Cruise Control - Adjusting the Following Distance

[SalisburySam]

I just took my first drive with my new Model 3 and I was not impressed with how over-reactionary the cruise control was to people changing lanes ahead. I had my distance set to the minimum and I was still getting hard slowdowns from cars 50 yards up that were actively accelerating after merging. Not to mention that long after the cars ahead sped up and were gone, my 3 was still maintaining speed 10MPH lower than the set speed. I'm a cruise control all the time kind of person and I did the last half of my drive with it turned off because it was just that frustrating.

I think I'd be happier with just dumb cruise control; resume would be nice too. Cruise control is probably my most used set of controls in my ICE cars (all pre-dating distance keeping cruise control). Don't get me wrong, I like the distance keeping aspect, but it needs to be way more chill about reactions to lane changing and allow you to use some of that following buffer it is maintaining to gradually slow or give the car ahead time to speed up instead of cranking up regen to the max right away.

“over-reactionary,” yup.
”turned off because it was just that frustrating,” yup. Has never improved and some updates make it worse.
”happier with just dumb cruise control,” yup, many of us have been asking for that for years.
“resume would be nice,” yup, again a frequent request.

Net: Tesla has proven adamant about not delivering dumb cruise control, even as a specific use case setting for TACC. No reason to believe they will ever feel differently regardless of the driver frustrations with the existing weaknesses.

My next vehicle will not likely be another Tesla. I’ve grown to despise TACC with its unpredictable, frequent, and very annoying phantom braking, FSD that isn’t, and seemingly abandoned driver assist features like Smart Summon, Dumb Summon, and AutoPark none of which works with any degree of reliability if at all for me. Those, plus things that used to work very well and no longer do such as album art. My car is turning slowly into a Windows Vista computer, and I‘m not appreciative.

 

[WADan]

I just took my first drive with my new Model 3 and I was not impressed with how over-reactionary the cruise control was to people changing lanes ahead. I had my distance set to the minimum and I was still getting hard slowdowns from cars 50 yards up that were actively accelerating after merging. Not to mention that long after the cars ahead sped up and were gone, my 3 was still maintaining speed 10MPH lower than the set speed. I'm a cruise control all the time kind of person and I did the last half of my drive with it turned off because it was just that frustrating.

I think I'd be happier with just dumb cruise control; resume would be nice too. Cruise control is probably my most used set of controls in my ICE cars (all pre-dating distance keeping cruise control). Don't get me wrong, I like the distance keeping aspect, but it needs to be way more chill about reactions to lane changing and allow you to use some of that following buffer it is maintaining to gradually slow or give the car ahead time to speed up instead of cranking up regen to the max right away.

Have you tried to adjust the acceleration mode to Sport?

 

[AlexHung]

Totally opposite experience with me but then my minimum distance is set to 4 for congested traffic and use 5 for flowing traffic

 

[Colorado Cupid]

Is it just me, or does anyone think that when using cruise control- the car should keep the same distance we select for the car in front of us to be- even when coming to a stop in slow traffic? If I select a distance of 3… the car always creeps up on the ass of the car in front of me when going slow and then stopping about a half car length away. The whole purpose is to create some safe distance and it won’t. I’ve tried asking Tesla to make this an option but I guess I need more owners to call/text in and complain.

 

[WADan]

Is it just me, or does anyone think that when using cruise control- the car should keep the same distance we select for the car in front of us to be- even when coming to a stop in slow traffic? If I select a distance of 3… the car always creeps up on the ass of the car in front of me when going slow and then stopping about a half car length away. The whole purpose is to create some safe distance and it won’t. I’ve tried asking Tesla to make this an option but I guess I need more owners to call/text in and complain.

The distant is measured by the time it takes to get to the car in front (in second I believe), so it is closer at slower speed!

 

[frankvb]

The distant is measured by the time it takes to get to the car in front (in second I believe), so it is closer at slower speed!

Yes that's the same for any vehicle with traffic aware cruise control I've driven. To be honest I'd prefer if it stopped a bit closer behind the preceding car when stopping e.g. at a traffic light, it leaves open too much space IMHO. Of course a user setting for that would be even better so everyone can choose their own preference.

 

[Timothy]

I was always taught you should be 3 seconds behind the car in front of you. So--longer distances at higher speeds. I am struggling with many changes in the MY updates where directions are not provided. The Roadster is much easier--old fashioned manual speed control and none of this modern stuff!!