Driving distance setting in stop and go traffic

[TexLaw]

1 for stop and go. 4+ at cruising speed.

 

[bobjustbob]

Typical for my is 2 for stop-and-go traffic and 5-6 on highway speed traffic.

 

[eschummer]

at slower stop and go speeds 1 or 2 works well for me, at over 25 mph stop and go I would go up to at least 4 or 5.

+1 on that

 

[HabitualUser]

1 for stop and go. Any slower is inconsiderate to your neighbors. Let's keep it moving here!

3-4 on highway, 7 used only in poor weather conditions.

 

[jdw]

I am not aware of any evidence to support that contention.

From the owners manual:

"To adjust the distance you want to maintain between Model S and a vehicle traveling ahead of you, rotate the cruise control lever to choose a setting from 1 (the closest following distance) to 7 (the longest following distance). Each setting corresponds to a time-based distance that represents how long it takes for Model S, from its current location, to reach the location of the rear bumper of the vehicle ahead."

As far as I've heard, each number represents about 1/2 second of time.

 

[RDoc]

I wish there were a 0.5!

 

[Salty]

I use 7 on a regular basis. I seems to work well for my driving.

 

[akraut]

I would recommend that Tesla add a constant display beside The speedo showing the distance setting

I think it would be interesting to see the current display shown next to the display of the cars ahead of you. Like hash marks for the 1-7 settings with the current setting lit up more or something.

 

[sillydriver]

This is a very timely thread for me! I live in the Virginia countryside, but for this month only I need to do a daily commute 55 miles and back into DC taking I66, where my timing is such that I avoid the HOV-only period on that road inside the beltway. I finally appreciate AP (which in my case is AP1).

My setting choice has mainly been 2, occasionally 1, because it most closely emulates the behavior of other drivers (or at least the more conservative 75%). I often break out of AP into manual where there is aggressive merging from an interchange ahead of me. Setting 2 can work fairly well with merging except where a car merges ahead of me with slower speed than mine. Then AP brakes harder than I would to maintain its distance. Similarly, my only real criticism of AP is that it brakes sooner and harder than I would when the car ahead slows down. My fear is that it would back me up into, or brake-check, the driver following behind. In fact part of the reason I use 1 or 2 is that the driver behind me then tends to follow at normal distance, while leaving a big gap ahead by using 4 or higher tends to cause the driver behind to follow very close due to frustration or to send a message. That increases my worry about sudden or premature braking. On faster sections, 2 seems to leave a decent gap in front, while out where I live, where the speed limit is 70 and cars are near 80, I tend to drive manually if there is any traffic at all.

Overall, AP has been great on this commute so far.

 

[jerjozwik]

i have been set to 3 since i took delivery in feb 2016. over the years i have noticed not only has braking and accelerating become smoother on my regular commute but it also appears the car is learning to read other cars merging into my lane. so long as their rear bumper is about a 2 feet ahead of mine, AP1 picks up the car is merging and does a nice soft deceleration.

same time last year and it would have panicked with the car had already completed its merge and smashed the brake.

 

[aesculus]

I played with this a bit the other day in both cruise and stop and go on my AP1 Model X. I then counted the time from fixed objects and it was surprising there was so little change based on speeds above 20 mph. It seemed it was always between 3-4 seconds no matter what I had set.