The down sides would be when people are too reliant on it and it subsequently fails when the driver is asleep / watching his phone / buttering a lightly toasted scone.
Heck, I may be late to the party for automotive technology, but what a revelation. I am in autonomous heaven.
I have had my Passat r-line for about 9 months and never really used it, but having to travel to addenbrookes every day for the last 5 days (a round trip of 120miles) I have used it all the time.
Using both functions is quite weird when you are not used to it, it keeps you in lane and slows down and speeds up (to set speed) depending on the car ahead.
If all cars had this and they put super tech in the road cateyes like gps then I would only need to set my destination and off I go.
Any downsides to this current technology?
The down sides would be when people are too reliant on it and it subsequently fails when the driver is asleep / watching his phone / buttering a lightly toasted scone.
Plenty Boeing 737 Max springs to mind...tech fails.
I work in tbe development of the above. The level of robustness and testing cannot be explained or believed if your not involved. No system will get to market without completing a million fault free test km.
The hardware and software suppliers like Bosch, Continental etc. are similarly as strict.
It is however important to remember they are only driver AIDS. Are there times that they will save a sleeping driver, or a drunk one? Sure. Provided nothing totally weird or unpredictable happens. But that's not what they are designed or tested for.
The important thing is to let these systems take a little work off you so you can stay sharp and focus on observation of developing situations. They do some degree of that, but can't predict silly rash actions a human would see developing.
Not used to al that fancy pansy stuff, I felt like Catweazle in modern times when I drove a Kia Stinger last week. All of the above mentioned (and more) gizmos on that car. It felt strange when the car decided to slow down because there was a car ahead, far far away. I then found out that de level of response can be adjusted. Lane assist... annoying. Like playing with a Playstation remote. HUD display? Brilliant stuff, because it included the satnav as well.
The ACC in my VW Tiguan is very good, especially when you consider that it's a manual - in fact I've been really impressed with how well it works. That said, to get the full benefit I think you need an automatic gearbox like I had in my previous car; Skoda Superb with DSG.
If only some other drivers could adapt their driving styles as effectively as the ACC AI adapts the way my vehicle is driven to compensate for their god awful roadcraft!
I'm not against this technology as such and have it in my cars - but I do also wonder if cars are becoming too easy to drive which encourages/develops more and more idiots on the road. The standard of driving (& level of policing) on U.K roads has dropped significantly over recent years IMO.
Pain in the arse following one as the brake lights are on and off constantly keeping the distance interval. Disrupts flow. Manually operated cars don't need to brake most of the time, just slow into the gap to the car in front.
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I hired a car to drive from Newcastle to Fleetwood and back the other week, and it had these gizmos. It felt like the car was driving me, rather than vice versa... didn't like it at all. I think I must be a purist.
Just thinking out loud........ The more technology develops, the more stupid humans become.
On a serious note, im all for technology as long as we don't become over reliant.
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My car doesn’t have it and after being in my sons car which does I wish it had it. With the influx of adaptive speed cameras on the motorways it just makes driving that bit less stressful. The only issue that I’ve seen with it is the distance keep where other twats cut into the gap which upsets it a bit.
I use it a lot in my Superb with DSG, but it sometimes annoys me as it brakes hard as the car in front heads off up a slip road.
The brake light thing is a real pain, and I don't think they've got it right over all, especially as they are on when stationary with the auto handbrake on.
Worst adaptive cruise incident for me was in the Toyota Tacoma that we hired on holiday which did an emergency stop as we passed a ride on lawn mower on a bend. Huge surprise for me and massive surprise to the woman following too close behind me. Of course if she'd been using adaptive cruise too...
Got it on the Civic and really don't like it. Braking when I don't want it to and as posted above it panics sometimes when somebody moves into my lane or it detects somebody drifting too close in the next lane. A good driver should be able to drive for hours on a motorway without touching the brakes through anticipating the traffic ahead. I wish I had the option to switch it off but undrestand why this isnt offered.
Interesting, as I have to swich mine on (VW), not set as on by default.
The auto/emergency braking on mine is seperate from ACC, after owning it for a couple of weeks late last year I got too close to a car turing left and the car emergency braked, dash alarm went off - I sh*t my pants, I thought the car had hit something. To be fair trying to negotiate a tight spot in a car park it stopped me hitting/grazing another car.
Adaptive cruise control I find helpful although you fo need to anticipate overtakes a little more - i had to turn lane assist off, just found it to intrusive especially on faster B roads where you might cross a line deliberately
I’m driving a Nissan Altima hire car in the US at the moment with all of this gizmo stuff.
Took a bit of getting used to, but seems to work OK. You have to keep your hand on the steering wheel otherwise after 15 seconds it will disengage the auto steering.
Perfect for extended highway driving, so good for the US. Not so sure it is as relevant to the UK
I’d used the ACC on our Golf before but not to it’s fullest extent, having re-read the manual I discovered that as ours has the DSG box it will bring the car to a complete halt and then proceed again when the car in front moves off. In the stop start traffic on the A1 on the way home from Scotland on Friday this was a god-send. Agree with the comments about getting a little complacent though as towards the end of the journey I probably wasn’t concentrating on the traffic as much as I should have been.
I've ACC in my Golf GTE and it's fabulous with the auto box. No lane assist for me, but I wouldn't want to be without ACC now.
Good I suppose if you just want to sit back and relax but i prefer to be in control of my own acceleration and braking
Tried it out and just switched it off
Stop/start is another matter -this annoys me as I always forget to switch it off at first
When I first experienced ACC on my third gen Prius almost a decade ago it seemed like witchcraft.
Adaptive cruise control is a god send.
I’m in the market for a new car and really can’t decide between an auto or manual gearbox (my wife hates automatics and whilst I quite like them in towns, we live in a rural area where I prefer a manual on all the twisty stuff). Does having a manual gearbox negate a lot of the advantages of all this avoidance tech? - I’m stuck between the BMW X1, X2 and VW Tiguan and whilst the Tiguan gets more safety kit, will it all work if I stick with manual?
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I use my adaptive cruise control every time I drive to work. There's often a two collumns of severe traffic on the motorway. I just switch it on with the distance set to minimum and the car just drives itself using the front car as a guide. Godsend in heavy traffic.
The problem with ACC is when you have two cars and the second car doesn’t have it.
No end of times I’ve been driving the Skoda (with ACC) and then jump into the Merc, put the cruise on and then realise I’m coming up behind the car in front on the motorway too fast. I then remember the Merc has regular CC.
Haha the pain of my life!!!! The amount of delightful courteous drivers that break there neck to pass you on the motorway just to get to the exit 30 yards ahead and having to cut across the front of you triggering the emergency brakes is fun especially at 56 mph and 40+ ton.
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I have a Golf GTD with ACC if you move the steering wheel side to side it starts the engine if you don't want to wait for the ACC to detect the car in front has moved then start the engine. It is useful if the start stop cuts the engine at a junction and you need pull away briskly.
Edit - Iamateaf already beaten me to it!
Last edited by nibby; 2nd September 2019 at 21:14.
Airlines first became aware of this around 20 years ago as a new generation of pilots only used to flying fully automated aircraft came online. There was/is a worry that basic handling skills would erode (they have). For non geeks, the planned track of an aircraft is entered into the FMC (flight management computer) and displays as a magenta line on the PFD (primary flight display), hence the title of the video "Children of the Magenta Line" by American Airlines.
https://airfactsjournal.com/2016/07/...f-the-magenta/
Absolutely. The concept of skill fade was rammed home by the Air France A330 crash into the South Atlantic. Whilst a misbehaving pitotstatic system would undoubtedly be very disorienting, holding the aircraft in a deep stall all the way down to pretty-much sea contact was unbelievable. If, prior to the failure, the power levers hadn’t been moved and the attitude remained broadly level, it doesn’t overly matter what the ASIs display.....the speed won’t have changed by much. The artificial horizons were operating normally throughout....as were the engine instruments. In the ‘old days’ you could pretty much hold a constant speed by setting power and holding attitude. I doubt whether the new generation note power settings other than on the takeoff roll.
I’m afraid too many pilots have got used to saying ‘what’s it doing now?’.....as though the aircraft has a mind of its own, failing to realise that it is following the commands they have demanded through erroneous inputs to the FMS.
I am unconvinced that the crews of today could cope with the quadruple flameout due to volcanic dust ingestion that befell the BA747 or the hydraulic failure of the Sioux City DC10..... both of which were mitigated (to an extent in the DC10 incident) by superb crew cooperation and fine flying skills.
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Last edited by Pete D; 3rd September 2019 at 10:52.
Further on the topic of modern flying, whilst I am on a minor rant, it seems that crew knowledge of aircraft systems is far more shallow than it used to be. With Airbus particularly, crews wait for the aircraft to tell them what switch selections to make in the event of failure. They don’t necessarily understand what has failed.....and potential ramifications.
That lack of understanding could well migrate to car systems......
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The guy who first hacked the Sony Playstation, and worked on autopilot with Tesla (scarily) now sells a DIY kit to hook into your adaptive cruise and lane control systems. Give you Tesla style autopilot. Last I looked, working on most new Hondas but there is a scary army of DIY hackers testing these.
Not sure just how legal all that is - but as a software person myself, quite fascinating. Note the Android phone mounted below the rear view mirror, plugging into the camera system for the lane assist.
https://comma.ai/
Last edited by JohnnyE; 3rd September 2019 at 10:57.
Sadly Captain Al Haynes died just last week - United Airlines Flight 232 Captain Al Haynes dies
You should absolutely wait until the system alerts you to the course of action for the failure. I don't design aeroplanes, I just fly them. The exception is a limited number of "memory item checklists" for events where time is not on your side and you need to make the plane safe (eg engine fire/failure on take off). You then go to a paper or electronic checklist to firstly check you've done all the memory items, then proceed with the checklist produced by the manufacturer. There is no second guessing or anticipating what an individual thinks they should do in the event of a failure since the systems are very complicated and many are interdependent.
What is good airmanship is to then consider a failure of a second system to anticipate a course of action should things get worse.
Whilst I do not disagree with you in principle, and am aware of initial (from memory) then subsequent action checklists, I am afraid that aircraft designers are not infallible......remember the A330 (from memory on type) 'glider' that ran out of fuel because of automatic crossfeeding? The crew could have prevented that incident by good airmanship without waiting for a 'never-coming' instruction from the aircraft for them to act. Of course, they could have cross referenced the actual fuel remaining vs the Jet/Swordplan amount at each waypoint, which would have alerted them to a fuel leak far earlier.....but clearly did not - arguably because they felt cosseted by the aircraft systems and safety procedures. My point is that modern pilots often do not think of second and third order effects of system failure, or indeed revert to basic principles. I had only very minor input to one aircraft's system design, but plenty of experience at the blunt end with forward facing windows...... Incidentally, my tech introduction on an 'old type' lasted 8 weeks, before even touching the sim then the aircraft itself; I am unconvinced that many pilots now enjoy that luxury. Whilst the depth of knowledge imparted was arguably too deep (down to what temp the turbine overheat and fire alerting systems operated), it stood me in very good stead in occasional esoteric problem solving.
I am not questioning the professionalism of modern pilots, but automatics and built-in safety systems encourage an over-reliance on technology. I believe car tech is going the same way.....and worry about the consequences.
Sorry for 'banging on'......
I don't know if it's the same in all VAG cars with DSG but in my Superb you could initiate forward movement if the ACC had caused you to come to a halt in traffic etc. by pulling back on the left indicator stork - it would then scan the road ahead and move off when safe to do so.
It might be due to the distance setting, I ‘believe’ that it’s waiting for the car in front to leave the correct distance between you and it. I tried to experiment with this by using the centre button on the ACC controls on the wheel to cycle through the distances to the shortest one, however this nearly caused me to have a brown trouser moment when the fast moving queue later came to a sudden stop and the ACC couldn’t cope and it shouted at me to brake manually. I didn’t experiment thereafter!
^ There was me thinking I'd offended you