Well I’d hope it’s not getting worse lol
This just in: Technology Improves Incrementally Over Time!
Wait! I hear the cost of things goes up by a few percent each year. Budgets, pricing, costs, estimates, they all seem linked to this weird percentage increase. Is it s conspiracy?
I can’t answer that, but absolutely it is
Meanwhile, human driving skill seems to be getting worse over time
Agree with the automakers that the tech isn’t ready.
The article doesn’t mention how many times these cars slammed the brakes in false positive situations.
The cars I’ve driven with this are too conservative with braking in a lot of common scenarios like driving curvy mountain roads, or parallel parking in the city near pedestrians or taxis. I’ve had it brake multiple times in normal driving scenarios wtirh false positives.
The car takes over and decides to full stop immediately, almost causing me to be rear ended multiple times. Eventually the dealership turned off the feature, but only after multiple complaints from customers and media attention.
I vowed to never get another car with this system because of how bad the experience is. But looks like that may be an option only with used cars, due to the bew mandates.
I put a bike on a trunk rack on the back of our Toyota. It thought a bike was behind the car and kept slamming on the brakes while trying to back out of the driveway.
Then there’s the lane assist that jerks the wheel while going through construction zones, because the lines on the road don’t match up with where you need to be.
I’ve also had mixed results. My 2018 Prius is flawless, not a single false brake in nearly seven years. We recently purchased a Tesla (I know, I know, long story) and we had to turn the braking sensitivity so far down that the feature is now basically useless.
Tesla uses cameras because Musk is an idiot
He truly is an idiot. I wish he’d just step down from Tesla. The company has some great ideas, but instead of making them better, he’s making everything worse.
Edit: some of the newer cars are being reequipped with radar but it’s not being actively utilized because of idiocy.
Tesla uses only cameras because Musk is an idiot
Agree with the automakers that the tech isn’t ready.
It may be model-specific, and some may be better than others.
I drove a Lincoln MKS for a few months and it was a wonderful machine. A little big for the cars I like to drive (a beetle owner from way back) but everything was well-done. The sensing and reaction was exactly right.
I found you can actually override it in cars I’ve driven by accelerating. It assumes the driver knows better, and stops braking.
What car manufacturer was it? I’ve gotten to the point of trading my newer car and find an semi old one for this same reason
Audi Pre-Sense was the worst offender. Looks like many others have similar experiences even this year:
I had a Nissan after that that implemented it a lot better, never any slam the brakes events. It would warn you with a beep and apply light braking first.
https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/INNOVATION/TECHNOLOGY/ARCHIVE/EMERGENCY_BRAKE/
This is based on a single Reddit post (including that BI report) by some anonymous person claiming to be an Audi driver. Audi drivers are not known for being very safety oriented*
- They’re all assholes, at least where I live.
Seems to me it really should only turn on at low speeds in the first place. Avoiding hitting someone in a parking lot etc.
So you don’t want it to activate at highway speeds if the driver doesn’t realize that traffic has stopped?
Not yet, at least.
The current tech doesn’t really factor in road conditions AFAIK. Which is a pretty big factor that dictates how brakes should be applied to stop safely.
One example is, if you’re driving along an area with a soft or no shoulder during rain or snow, stopping suddenly could easily make the car slide off the road and end up upside-down or down a cliff. There unfortunately are times where hitting someone/something is unavoidable, along with being the safest option and the decision making capability isn’t fully there yet.
Omg when I bought my new Civic the first thing I asked the dealer was how to turn off braking assistance. He immediately doubled down and tried to make me feel like a “dumb woman” and then when I told him only an idiot would rely on that shit in heavy rain or snow he changed his tune. It still pisses me off that it turns itself back on every time you start the car.
Not really, no. A warning maybe, but the car “thinking” there’s a need for a full-stop, and acting on it, especially on a motorway sounds way scarier to me.
I’ve been driving AEB equipped cars for almost 10 years, on 2 different vehicles, and have never had a false brake event triggered. I have had multiple false warnings (without braking) on the older vehicle and no false warnings on the newer one.
I know anecdotes are not data though. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing something from NHTSA or IIHS on this to see how much of a problem it is.
Never had an issue in my Volvo (late P3 generation)!
My automated emergency breaking is worse than if it was disabled. It only works on false-positives. I had a minor collision and the system reached after the crash. Another time I could break early on, but the breaks didn’t disengage until restarting the ignition.
We have a 2020 Honda Civic, and the automatic breaking in that is absolutely fantastic. The closest I would say it gets to a false positive is when you’re following a car on the highway that takes an exit. When the car in front starts to slow after taking the exit, the Civic will sometimes slow a bit even though the other car isn’t right in front of us anymore. It’s a simple matter to push the accelerator to override.
