Question about Adaptive Cruise Control in stop-and-go traffic

If you come to a complete stop, you have to hit resume, but that is all.

 

I believe Danny noted on his first drive report that you can also just tap the accelerator to resume as well. And the owners manual indicates that drcc will remain set up to 3 minutes at a stop so long as doors stay closed, car remains in drive and drivers seat belt is not removed. J

 

ACC works perfectly fine in stop and go traffic. It slows with the car in front, and when it stops your car will creep up and stop maybe a little further than I would have stopped. You can hear the brakes go into a "hold mode", and the indicator in the dash will say "waiting".

I don't think that there is a time limit, but I've never measured it. Besides, whats it going to do after the limit ? Release the brakes...I don't think so.

I usually use the accelerator to resume, since the car wants to resume it's inter gap distance between you and the car in front, a little too quickly which is something just not done here in New England. So I use the accelerator, and back off the distance from the car in front at the rate I want it to. On bad traffic days on i495, when the stop and go can drive you crazy, I just tap the accelerator and let the car do the work.

If you want to hear a panic beep, let the ACC bring you to a stop, take you feet away from the pedals, and then turn the cruise control off at the switch. I the cars point of view, Who's in charge ? It keeps the brakes on, and does it's panic beep.

The only time that the car drops out of cruise control has to do with a car in front of you, leaving the road. It can tell the difference between lane change and leaving the road. Lane changes, result in the car continuing as normal, and a possible acceleration to cruise velocity. When a car turns off the road more than likely, the ACC will turn set off an alarm and then disengage. This only happens if the car was affecting your velocity. I've not completely explored the conditions that it disengages, I suspect that it has different strategies based on (1) velocity (2) the differential between velocity and target velocity (3) distance to the car in front (4) how fast your velocity was decreasing to keep distance.

I know that I can defeat strategy 4 from disengaging by pushing on the accelerator to keep my velocity the same, but not always, rule 1 may override.

 

According to page 237 of the owner's manual, cruise control will be deactivated after 3 minutes and the car will be shifted into park.

The shift position may also automatically switch to P if one of the following
conditions is detected while the vehicle is stopped by dynamic radar cruise
control with full-speed range.
• Driver’s seat belt is not fastened
• Driver’s door is opened
• Approximately 3 minutes elapse after the vehicle stopped

 

Once car stops, the cruise control doesn't disengage, it goes into a waiting mode. So all you need to do is either move the cruise control lever or tap the gas pedal to start moving again. Way better implementation than on 2015 grand Cherokee that just turns off after 3 seconds of stopping.

 

You guys have this all geeked out. Nice.

 

Today I confirmed the drivers seat belt and drivers door reaction of going into park.

It does it with ample alarm.

I tried to verify the 3 minutes time out by dcc'ing into my parked pickup truck in my drive way, but my wife caught me and there was no explanation that I could give that could cool her down.

I'll try later...

 

Be careful. Tried that in a parking lot and my wife was ready to kill me.

 

When in doubt... read the manual. Something I need to do more .

 

Just because it's in the manual, doesn't mean it's there.

Trust, but verify

 

Goes for a lot of things in life.

 

How can I verify the pedestrian detection system without pissing someone off?

 

From what I understand so far, if your foot is on the pedal, the Prius will run over.

If not, who knows ?

 

Ohhhh, that Euro NCAP crash test video is painful to watch. Always makes me un-easy thinking that could happen to my new car... but at least I'll be safe! Very interesting... I've not seen those side tests before.

 

I could have sworn ACC doesn't need any intervention from me in stop go traffic to continue.

LG-H901 ?

 

It does when it comes to a complete stop. Not if it keeps crawling forward.

 

It can crawl real.... slow too.

 

Funny to watch the tow hook hole cover come off in the side impact. Must be a very energetic impact, because those things are "welded in" when you want to remove them.