don't know yet which function is controlling this, potentially PCS (Pre-Collision System), PDA (Proactive Driving Assist), Parking Assist and DRCC (Dynamic Radar Cruise Control). I feel it brakes a little too early than I expected, I feel not very comfortable about it because it affect the driver behind. Anyone knows about this and is it adjustable?

 

That is the ultrasonic proximity sensors—they only work at slow speeds and form a few feet away. There better be not someone coming from behind fast when you are a foot away from a wall.

 

Yeah, turn it off so that you rather deal with a $5,000 repair bill and your car being in the shop for a month.

 

If its breaking from farther away and the DRCC is not activated, then it should be the DA part of the PDA. The PDA has the 3 different sensitivity settings but its not clear to me which of the three components of the PDA they will affect (the components are DA, SA and OAA).

 

What I mean is at higher speed, not during parking. I think the range is about few dozen meters, depending on the speed.

 

Thanks for the help, I'll work on it. To make it convenient to everyone, I'll post the screenshots here.

 

Looks the DA fits into the kind of behavior: the car will slow down but it will not fully stop even gets really close, I don't know whether it will come to a full stop. If it will come to a full stop when get very close, it's another function makes it. I like this function, I feel safer with it, but the bad thing is our choice is only have it enabled or not, we don't have a choice to set distance to start slowing down, or the time to start slowing down if we have speed included in the consideration.

 

Unlike Tesla and some others, Toyota is very conservative with active driving assistance systems technologies. They don't deploy any feature unless it is more skillful than a human driver. I would keep all features enabled.

 

if you are on the highway going 55mph and the car in front of you stopped but for some reason you don’t brake, will the car also brake automatically in this instance? (Or will it just beep and flash the red BRAKE light like my current one does?)

 

The car will brake regardless of speed, just it will brake to about few miles per hour then slowly moves forward, drive has to step on the brake to fully stop the car.

 

So to make things clear, the car has 3 different system (lets ignore DRCC/Cruise control).

1. First for you convenience and to wake you up - PDA (DA) will start slowly braking without coming to a stop. This is a new system and I would assume it works with Radar and perhaps Camera.
   
2. If you choose to not brake further and you might hit the car, the PCS (Pre-Collision System) will warn and then brake. One part of it is often called AEB (Automatic Emergency Brake) and it is supposed to be for Emergencies only and you should not let it come so far. Usually these use windshield camera for short distances (thats why these systems traditionally only work during lower speeds) but have Radar too now. AEB is older and is e.g. MANDATORY for all new models in EU since 2022 so all cars have it these days. Might be more diverse in the states
3. If you decide to park (lower speeds/R/some other conditions), it uses the PKSB with USS sensors as dicussed further up. This is a new system as well

 

Now getting used to the active driving assistance technologies, somewhat, I agree with the advice to leave all enabled. The only one I will leave off, for now, is the driver attention monitor which I guess is not truly an active assistance technology anyway. I hope to not truly test these systems with skillful driving so the feature is never "more skillful" than me. So it is more a "suspenders" to my good "belt" of a skillful driver.

I do have one question: would the deployment of any of these driving assistance features make it more likely that a driver rear ends you? In driving yesterday in heavy traffic I was even more sensitized to the nearly ubiquitous tail gating and with this new car really don't want to have someone hit me. So wonder if the activation of one of these features might actually increase the likelihood of getting rear ended by a tail gater.

 

I doubt it. What color is yours? I get tailgated a lot less in my blue 2021 Prius Prime Limited than I got in my silver 2020 Prius Prime XLE. Sporty colors reduce tailgating, but unfortunately, there is no sporty color in the current lineup.

 

Blue. Reservoir blue, to make it more sporty. I doubt it too, on the auto braking making rear end more likely, but wonder if the feature breaks harder in some situations than I would, if it intentionally avoids getting as close as it could to the car in front. If I see someone close in my rear mirror I will intentionally get closer to a front end bump than I would with no-one behind me. At least I think I do that. I am certainly more aware when hard braking when someone is too close. Interesting observation on color consideration in tailgating. One thing I did notice is when my dog popped up his head in the hatch from sleeping, if someone was on my tail they tended to back off and give some space.

 

I believe the driver monitoring needs to be on for the traffic jam assist. Though that actually allows hands off operation.
Subaru's monitor system can be tied to driver settings profiles. So that might be a case with Toyota.

 

If not, it would likely do a poor job because it reacts faster than anyone can anticipate. It should brake more quickly than you, for instance, if a child jumps in front of the car. Whether someone hits you from behind should be the least of your concerns then.

At least for real safety/emergency situations...

 

If someone rear ends you because your emergency braking activated, they were too close.

 

I will debate this for one particular case -- Lane Trace Assist is kinda complete garbage on anything that isn't a major highway. Presumably because it only has the single camera, any time you go through a curve that's over a hill or through a valley, it will misread the curve and over/understeer like mad, sending you careening into the other lane or off the road unless you yank the wheel back into line lol

 

Really?? That is not good. LTA on my TSS 2.0 is really good, but I did not test it over a hill/through a valley. TSS 2.0 also lacks curve deceleration.