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14 Months of leasing a Tesla, now time to move on.
- Thread starter Xdama
- Start date
I understand your feelings and share some with you, however, may I ask you:I apologise profusely to The Teslarati for daring to dislike the M3 after having had the temerity to live with one for over 12months. I clearly have upset some people who are full converts ….. all I can say is I tried but it wasn’t for me, I keep trying olives too but still dislike them after 55yrs on the planet, I’ll keep trying them too, as I probably will another EV in the future. That however is more likely to happen once 1 of 2 things happen.
1/ someone else pays for it ie. Company car
2/ I retire and don’t drive great distances very frequently as I love cruise control just not adaptive cruise. I just don’t want it, at all ……ever but know that we’ll all be forced into having it at some point (like Brexit). Hopefully by the time that comes around I’ll be very close to hanging up my driving gloves and letting my missus chauffeur me though
is there any particular reason why you do not like the adaptive cruise? For me it is crucial feature. you set up speed and it reacts to the traffic situation - if there is a car in front of you, it just reduces speed to match it and not to crash to it.... what's wrong with that?! you prefer actively try to play with brake, accelerator, setting/resuming cruise?!
it's like saying: I do not like to use fridge at home. I prefer to go to the frozen river, cut piece of ice and drag it back home...
I was taught to drive watching cars several in front so very rarely use my brakes when cruising. Adaptive cruise only looks at the car immediately in front and reacts to that. It’s just not a very smooth drive imo, so yes I’d rather pause a dumb cruise and let the car slow naturally rather than brake, speed up, brake speed up which is what happens on adaptive.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
My view on this is that folk that say they prefer manual overlook what happens when manual lets them down. My wife hates AP, she doesn't feel in control.
As far as I am concerned both the car and I am on lookout. I don't care which of us spots the problem, but for sure two is better than one.
I've had AP brake heavily for something I hadn't seen on more than one occasion. For example, pulled onto dual carriageway, engaged AP, a significant gap to the next traffic in front, looked down at dashboard and AP heavy braking caused me to look up to see that the traffic in front was stopping (i.e. significantly)
I expect I would have looked up in time, and no accident ... but braking late would have likely mean "emergency braking", and there might have been someone behind me who then failed to stop. Whereas AP reacted much earlier the moment it detected car in front slowing and although heavy not "emergency"
I've also had a car with no brake lights brake in front of me. That takes much longer to react to "manually" (even with the Alarm) than something like AP
Vehicles intruding into my lane too - particularly if I am looking in right-wing-mirror and a car intrudes from left
There are all sorts of situations where me, solo, might not detect something which AP is on the lookout for..
Does the two-car-in-front no longer work? (i.e. absence of Radar). Used to be that AP would slow for a car two in front, even if car in front was not slowing. There is YouTube of AP car slowing dramatically and the car in front then slamming into the one in front of that which had stopped ...
Manual mode can drive a bit-to-one-side to see the car two-in-front, of course. But I think that is all stuff that could let me down when needing to pay attention to something else.
Also a YouTube of a car stationary, in a queue of traffic (on AP). Car behind failed to realise stationary traffic and ploughed into the back, AP turned the steering full lock and the car then went into the oncoming lane (which AP new was clear Natch!) rather than ramming the car in front and making a bad situation worse ...
As far as I am concerned both the car and I am on lookout. I don't care which of us spots the problem, but for sure two is better than one.
I've had AP brake heavily for something I hadn't seen on more than one occasion. For example, pulled onto dual carriageway, engaged AP, a significant gap to the next traffic in front, looked down at dashboard and AP heavy braking caused me to look up to see that the traffic in front was stopping (i.e. significantly)
I expect I would have looked up in time, and no accident ... but braking late would have likely mean "emergency braking", and there might have been someone behind me who then failed to stop. Whereas AP reacted much earlier the moment it detected car in front slowing and although heavy not "emergency"
I've also had a car with no brake lights brake in front of me. That takes much longer to react to "manually" (even with the Alarm) than something like AP
Vehicles intruding into my lane too - particularly if I am looking in right-wing-mirror and a car intrudes from left
There are all sorts of situations where me, solo, might not detect something which AP is on the lookout for..
Does the two-car-in-front no longer work? (i.e. absence of Radar). Used to be that AP would slow for a car two in front, even if car in front was not slowing. There is YouTube of AP car slowing dramatically and the car in front then slamming into the one in front of that which had stopped ...
Manual mode can drive a bit-to-one-side to see the car two-in-front, of course. But I think that is all stuff that could let me down when needing to pay attention to something else.
Also a YouTube of a car stationary, in a queue of traffic (on AP). Car behind failed to realise stationary traffic and ploughed into the back, AP turned the steering full lock and the car then went into the oncoming lane (which AP new was clear Natch!) rather than ramming the car in front and making a bad situation worse ...
Aren’t AP and adaptive separate things? I still on the occasions I do use adaptive have incidents of ghost braking especially if pulling into lane 2 from 3 with a truck in lane 1 (not necessarily right next to me as I pull in but some way in front).
As I said previously I get that some people love adaptive, I’m just not one personally (neither is my wife lol).
AP is just a fancy name of TACC + lane assistant.
TACC is the most useful item, tbf as it will just keep distance and monitor gaps in front. you can override it with brake, like any other CC.
therefore for me it is very strange when people say that TACC is bad as they want to be in control, but they use standard CC.. which is worse?!
Depends how you drive or want to drive. If you’ve always been someone who drives watching the car immediately in front and braking then TACC won’t feel much different. If however you’ve always driven anticipating by watching several cars in front then braking to slow down is a last resort. It’s not smooth nor does it anticipate the traffic flow it’s a reactive system much like a stop start driver
. Just not a smooth style of driving at all & not for me.Once practiced, the anticipatory technique of looking 3 - 4 cars in front meant I used to rarely use any braking at all on motorways or dual carriageways when using dumb cruise. TACC is a completely different - and probably more risky - technique that i really dislike. Once you build that awareness of what is happening 200 yards ahead, it is really difficult mentally to switch it off. I am not sure I can trust the car to do the right thing when all it seems to see is the car ahead.Depends how you drive or want to drive. If you’ve always been someone who drives watching the car immediately in front and braking then TACC won’t feel much different. If however you’ve always driven anticipating by watching several cars in front then braking to slow down is a last resort. It’s not smooth nor does it anticipate the traffic flow it’s a reactive system much like a stop start driver
Probably a lot of it is the anticipation of when are the brakes coming on and when is it going to accelerate once the road is clear. I know when I’m going to use a control I don’t know when the TACC will. Never liked fairground / amusement park rides either tbf, TACC reminds me of both
I agree with that. Cruise controls don't adapt/match speeds for traffic far ahead, which is what humans can do ... half a mile away in some situations. As you say, this makes braking a very rare occurence on motorways. When I used dumb cruise in other cars I would notch down the set speed if I saw traffic building ahead and then back up ... or switch it off completely as required. Of course we can do that with TACC too though you do end up balancing car judgement against human judgement! Switching the "TA" bit out of it would suit me. I do feel that the Model 3 is generally better at smoothing its progress than it used to be. A while back it used to charge up to the back of the next vehicle and leave the slowing down phase far too late ... nowadays mine does pretty well at avoiding the stop start effect (not as good as me of course!).
Likewise.
I believe it is much safer to be driving based on the actions of cars 2-3-4 in front rather than just the car immediately in front.
Slightly depends on the context, if you are driving on a motorway and leaving a sensible gap you are unlikely to be able to see much of a car 2,3, or 4 in front. I'm sure you aren't suggesting closing the distance in order to rely on watching a chain of cars ahead, but I'm sure we've all seen people that do exactly that on the motorway. Often SUV drivers, like BMW X3
Not at all, but it is perfectly possible to usefully see what is going on 2-3-4 vehicles in front of you in most circumstances whilst maintaining recommended distances on motorways.Slightly depends on the context, if you are driving on a motorway and leaving a sensible gap you are unlikely to be able to see much of a car 2,3, or 4 in front. I'm sure you aren't suggesting closing the distance in order to rely on watching a chain of cars ahead, but I'm sure we've all seen people that do exactly that on the motorway. Often SUV drivers, like BMW X3
In one admittedly extreme instance I saw a car hit the central reservation ~5 cars ahead of me and was already on the hard shoulder and at walking pace by the time I arrived at the still evolving accident.
I disagree you can see a long way in front and react to it easily without thinking about applying the brakes. I’m certainly smoother than any adaptive cruise that I’ve tried which only reacts to the car immediately in front. Love the tarring of BMW / SUV drivers too, I’ve seen many cases of inept drivers in many types / makes of cars …. Including Tesla’sSlightly depends on the context, if you are driving on a motorway and leaving a sensible gap you are unlikely to be able to see much of a car 2,3, or 4 in front. I'm sure you aren't suggesting closing the distance in order to rely on watching a chain of cars ahead, but I'm sure we've all seen people that do exactly that on the motorway. Often SUV drivers, like BMW X3
. My last 3 cars all BMW had indicators that worked despite all the bad press that they get. Cars are unfortunately in a lot of cases driven by arseholes, no matter what make or model.
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I'm a little confused. TACC can be totally used like dumb cruise but with the added safety of not crashing into the car in front. If you drive with regular cruise but then look 2-3-4 cars ahead to anticipate and potentially pause while slowing and then put it back on - you can do all that with TACC. But in regular moving traffic it'll hold position for you so you should need to intervene less often than dumb?
I'm not picking up on anything dumb cruise is better at. with TACC you can use the dial to slow the car down if you want to adjust in advance to conditions around you - I'll often do that as we approach variable speed limit sections for instance. Or you can increase/decrease the gap to the traffic in front to give yourself more control over when you slow.
I'm not picking up on anything dumb cruise is better at. with TACC you can use the dial to slow the car down if you want to adjust in advance to conditions around you - I'll often do that as we approach variable speed limit sections for instance. Or you can increase/decrease the gap to the traffic in front to give yourself more control over when you slow.
Slightly depends on the context, if you are driving on a motorway and leaving a sensible gap you are unlikely to be able to see much of a car 2,3, or 4 in front. I'm sure you aren't suggesting closing the distance in order to rely on watching a chain of cars ahead, but I'm sure we've all seen people that do exactly that on the motorway. Often SUV drivers, like BMW X3
There is a little caveat in here though. While I'm not a fan of house close the Tesla engineers have it following especially at L7, the Tesla has a huge advantage over other drivers. It's 100% paying attention and can react in milliseconds to something. That's not something that the human can come close to.
But what I haven't seen in this thread is the biggest advantage of the feature, that's stop and go traffic. From a situation where either a person is completely stressed out or a situation where a person is totally distracted, the Tesla makes it a calming experience. I know that if the car in front of me slows down, mine will as well. I know if they slam on the brakes, mine will as well.
And safety? Stop and go traffic is where a lot of accidents occur.
Cars with dumb cruise have automatic braking too but only in emergency situations. They don’t suddenly slow down randomly when changing lanes, which does happen in my M3. Nor do they switch the wipers onto auto when switching on cruise, something that has happened during a recent update
I only used cruise when traffic is flowing, never if traffic is heavy. Most modern cars under 10yr old now have autonomous emergency braking so it’s an issue that’s been made up to sell a gizmo, based on a problem that doesn’t necessitate it imo.
Having said that it seems the post has become solely about TACC which it isn’t. It’s about a number if things that I like / dislike on the car
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