I can’t even abide automatic lights in a car, god help me if/when I need a newer car
Automatic lights are an essential safety feature as many drivers are just too thick to realise that when its dark you need to put lights on.
Now automatic dimming and cornering headlights are a must for me, or at least they make life so much easier living in the country. I just leave it on auto lights and full beam on all the time and the car dips the headlights automatically as and when necessary. They make a nice light pattern when they start up, and the curtain of light that moves as you drive along is quite intoxicating to watch
All of these extra ‘stupid driver’ aids just seem an additional expense to go wrong.
It seems all too often that they're great ideas implemented really badly. Like I mentioned before, the reversing camera overlay is probably great in a LHD vehicle but no-one thought to change it for a RHD model. The lane assist (ooh, back on topic!) for me is a misstep because even somewhere straight-forward like a motorway it takes a piss-poor lane position and I wonder suddenly now whether that's the same problem.
On the other hand, the more mature technology like auto lights and brake hold work well IME. Other than in poverty-spec hire cars (or when someone else has been buggering about) I don't think I've had to touch a headlights switch since back when I was driving a 1985-plate Ford Escort.
Implementations vary (as I say, mine's alright) but there's also an element of just learning to deal with it, on the basis that it might save your life one day either on your car or someone else's. I know I don't drive perfectly all the time, and I actually feel safer in my car with the driving aids. And no, I don't drive it deliberately recklessly because of that...
There's one spot on the way into town that confuses our car. But it just tugs the wheel, and I just tug back and we continue down the right path.
On A and B roads though it’s rubbish – constantly interfering and trying to steer around bends itself which makes it feel like driving on patchy ice.
Surely it’s only doing that if you drift out of your lane though?
sadly not - it picks up on the curve of the road just ahead and tries to steer, even when dead central within the lane. It doesn’t steer well enough that you can just leave the car to it like in a full self-drive, it’s just enough to annoy the driver.
I did test drive a Tesla which was capable of steering itself quite impressively - it drove itself through a village and along a country road impeccably, I just had to keep my hand on the wheel otherwise it warned and then slowed down to a stop.
It turns on by default on every start.
That’s bloody annoying in itself. How hard is it to remember settings?
It’s not that it can’t, it is actively designed to do this - part of either NCAP or EU (or both?) rules. I think that manufacturers only get to score NCAP points for systems that can’t be turns off permanently, hence they have to deliberately come each time the car is started. EU rules are either in place or coming along soon, not sure which.
This is objectively not true, and you know it.
Not in all cases, no, of course not. But it is in many and it feels like it's getting worse.
I do like a big flashy electronic dash but I'm increasingly of the mind that a touchscreen has no place in a vehicle. Remember when you could change radio stations by pressing [1] or [2] from muscle memory, rather than switching out of the satnav, opening the radio app, swiping through to scroll to the station you want and crashing into the now stationary car in front? It's no wonder we need sodding driver aids, we've made simple tasks a pain in the ass.
Another example. The ATM round the corner. It gives you the options [cash only | cash with receipt | check balance]. Cash only please. "Do you want to check your balance before you proceed?" No, otherwise I'd have pressed the ducking "check balance" option wouldn't I. "Would you like a receipt?" Argh! Pointless pointless bloody duplicated questions that take an eon to work through on a system which is like wading through molasses whilst telling me three times that it's charging me £1.65 to draw out a ****ing tenner and is that OK because that's another goddamn confirmation button and I'm standing here growing a beard and gods help you if there's a queue because you'll invariably be behind some absolute hatstand doing their annual finances across six cards.
I swear the people who design this garbage never actually have to use it. The handheld scanners at Tesco had an interface refresh a couple of months back. When you ding the till it asks "was there anything you couldn't scan? [Yes|No]" Except with the update, "yes" and "no" have switched places from the earlier design. WHO THE ACTUAL FRANK THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?! First against the wall when I'm in charge.
I think that manufacturers only get to score NCAP points for systems that can’t be turns off permanently, hence they have to deliberately come each time the car is started.
My point in part was the opposite - it automatically switched things of.
TBH with DRL's I see more drivers stupid enough to drive round at night with those on only, and the rear lights off as they think the lights are on. Many cars have a dial for auto and manual.
The world is full of stupid drivers, but its not getting better with those relying on the tech.
I have never driven a lane assist car, what happens if you gaffa taped over the sensor? Would it go batshit?
I’m increasingly of the mind that a touchscreen has no place in a vehicle
I 100% agree with this. No tactile feedback means you have to look at it whilst using it - properly dangerous stuff. A reason to choose a BMW i4 was that this is all controllable via the iDrive controller - much better but apparently future versions are focussing more on the screen and BMW plan to not fit the iDrive controller in future vehicles. Arghhhhh.
In WW2 it was identified that many crashes happened due to pilots activating the wrong switch, so they were changed to all feel different - saved many crashes apparently - see link below.
Cars have been pretty good for this feature until recently - now touchscreens are actively re-introducing this failure mode and worse
https://uxdesign.cc/pilot-error-and-the-shape-of-things-to-come-2128d6c6bcb1?gi=a1a4b2751894
I have never driven a lane assist car, what happens if you gaffa taped over the sensor? Would it go batshit?
I expect it'd sit there dinging at you. This is the way.
I've had variations of lane assist in cars for well over a decade. I've yet to see one you can't switch off. But maybe that's coming as Whatgoesup says.
One of the reasons I like my 20 year old car. Has sat nav I've been able to update, reversing camera etc, but the screen isn't touch. I can do everything by pressing one of two big buttons and a few smaller ones by touch, no need to look at the screen. I don't like the Mrs car's touch screen as you've got to look at it to press it.
TBH with DRL’s I see more drivers stupid enough to drive round at night with those on only, and the rear lights off as they think the lights are on. Many cars have a dial for auto and manual.
Riddle me this,
Outside of, say, police cars, why do headlights have any settings at all other than "auto" and "on"? There's a logic to turning off some assist systems in exceptional conditions but under what circumstance might you think "it's really dark, best turn my lights off"?
In general I quite like all the safety features/tech, on the Kodiaq but the lane assist gets switched off on rural roads, too much of a liability. Rear collision assist is a pain too when reversing in a car park and cars passing on nearby road (on the other side of a wall or barrier) car stamps on the brakes making you look like a clutch-incompetent driver. Also had the front braking radar fail early in its life (warranty job thank god) resulting in the Kodiaq, fully loaded for holidays, standing hard on the brake at 130kph on a French Peage. Literally, 130 to 0 in the middle of the carriage way. Thanks god nobody behind me, absolutely terrifying. Did this a couple of times before I realised it was reacting erroneously to the grey speed camera boxes…. Then went into fault mode!
I've just had the misfortune to drive a brand new Renault Megane rental car in holiday. EVERY SINGLE TIME me or Mrs Vlad got in the car to drive, it would behave differently in terms of whose phone it would connect to, whether or not we'd be able to stream BBC Sounds or YT Music or a podcast (and from which phone) and/or whether the driving directions we input on either phones Google Maps would actually display as intended on the cars nice large display (and whether the driving directions would play through the cars audio system or whether we'd have to listen thru the phones tinny speakers)
From a UX POV, it was hateful...and made much worse as the car would take over control of the phone once the car door was opened. You can't even override by switching off the Bluetooth on the phone as the car overrides that. So, you can't sit in the car and plot the route on your phone before setting off...you have to do all the plotting before opening the car door. Madness!
This Renault was my first experience of a "modern" car during experience - my own car (5 yr old Subaru Forester) is too old to have any of this complexity.
(In fairness to the Renault, the lane assist was fine once I realized what was happening)
Riddle me this,
Outside of, say, police cars, why do headlights have any settings at all other than “auto” and “on”? There’s a logic to turning off some assist systems in exceptional conditions but under what circumstance might you think “it’s really dark, best turn my lights off”?
Quite agree.
And tell me this - who in a European car safety meeting decided to legislate for front only DRL's? Thankfully a few companies are sensible enough to do both front and rear, or like our car you can re-programme to do both.
Month old BMW iX3 and thankfully all the safety interventions can be adjusted or turned off and the settings are remembered.
Turn off too many though and you get an angry red ring on one of the dash buttons
Auto steer turned off, but the steering wheel rumble left on but no noise, that keeps it green. Also only turns on above 40. Kept on, it kept trying to steer me into incoming traffic on narrow roads.
Proper hard buttons for heater and programmable shortcut buttons. Never need to use the I-drive on the move.
Systems not perfect though. Collision detector can’t tell tbe car in front is indicating to take a slip road. If their car starts to slow and I ease off, mine doesn’t know it’ll be in another lane before I get too close and brakes a bit too hard for my liking. Easy way round is to keep power on but that can close gap too much. Have tried turning the setting to their latest intervention setting but still a bit eager. Same if a car overtaking me pulls in a bit soon. Car panic brakes even though other car is going faster than I am.
I swear the people who design this garbage never actually have to use it.
I used to drive 30000 km a year (commuting) in a car i'd designed quite a lot of, and another 15-20000 actively testing...
I'm down to about 30000 a year now as i'm doing less of both.
I'm even driving prototype software at the moment.
brakes a bit too hard for my liking
You can adjust how hard mine brakes.
However, if I see a car slowing and I don't want the car to slow, I just disengage cruise and I can then control the car. The actual collision avoidance thing only kicks in in an actual emergency when you're going to hit - that's not the same thing as adaptive cruise.
@mert is this thread valuable feedback for you? 🙂
I have never driven a lane assist car, what happens if you gaffa taped over the sensor?
Minor alert and system disabled.
Vauxhall FWIW. Overall, The lane assist system is generally minimally intrusive.
YMMV.
...the curtain of light that moves as you drive along is quite intoxicating to watch
Figurative I hope 🙂
However, if I see a car slowing and I don’t want the car to slow, I just disengage cruise and I can then control the car. The actual collision avoidance thing only kicks in in an actual emergency when you’re going to hit – that’s not the same thing as adaptive cruise.
Not in my car. Even with cruise control off, unless I’m actively accelerating the car will intervene if it thinks I’m getting too close. Not emergency stop type braking but still more than it needs. The way you do it is the way always have as well, but new car don’t like it. Coasting or even steady throttle and it still slows
So essentially you disagree with the car about how close is too close? Without seeing your driving, that could be either you or the car in the wrong 🙂
Is it configurable? I have a setting to change for that, I also have a steering wheel button that adjusts how close it should be when using automatic cruise/queue creeping.
If you stay in the lane then it doesn’t kick in.
Strong wind was enough to push the T-Roc I rented far enough in it's lane to activate the lane assist. Maybe a rare thing, but it is intrusive when it doesn't need to be.
ditch the infotainment screens
I had to rent a car recently and the MG they offered me had a dash so complex that I honestly thought that I wouldn't be safe to drive with it in an unfamiliar busy city like Barcelona, so I rejected it. First time ever. It had moving displays with yellow and green dashes for when the hybrid was on or off, a massive touch screen telly in the central dash, it was overwhelming.
Cougar
Riddle me this,
Outside of, say, police cars, why do headlights have any settings at all other than “auto” and “on”? There’s a logic to turning off some assist systems in exceptional conditions but under what circumstance might you think “it’s really dark, best turn my lights off”?
Thick fog.
One thing that the i4 has that I have been surprised to find is really good is "adaptive regeneration".
Essentially the car judges how much regen (which feels to driver like engine braking when you lift off the throttle) is needed in any given situation. So with a clear road ahead and doing at or lower than the speed limit there is very little - lift off and the car just coasts. If there is a bend coming up, a speed limit change, or (very usefully) a car ahead then it increases the regen (equivalent behaviour to dropping down a gear or two to increase engine braking). This works brilliantly on a motorway, as if you're a bit close to the car in front just lift off and the car slows down until it's a decent distance away. It's good enough I leave this system on 95% of the time. It "just works" and when it's turned off I miss it.
For comparison the ETron I had before the i4 also had adaptive regen, but that was terrible - not predictable at all and I switched it off pretty quickly. Proof that these "assistance" systems aren't necessarily "all good" or "all bad" - how they are implemented makes a massive difference.
My A250e has a similar system. I leave it on all of the time. Only downside is when I drive my wife or my daughter’s cars, if have to remember they don’t have it.
So essentially you disagree with the car about how close is too close? Without seeing your driving, that could be either you or the car in the wrong
Was expecting that comment so no offence taken. My point was specifically about cars in front that are turning off into slip roads where no intervention is needed, not about being unable to sit 6 inches away from someone’s rear bumper at dual carriageway speeds for miles on end.
Car to car distance for cruise is adjustable but on anything other than its minimum, it leaves a big enough gap that encourages overtaking drivers to drop in between rather than just staying in outside lane. This in turn triggers the car to brake because it’s too close.
Only had the car a month and don’t drive on cruise control much, so I’m still learning how the car reacts to certain situations. It’s all context dependant though and the car acts on its rules no matter the situation. In my original point, all it sees is the car in front getting closer. It can’t tell it also has its indicator on and is approaching a slip road. I can.
So essentially you disagree with the car about how close is too close? Without seeing your driving, that could be either you or the car in the wrong 🙂
Seeing as there's an entire team of people, a good percentage of whom will have more driving experience, driving qualifications and track time than any of the driving gods on here, most likely by orders of magnitude, doing the design and test, along with a bunch of software and system designers and architects (like me).
Then a load of safety and crash specialists with a deep understanding of how people and cars behave in and shortly before accidents and while driving generally, they'll then come up with a sensible design based on how much risk the company is willing to take with customers (e.g. BMW you can adjust the range, they make a big deal about being marketed to driving gods, Volvo are a safety first company, so sit much further the other way along the bell curve. Audi are a tech company, so have 906 settings, 7 of which the average owner knows how to use.)
Then they stick all that together and give a system design and calibration that is 99% good for 99% of *their* customers.
Yes, some systems are shit on country lanes and in road works, it's a matter of the tech lagging the legislation.
Then they stick all that together and give a system design and calibration that is 99% good for 99% of *their* customers.
Not going to bother commenting on the rest of your condescending post, but as far as the quote above goes, the car should work for 100% its drivers.
You know your stuff though and I do have a genuine question. Is the system calibration market dependant or is it a standard for a particular model? I ask, as where I live and drive the lane intervention can be a total liability. Some of the roads here narrower than single lanes on American highways. What works there doesn’t here. We also don’t have derestricted roads like Germany where I can see the bigger car gaps in adaptive cruise systems being necessary.
Thick fog.
I was waiting for that comment, thank you. 😁
I agree, but, that is surely easy to detect and build into the "auto" setting.
Not going to bother commenting on the rest of your condescending post, but as far as the quote above goes, the car should work for 100% its drivers.
Really? Nothing works perfectly for 100% of it's users, even something as simple as a mug.
Condescending, probably, but a lot on here seem to think the whole thing is thrown together in 20 minutes before a coffee break. It's not. It's thousands of hours of design, analysis, coding and test to try and get it as good as possible for as many customers in as many scenarios as possible. The issue is, if we miss one scenario, or it isn't very good, the few drivers that do that particular scenario *all the time* will complain about it *all the time*, the other 99% have no issues at all.
Is the system calibration market dependant or is it a standard for a particular model?
Depends on the system, market, hardware available (there are dozens of standards of sensors, probably as bad bottom brackets), how the hardware is installed, even a different angle of windscreen or height from the road might drive a changed calibration, or it might just get some new offsets, depending on the level of change.
Generally speaking though, every Passat in Europe will have the same calibration, a Golf will probably have the same, but a T-Roc or Tiguan will more likely not.
to try and get it as good as possible for as many customers in as many scenarios as possible.
It's my observation from driving around various places in Europe that UK roads are a fairly unique challenge in Western Europe. Other countries have small roads but not usually as narrow, windy or just crappy as we do here when mixed in with other decent roads.
I can imagine in a country with universally poor roads the system would just not be available, but for the UK where most miles are done on decent roads, the 20% of miles that are done on inconsistent B or C roads might be an issue.
I know two people who go by the nickname Minty. Neither of whom i've seen for probably 20 years.
Really? Nothing works perfectly for 100% of it’s users, even something as simple as a mug.
I agree, but as this tech is introduced, the majority of drivers are encountering it for the first time. It’s a case of going from being completely responsible for the way the car is driven (well or not) to the car making decisions for you. My last car had emergency braking. It never triggered or gave a warning in nearly 7 years of driving it. My new one has never triggered but has flashed a warning a few times in a month approaching stationary cars waiting at crossroads.
It can be a real shock at the wrong moment when the car tries to steer you into oncoming traffic on a narrow road when you are actively trying to avoid it. I may be in 1% of the drivers that need to change this but it doesn’t mean I don’t. Like you commented at least BMW allow us “driving gods” to tailor intervention levels. Although this car obviously thinks I’m a lot worse driver than my last car did.
Difficult to tell, as according to the STW driver stereotype generator, given my car choices I’m a Geriatric boy racer driving god, that parks on double yellow lines on the school run on her way to work at the hair salon, while tailgating other cars (in a safety conscious manner) that’s having a midlife crisis at 30.
Thousands of hours of development and it's still shonky.
On the Octavia I had, the satnav only understood the first half of a postcode. So in the search bar you could enter say "BB5 0"... and beyond that it went "I don't know what you mean?" But if instead you ignored the search and went to manually enter an address, then hit "city" on the form, then in the very bottom left corner of the on-screen keyboard was a button reading "P.Code" which cheerfully accepted a full postcode. I appreciate that this might make some form of sense in other territories which don't have UK-format postcodes, but how in the actual **** did that system make it to the UK market?
I'm a card-carrying geek I've been driving since before all this stuff existed, and I'm struggling to recall any car I've ever driven in recent years where the ICE / "infotainment" system didn't piss me off for some easily fixed reasons. One of the first ones I had was a Mondeo with "Converse+", half of the features they promised came in with the facelift model and couldn't easily be retrofitted.
I praise the gods for Android Auto bypassing the inbuilt bollocks but even then this stupid ****ing bastard of a thing connects maybe 80% of the time and the rest it throws an error which you cannot clear because "off" is no longer a thing so you've actually got to pretend to leave the car in order to reset the system.
I love technology. But in-car technology is rapidly catching up with printers for the gold medal in the "objects that are pricks" competition.
@whatgoesup - can you share your shortcut for the 2 clicks and off please ? My i4 is incoming and i hate the lane assist in my son's new Corsa so imagine I'll want to put it off in the i4 too !
Cougar, you should try Mercedes, mine is the least egregious one I've used, with Toyota in second place.
I tried the radar/adaptive cruise control on our new to us VW tiguan for the first time the other day, I learnt that I really dont like trusting the car to slow down if the one in front does, I found it very unnerving , I probably just need to get used to it, but I dont think I want to.
Our other new to us car (both our cars were stolen in the same burglary recently), Toyota GR yaris, also has lane assist, auto braking/collision detect & radar cruise control . The lane assist is as annoying as it is on the VW, havent tried the radar cruise, but the collisiondetect hasnt come on yet, so that seems like a useful safety measure - or maybe its broken.
I've found BMW's in car infotainment to be the best of all the ones I've tried in recent years, light years better than the others I have tried (ford,VW,Toyota), the ability to have a split screen sat nav with one side of the screen zoomed in for detail, and the otehr zoomed out for traffic jam awareness , and overall location awareness is great.
the ability to have a split screen sat nav with one side of the screen zoomed in for detail, and the otehr zoomed out for traffic jam awareness
My Toyota had that in 2006.
My Toyota had that in 2006.
they dont have it now - or least the corolla I borrowed recently doesnt have it. The current toyota nav (or the one in the corolla at least) is probably the joint worst I have used, low res screen, slow response times, crappy mostly touch only interface etc.
Car to car distance for cruise is adjustable but on anything other than its minimum, it leaves a big enough gap that encourages overtaking drivers to drop in between rather than just staying in outside lane. This in turn triggers the car to brake because it’s too close.
correct behaviour. 2 second rule.
the car I had with adaptive cruise control went far to close to the car in front - but it had been set to minimum. I put it to max. Even then it was barely 2 seconds.
Our Prius also had the best climate control I've used - it managed to pump out loads of cold air without getting any exposed body part cold, and it responded to driving into sunlight instantly.
I have never driven a lane assist car, what happens if you gaffa taped over the sensor? Would it go batshit?
It was me that resurrected this thread due to collecting a fleet car for the National Road Race Championships this weekend. The cars are now all liveried up with stickers, the top windscreen one which partially covers some of the sensor kit (can't avoid it).
Every so often (usually in the middle of a turn or with an oncoming caravan etc demanding the drivers full attention), the dashboard will light up with "driver aids unavailable!" and several loud chimes.
It's very annoying.
However the auto-hold feature is fantastic to the extent that when I got into another car without it, I was like "why am I rolling forwards...? Oh."
