LCA? LTA? 2024 Prius fights me for the steering wheel!

From all the EU forced systems (RSA beeping, driver montioring,...) I feel this is the least annyoing and most useful. Sure there are some issues here and there when road or road markings are problematic but overall I did not mind so far.

 

just use the damn blinker

 

Construction zones also where they make you cross lines on pavement. There is one nearby that really confuse the poor Prius!

 

I really like nearly all of the assistance features of the P5 and dont feel they are overboarding BUT the LCA (Lane Change Assist - changing lanes for you) seemed so far the most annoying and useless. There are just so many conditions to meet, its signaling for eternity before doing something and beeping all the time for something. And then it figures out in half the cases that it cannot switch at the moment - eg because the speed is too high or too low. Why not check that right away?

Its like a gimmick they just added because they could... I switched LCA off.

 

Tonight, for the first time, I did test switching lanes without signaling as in the OP while using LTA in TSS 2.0, and it tried to prevent me, as it should.

One nice thing about DRCC/LTA is that you can set it to a low speed and then use the gas to control the speed. This is a nice way of having LTA without speed control.

 

I've never been able to get LCA to work. I must be doing something wrong.

 

Same here. Is there a special thing to do?

 

There is no FTCA and LCA in Gen 5 Prius. They are only available in Gen 5 Prius Prime, as they require front corner radars.

 

1. It has to be enabled in a quite deep menu.
2. Then you need to be using the DRCC+LTA.
3. Then you need to hold the indicator stalk half pushed (to the position that would normally spring back and do a few blinks) for a few seconds until it indicates that it's going to do LCA.
4. Then you need to let go of the stalk, not start your own lane change manoeuvre, and not fight its change. Just let it do its thing.

Not starting your own manoeuvre is the hard part, I find. That cancels the LCA immediately.

 

And unfortunately you have to wait too much time before the car decides to change lane, and usually someone faster will arrive at your left side killing the manouver...
I don't know why it takes so much time to survey the environment, but this kill the usefulness of the device.
Morevoer it's a bit odd to keep the stalk half pushed (too sensitive) and at the same time the hand on the wheel.

 

Have to say, having regularly used the system on highway in various different countries, i did never ever seen a mistake of the system (inc. night, heavy rain, fog) unless there were very light and confused construction lines. I found it extremely reliable, coming form a dreadful 2021 Model 3 that was a nightmare for the Adas, hence i was forced to deactivated everything, even the simple Adaptive CC suffering of phantom braking.

Experience on using it exclusively in the highway is now about 9000 km, i feel very confident, to the point of wishing some device...
Excellent work Toyota.

I still don't know if my trim, equivalent to the US LImited top spec with the 360° cameras, with more cameras, adds to the reliability of the system. If someone have any information it would be interesting to know.

 

There are shortcomings of the system.

For instance, if the lane is quite wide, I've noticed that it wanders and can't seem to follow the lines. I've noticed that if the lines in the leftmost lane start to diverge even more to the left to form a turn lane, it'll just follow it and keep going left and you have to pull it back to the right.

 

I turned them all off except for the proximity sensor for parking-even adaptive cruise and automatic braking, lane assist everything off, driver monitoring off (still shows occasionally a reminder that it is off lol) and of course no recording-what a pain they all are. Mostly needed for the folks who want to browse while they drive (there are plenty of these) though the DMC will remind you at every instance if you slouch, have your hand in the way of the camera or even look away for a second...biggest disappointment of the car is not the h/w but the useless center display-if I wanted a bigger display to look at my phone I would have got a tablet-that is what it effectively is-a monitor for your phone. Instead of giving useful info like on the Gen 4 with daily, trip, monthly mileage, stats this has some silly plot graph and your average speed on the trip, distance traveled. JUNK interface! I wish I could just detach that display or fold it down so I get more viewing area.

 

My comment was in regards to a Subaru on the surface streets here, and the passive alert systems on all the time. Plenty of faint lines, cracks, cracks patched black tar lines, and one bright day, the shadows of power lines a meter from the curb to be misread. Mostly, the system just turns off when it has such trouble, and then it isn't long until it reestablishes.

I only use the active lane keeping on freeways, and have no complaints there.

 

I've mentioned this behavior elsewhere. In Oregon they have used a technique for identifying a diverging lane that works well. Instead of creating a turn lane that has a fully open key, they include a dotted line that is thinner than normal. This dotted line closes the key.

 

Same here - works very good even on construction sites with temporary marks like yellow instead of white lines.

Only thing Im not happy with is the radar during rainy weather when following other cars - sometimes its losing track and forgets there is another car in front. That seems to be a general TSS 3.0 issue - not just the Prius.

 

Likely a limitation of the radar. Rain and mist can disrupt the signal, reducing range.
Multiple reasons why the manual warns against using it and other ADAS in inclement weather.

 

I know but my old car didnt have this issue so its an obvious downgrade in this regard.

EDIT: My last car had a Continental Radar - not sure which spec exactly. I guess Toyota has mostly their own Denso