alt Hacker NewsI have a Volkswagen ID3, I love the adaptive cruise control. Yes, it gets it wrong in some spots (signage isn't great here in Asturias, Spain), and it gets it wrong in both directions (too slow at certain locations, too fast in others).
But I still appreciate the convenience of not having to keep an eye on the speed nor the distance between the my car and the vehicles in front of me when driving on the freeway, where it generally doesn't make mistakes.
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I drive a Nissan Ariya sometimes, which has adaptive cruise control. It's ... okay, but I'm not sure my own car's "dumb" cruise control is any worse to be honest.
My own car's cruise control is just three large buttons on the steering wheel: one which says "keep going this speed when I take my foot off the gas", one cancel button, and one "go back to the previous speed" button. It works wonders and is quite comfortable to use. Never messes up, I can rely on it 100% to do its one simple job.
The Ariya is much more fancy, but it's so much less reliable. If it's snowing outside it sometimes just randomly turns itself off because sensors got covered in snow, leading to a rapid deceleration until I intervene. Sometimes it refuses to turn on because sensors are covered in snow. And its braking curve is uncomfortable; when the car in front stops (e.g in stop and go traffic), it gets way close to the car in front and brakes hard, instead of slowly coming to a stop at a comfortable distance. Oh and it's connected to the nav system; I've had it just suddenly slow the car down to a crawl because the nav system had chosen a stupid route, it slowed down to take an exit while I stayed on the highway.
I'll take dumb but reliable any day over smart and unreliable. Even if it means I sometimes have to actually adjust speed myself.
Relatedly, I don't actually mind having to drive the car. I like cruise control because my foot gets fatigued when pressing the gas pedal for hours on end, but making manual adjustments to my speed? Changing gears? Listening to the engine to make sure it's at a happy RPM? I feel like that stuff just gives me small stuff to do so I keep paying attention to the driving.
The incessant beeping in modern cars on the other hand is just a distraction. Luckily, the Nissan lets you configure it so that 2 quick button presses on the steering wheel disables all the useless alarms. I'm so happy I don't have to do that manually for each "safety" feature every time I get in.
But you do have to keep an eye on those things. It can make the adjustments but you can't take your eye off them.
I just drive my car because you have to pay attention anyways. No cruise control, nothing.
I have a CRV with adaptive cruise (USA) and while the car reads the speed limit signs it only uses them for display. There are instances where it misreads signs which is understandable because some of the road signs are very similar or the posted speed only applies to trucks ect.
But it does not adjust based on the reading, I manually set the speed but of course it'll slow down if there's a car in front. Automatically adjusting to the speed limit sounds insanely dangerous. It's very common place, at least in the US, to go 10 over the posted limit on controlled access highways, does the EU not operate in a similar mode?