on driving a Jeep with TACC and lane assist..

[angelman]

I was recently on vacation in Italy and now that Fiat owns Chrysler there are Jeeps all over the place. Rather incongruous to see these large rugged cars in the tiny medieval streets.. but I digress. I rented a car from Hertz and was given a Jeep rather then the Ford Grand C Max I requested. As I drove down the highway I noticed amongst the plethora of buttons that often had indecipherable markings I couldn't understand to indicate their function, a button that appeared to be related to cruise control. I pressed it and it commenced Active cruise control. It seems that car came with TACC. I tried it out and it worked pretty well, as good as the model 3. Weird though because I was driving a stick shift (as most European cars are) so still had to pay attention to gear changes if not braking and acceleration. It maintained the distance accurately between the car infront and it was easy to change that distance from the steering wheel control. The weird part was the lane assistance. I noticed an odd resistance at times especially as a changed lanes. After a while I realised it seemed to be doing some steering as well as the speed control. It was very odd because I couldn't figure out what it was trying to achieve with the steering. At times it almost felt like autopilot as it turned the curves quite accurately, at other times it seemed to pull me towards the center line and other times it just was ready to drive me into the ditch. I mention this because people critiscise autopilot for doing too much and not being 100% perfect. I found this far more dangerous. I had no idea what it was doing or trying to do but I could feel it trying to control the steering wheel in a very unsettling way that I did not have control of. combined with the plethora of buttons, flashing signs in the dashboard display, constant beeps and warnings it was incredibly distracting.
In short I was impressed how good the TACC was, everything else was as horrible as expected. Android Auto is fairly neat though but I could find no intuitive way to operate the car radio whilst Android Auto was active.
Tesla is still light years ahead in terms of UI and UX and that centre console is far less distracting than modern button laden steering wheels and dashboards.

 

[JoshPA]

Can you use the TACC w/o lane keep assist being on? I do wish our Jeep had TACC and that might be a terrible excuse for us to get a Gladiator next year =)

Shame they are SOOO ugly.

 

[MrG_NY]

As you see M3 is not the only car that drives itself. Back when the M3 came out it’s self driving capabilities were put up against a Genesis G80, BMW and A Benz. The magazine that did the comparison rated the M3 poorly. As we know it has gotten better with age (updates). I have a G80 and the self steering is good it follows the road fine but takes some curves at different angles than I would. The TACC works great. Most of the new cars have these features the upside is Tesla gives you over the air updates. The thing to remember is you are in control and can always take it back from the car. It may feel like it’s fighting you but you still can over ride it by turning a little harder.

 

[TW14 9LF]

I just returned from a two week driving trip from California to Colorado and back, to drop my younger son off at college in Colorado Springs. We rented a Ford Edge Titanium for the 3000 mile trip (included a lot of driving around when we got there). The TACC on that vehicle worked very well as well, as good as my Model 3. The lane departure system also worked pretty good. On normal freeways, it mostly kept me centered and made all of the curves. One thing I liked better than my Model 3 was that after making a lane change, I didn't have to re-start Autosteer; the car would resume lane following as soon as I finished the lane change. If I didn't signal, it would initially resist the change, but then let me do it. If I did use the signal, it wouldn't resist. Note that I do not have Enhanced Autopilot on my Model 3.

The number of buttons in that car were simply amazing. I counted 22 buttons on the steering wheel alone, and a bunch of those did different functions depending on what menu you had up. The dash had a similar number of buttons. I was so happy to get back to my Model 3 and it's simple, intuitive user interface.

Keith

 

[lampcord]

My CX-5 had Radar Cruise (I guess that is their marketing name for TACC?) and lane keep assist. The TACC was decent but surged more than the M3 both in accelerating and braking. It also often waited too long before braking only to alert me to BRAKE. Which begs the question, if you know I need to brake then why not just do it? The lane keep assist was essentially useless. It gave me a slight nudge back towards the center if I started to cross the line maybe 10% of the time at best.

It's interesting that a comparison with a BMW was mentioned above because recently I saw one and they concluded that the M3's self driving technology was far superior to the BMW. But I can't find it. Probably was on YouTube somewhere.

 

[Saghost]

TACC - traffic aware cruise control - is Tesla's own spin on the generic ACC, Adaptive Cruise Control, with some features that most don't have like sensor fusion to detect stopped cars.

 

[ezevphl]

While my 3 is in the shop we got a brand new Kia Optima rental for a long road trip. Overall I really miss the Model 3.
I was surprised to find functional lane keeping assist. It wouldn't handle sharp curves or serious turns, but it would help keep the car in the lane through mild highway curves. On the other hand the blind spot warning was much better implemented than anything I've seen from Tesla.

 

[Rockster]

A colleague of mine has adaptive cruise control on her Toyota but the feature disengages if her vehicle slows below 15 mph or so. (I forget the exact cutoff.) It's very disconcerting, she says, when the adaptive cruise control suddenly disengages in stop and go traffic because she momentarily dropped below the cutoff point. Obviously, too, if she comes to a complete stop, it disengages and she's on her own. All in all, she said it's useless except on the open road.

How do the adaptive cruse controls in the cars mentioned above handle stop and go traffic?

 

[lampcord]

A colleague of mine has adaptive cruise control on her Toyota but the feature disengages if her vehicle slows below 15 mph or so. (I forget the exact cutorr.) It's very disconcerting, she says, when the adaptive cruise control suddenly disengages in stop and go traffic because she momentarily dropped below the cutoff point. Obviously, too, if some comes to a complete stop, it disengages and she's on her own. All in all, she said it's useless except on the open road.

How do the adaptive cruse controls in the cars mentioned above handle stop and go traffic?

Ah, good question. I forgot about that part. My CX-5 handled stop and go as long as you were only momentarily stopped. If you stopped for more than about 5 seconds, it would not start back up when the car in front moved. Note: ACC was still engaged but you had to give it a little 'shove' with the accelerator to get moving again. I think this was a safety feature. The most annoying part was that if you did this too early (before the car in front had moved far enough ahead of you) it would immediately slam on the brakes which was both embarrassing and dangerous.

 

[brucet999]

Ah, good question. I forgot about that part. My CX-5 handled stop and go as long as you were only momentarily stopped. If you stopped for more than about 5 seconds, it would not start back up when the car in front moved. Note: ACC was still engaged but you had to give it a little 'shove' with the accelerator to get moving again. I think this was a safety feature. The most annoying part was that if you did this too early (before the car in front had moved far enough ahead of you) it would immediately slam on the brakes which was both embarrassing and dangerous.

I had occasion to drive a Subaru Outback rental car on a trip from Denver into the Sandhills of Nebraska. Its TACC was pretty good, but the primitive steering aid simply ping pong from one lane line to the other; more of a device to prevent straying out of lane. I found it very annoying and had to search for some minutes among the many buttons before successfully turning it off.

I also missed the torque of my MS. That Subaru can't get out of its own way, much less capably overtake another car at highway speeds.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

My 2019 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited has two rather interesting features that are interesting to me as someone who also owns a Model 3.

The first one is TACC, and at first I was kinda amused. I didn't buy the Jeep to go far on the freeway, but as my hiking/biking/etc vehicle where I want to go practically anywhere. It's to hold me over until there is a true Electric off-road SUV.

Of course I tried it, and it does work. But, it's no where near as smooth as Tesla's TACC can be because it's an ICE vehicle and not Electric. It also won't work if traffic is stopped. It's also not really necessary as 90% of why I use TACC on a Tesla is not to speed. I can't really speed that easily in the Jeep as the engine is very communicative with sound.

The other amusing bit was the engine shuts down to save gas at every stop light. It typically waits for a second or two with my foot on the brake. If I loosely hold the brake it won't turn off. I haven't decided if I'll continue to use it because I don't know if the gas saved is really worth the hassle and possible extra maintenance of using it. It's pretty annoying to have to wait a half second to leave the stop light because your car has to turn itself back on.

Oh, there is a 3rd thing. The navigation in the Jeep takes FOREVER to load. I have no idea what it's doing.I'm used to the Tesla which is really quick for everything to come up (typically).

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I had occasion to drive a Subaru Outback rental car on a trip from Denver into the Sandhills of Nebraska. Its TACC was pretty good, but the primitive steering aid simply ping pong from one lane line to the other; more of a device to prevent straying out of lane. I found it very annoying and had to search for some minutes among the many buttons before successfully turning it off.

I also missed the torque of my MS. That Subaru can't get out of its own way, much less capably overtake another car at highway speeds.

Yeah, the Subaru eyesight is a lane keeping system and not lane-steering.

For the money it's a pretty good system, but no where near the capability of AP.

 

[angelman]

Yeah, the Subaru eyesight is a lane keeping system and not lane-steering.

For the money it's a pretty good system, but no where near the capability of AP.

I test drove a Subaru a while ago in part to see what the eyesight system was about. Call me disapointed because all i could see was that it would flash an icon or make a beep or something if I wandered out of the lane. I expected some kind of steering control. Seemed useless to me.

 

[lampcord]

The other amusing bit was the engine shuts down to save gas at every stop light. It typically waits for a second or two with my foot on the brake. If I loosely hold the brake it won't turn off. I haven't decided if I'll continue to use it because I don't know if the gas saved is really worth the hassle and possible extra maintenance of using it. It's pretty annoying to have to wait a half second to leave the stop light because your car has to turn itself back on.

My wife's Pacifica has that. So I did a little research. Turns out it's a scam designed to trick the EPA. It saves fuel during the EPA's mileage tests because they have the car sit and idle for a long time as part of the test but in the real world, where lights are only 1 or 2 minutes it actually wastes fuel as starting up uses a lot AND it wears the engine more. This was according to Consumer Reports.

Unfortunately, in our minivan, it comes on by default whenever you start it even if you turned it off last time you drove it. Ugh.

 

[Saghost]

My wife's Pacifica has that. So I did a little research. Turns out it's a scam designed to trick the EPA. It saves fuel during the EPA's mileage tests because they have the car sit and idle for a long time as part of the test but in the real world, where lights are only 1 or 2 minutes it actually wastes fuel as starting up uses a lot AND it wears the engine more. This was according to Consumer Reports.

Unfortunately, in our minivan, it comes on by default whenever you start it even if you turned it off last time you drove it. Ugh.

Interesting that CR said that. The conventional wisdom is that starting a modern car uses very little fuel or energy, less than 30 seconds of idling I believe. More stress on the starter motor and battery, of course.

 

[adam0785]

TACC - traffic aware cruise control - is Tesla's own spin on the generic ACC, Adaptive Cruise Control, with some features that most don't have like sensor fusion to detect stopped cars.

The firetruck would beg to differ.....

 

[Saghost]

The firetruck would beg to differ.....

View attachment 430058

Didn't say it was perfect. But you also haven't seen anything like this happen recently to an AP2+ car, have you?

My main point was that we really shouldn't be calling competing products TACC - they are either the generic ACC or whatever that manufacturer brands it - radar cruise control, distronic cruise, etc.

 

[Rothgarr]

The Honda Sensing on my wife's Pilot is quite good. It steers on the highway and keeps proper distance from cars in front. But it only works above 45 MPH and it wont do tighter turns like the Tesla. (and constantly complains about hands on the wheel).

One feature I like WAY better on the Pilot is that if I turn on the Lane Keep Assist, it will STAY on until I turn off the car (or manually turn it off). It will temporarily disengage if I have a blinker out, or slow down below 45, but as soon as I am back in a lane or go back above 45 it will automatically steer again. Versus the Tesla where I have to engage autopilot after every lane change, hitting the brakes, etc. -- I feel like I am going to wear out the right stalk from pressing down twice so often.

 

[adam0785]

Didn't say it was perfect. But you also haven't seen anything like this happen recently to an AP2+ car, have you?

My main point was that we really shouldn't be calling competing products TACC - they are either the generic ACC or whatever that manufacturer brands it - radar cruise control, distronic cruise, etc.

I wouldn't be stating that TACC detects stopped vehicles - the firetruck is only one of many examples proving that statement is patently false

 

[Saghost]

I wouldn't be stating that TACC detects stopped vehicles - the firetruck is only one of many examples proving that statement is patently false

TACC absolutely detects stopped vehicles, quite frequently. Tesla was having trouble with it detecting them every single time for a while there, but it seems much better now than it used to be in my subjective opinion, and I also haven't read of cases in the last few months of it failing to for modern hardware.