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Do you believe everything you read on the internet?

Mike

 

If you don’t train yourself, Autopilot is as scary as the ancient farm equipment I also mastered. But time and age will sweep the Autopilot skeptics away and their kids will have a blast.

Bob Wilson

 

The kids are playing video games already. I played video games as a kid, and am nearing 50.

Subaru's Eyesight is less of a risk taker than I am in daily driving. I'd get closer than the autobraking is comfortable with. Only error I've had was along a right turn bend coming to a light. I'm going straight, but the system started braking for the truck ahead in the left turn lane. It stopped as soon as the bend took the truck out of direct front of the car.

Not a complaint, just against preference, but the cruise control with lane keeping does a good job of staying center. When passing big trucks on a highway, I would just give them more space when in control.

 

It is not really scary if you understand that the driver is responsible for operation of the car...and FSD is considered beta software.
It is optional. You don't have to ask for it. Even if you have it you don't have to engage it on every road.
Remember basic cruise control that never slowed down. Would you engage that on a windy mountain road at 60 mph and think that is OK?

Sure, if you think you can just engage autopilot and sit back and not pay attention you will get scared.
But what all these types of reviews fail to do is start with the full text of the warnings you must read and agree to.
Have you read those?

Mike

 

YouTube - source of truth ..... that explains it.


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I find in most situation the navigate on autopilot does much better than most drivers. I don't let it automatically lane change without my confirmation. I find even in mad max mode it doesn't change agressively enough and often decides to change lanes that are slightly moving faster, but there are things ahead and I cancel.

The most bothersome thing is it often is too cautious, slowing down in anticipation of a car coming to cut me off. In these situations I simply over ride.

If you are on a curvy road it will try to stay in the middle of the lines, often its better to be closer to the shoulder, if that's the case, simply take over.

Yes it is not full self driving. It also is over hyped that drivers that would get in an accident anyway while not paying attention, don't pay attention and the system occasionally gets confused.

 

Just confirms the wisdom of my dropping our subscription years ago. I did foolishly buy an annual summary earlier this year only to read it at home in disgust.

Bob Wilson

 

Various crash reports reveal drivers who didn't read them, forget about them, or chose to ignore them. All being common ordinary human behaviors.

 

Limited subscriptions, limited income, limited skills reviewers.

I use Toyota's version of autopilot on my two cars and have since the day I picked them up. I use them to ease the stress of driving on interstates for long distances. My personal car I picked up near Baltimore and drove at night back to 40 miles south of Raleigh with the features on after I had driven up to pick up the car (in retrospect, not a good break-in). Made it easy for this then 77+ year old.. Didn't expect it to make turns, or pass cars. Just keep to the speed, keep in a well marked lane and keep away from cars or whatever in front of me.

No freaking way I'd pay $15k or whatever for anything beyond these limited capabilities. I spent too many years debugging computers, both hardware and software.

 

I prefer:

• EPA metrics
• Edmunds
• Car and Driver

There are some YouTube channels I also follow but I prefer hard copy reviews. But Consumer Reports is not on my ‘go to’ list because they screwed up Prius reviews every year we owned them.

Bob Wilson

 

CR's testing said the gen3 Prius was only good 35mpg. Their fuel economy testing is worthless for comparison shopping.

They've also given Best Buy ratings to some of the worse food you can get for your pet.

So I'm going to be skeptical of what they say.

 

I was able to replicate CR mileage:

• Cold soak overnight at a near by parking lot.
• At sunrise, max acceleration to 40 mph and max braking to zero. Repeat for over a mile with heater or AC at maximum.

I could not repeat CR MPG from home as the 25 mph neighborhood speed limit let the catalytic converter reach operating temperature before I could repeat Top Gear driving style.

Bob Wilson

 

Thanks although I missed how they measure ‘City MPG.’ The irony is my cell phone has an app that measures vehicle acceleration and speed. If CR would publish the vehicle motion metrics, we could all understand and replicate their numbers. In contrast, the EPA does.

Bob Wilson