We know that Scout will offer some level of adaptive cruise control, lane assist, maybe limited self driving of some sort. I'd like to open a discussion about the behavior of these assists. Voice your experiences regarding vehicles you've driven and what you did/did not like about each of their driver assists.
I'll kick things off with:
2021 Polestar 2:
This is my daily which I've driven for several years now.
Things I like
1. The following distance is adjustable from the steering wheel rather than hidden in some touchscreen system menus. Additionally, the following distance is tuned very well. The closest distance puts you roughly 2.5 car lengths behind the next car at highway speeds, and the max distance is about 4 car lengths.
2. The following distance is relative based on speed. Perfectly tuned for highways, but it closes the gap when driving on city roads. At 30ish mph the closest settings puts you roughly 1 car length behind the next car, sometimes even less than that. Personally I find that a bit close, but that's why it's important to have quickly adjustable and intuitive following distance controls on the wheel, which this car has.
3. The most recently used following distance is remembered the next time you turn on cruise control.
4. The passive lane keep assist is firm, but not intrusive. It only kicks in when you are on the edge of the lane, but it is not strict about keeping you in the center. This is different from the actual steering for you mode (called pilot assist) which will do its best to keep you in the lane but does not fight you that hard if you make adjustments yourself. You can actually tweak this behavior in the settings so that lane keep assist will either A - give a tiny bit of steering input to help you out at the edge of a lane, or B - just vibrate the steering wheel when you are about to leave your lane, but does not actually help steer). I love that there are settings for this specific behavior.
5. In stop/go traffic the cruise control will creep along at absolutely any speed and it will maintain a 1/2 car length to the next car. This is ideal and I would love to see this behavior in the Scout (rather than deactivating the cruise control below some X speed)
6. It maintains speed when cornering (in sharp contrast to the car below)
7. It does not over-react to people changing into / out of your line (a gripe a have with Toyota's implementation that I will detail for the next car)
This I do not like
1. When pilot assist is enabled, it will constantly raise an alarm that you need to keep your hands on the wheel even if you already are. The way it detects that you are "holding the wheel" is by looking for steering inputs, not actual tactility. Because of this, using it on a straight line road (where it's arguably most useful) is effectively impossible. You have to jerk the wheel a bit to get rid of the warning which is just rediculous when driving in a straight line. The other way to get around this (and this is what I usually do) is by quickly turning pilot assist off and then back on again. It's a distinct button on the steering wheel so it's easy to do, just extremely annoying to have to do.
2. When the car comes to a complete stop, even with cruise control enabled, it will not go unless you press the gas pedal. This is probably a safety feature, but it is really annoying in stop/go traffic since hitting the gas pedal resets the radar portion of the following distance. Probably just a matter of tuning things better.
Overall I'd give the Polestar's adaptive cruise control a 6/10. 9/10 for the following distance and 3/10 for the execution of the pilot assist steering. Having the "keep your hands on the wheel" alarm going off constantly when you ARE paying attention and ARE steering is a total dealbreaker and I pray Scout does not make a mistake like this.
Next car
2021 Toyota Rav4 Prime XE:
This is my dad's daily, so I have limited experience driving it (roughly 20 hours total), but in that experience I have several immediate negative opinions about the driving assists.
Things I don't like:
1. The cruise control does not remember your following distance between car restarts. It always resets to the maximum distance which is FAR. It also forces steering assist to be ON every time you first turn on cruise control. This leads to having to click a combination of buttons 5 times in order to set your speed just once the first time you turn cruise control on for your drive (assuming you want minimum following distance and no steering assist). Not good.
2. The distance is adjustable on the wheel, but only with a single button that cycles through the distances. If you overshoot your target distance you need to cycle through everything again. Distracing - eyes not on the road.
3. The adjustable distances range from "far" to "I can't even see the next car". The closest one puts you roughly 5 car lengths behind the next car.
4. The following distance massively over-reacts to people entering your lane. A specific example is when you are driving at constant speed and a car changes into your lane. Even if they immediately accelerate to match your speed or even exceed it, the Toyota will slam the brakes and then very very slowly accelerate back up to speed. The Polestar is far better at this - it seems to do some sort of brief distance over time calculation to check if the gap betwen you and the car that pulled into your lane is increasing or not, and will maintain speed (or decelerate) accordingly.
5. Cruise control will shed a ton of speed when taking corners. So much so that it feels like it's unsettling the car and putting far too much load on the outer front tire. Not pleasant.
Overall rating for the Rav 4's adaptive cruise is 4/10. It's annoying to use and gets in the way more than it helps. It feels overly cautious to the point where it has put me in dangerous situations. I therefore have it turned off 90% of the time and so don't really have opinions on the quality of the steering assist. I also do not have any experience with the behavior of this system at low speeds or in stop/go traffic.
My main takeaways and hopes for Scout:
1. The following distance is well tuned both for distance and for other vehicles being detected / undetected, and can easily be adjusted for both closer AND farther settings through distinct controls on the steering wheel
2. Steering assist does not generate false negatives that you are not holding the wheel when you are
3. Stop/go traffic is gracefully handled by the driving assists
Considering Scout is building on top of Rivian software in some way, I figure it's a reasonable assumption the the adaptive cruise control settings will be Rivian-esque? Would love to hear some feedback from current Rivian owners about the behaviors of their adaptive cruise control systems and driving assists, both positive and negative. Would also love to hear people's experiences in other cars! I hope we can croudsource some absolute dos and don'ts regarding driving assist behavior.
I'll kick things off with:
2021 Polestar 2:
This is my daily which I've driven for several years now.
Things I like
1. The following distance is adjustable from the steering wheel rather than hidden in some touchscreen system menus. Additionally, the following distance is tuned very well. The closest distance puts you roughly 2.5 car lengths behind the next car at highway speeds, and the max distance is about 4 car lengths.
2. The following distance is relative based on speed. Perfectly tuned for highways, but it closes the gap when driving on city roads. At 30ish mph the closest settings puts you roughly 1 car length behind the next car, sometimes even less than that. Personally I find that a bit close, but that's why it's important to have quickly adjustable and intuitive following distance controls on the wheel, which this car has.
3. The most recently used following distance is remembered the next time you turn on cruise control.
4. The passive lane keep assist is firm, but not intrusive. It only kicks in when you are on the edge of the lane, but it is not strict about keeping you in the center. This is different from the actual steering for you mode (called pilot assist) which will do its best to keep you in the lane but does not fight you that hard if you make adjustments yourself. You can actually tweak this behavior in the settings so that lane keep assist will either A - give a tiny bit of steering input to help you out at the edge of a lane, or B - just vibrate the steering wheel when you are about to leave your lane, but does not actually help steer). I love that there are settings for this specific behavior.
5. In stop/go traffic the cruise control will creep along at absolutely any speed and it will maintain a 1/2 car length to the next car. This is ideal and I would love to see this behavior in the Scout (rather than deactivating the cruise control below some X speed)
6. It maintains speed when cornering (in sharp contrast to the car below)
7. It does not over-react to people changing into / out of your line (a gripe a have with Toyota's implementation that I will detail for the next car)
This I do not like
1. When pilot assist is enabled, it will constantly raise an alarm that you need to keep your hands on the wheel even if you already are. The way it detects that you are "holding the wheel" is by looking for steering inputs, not actual tactility. Because of this, using it on a straight line road (where it's arguably most useful) is effectively impossible. You have to jerk the wheel a bit to get rid of the warning which is just rediculous when driving in a straight line. The other way to get around this (and this is what I usually do) is by quickly turning pilot assist off and then back on again. It's a distinct button on the steering wheel so it's easy to do, just extremely annoying to have to do.
2. When the car comes to a complete stop, even with cruise control enabled, it will not go unless you press the gas pedal. This is probably a safety feature, but it is really annoying in stop/go traffic since hitting the gas pedal resets the radar portion of the following distance. Probably just a matter of tuning things better.
Overall I'd give the Polestar's adaptive cruise control a 6/10. 9/10 for the following distance and 3/10 for the execution of the pilot assist steering. Having the "keep your hands on the wheel" alarm going off constantly when you ARE paying attention and ARE steering is a total dealbreaker and I pray Scout does not make a mistake like this.
Next car
2021 Toyota Rav4 Prime XE:
This is my dad's daily, so I have limited experience driving it (roughly 20 hours total), but in that experience I have several immediate negative opinions about the driving assists.
Things I don't like:
1. The cruise control does not remember your following distance between car restarts. It always resets to the maximum distance which is FAR. It also forces steering assist to be ON every time you first turn on cruise control. This leads to having to click a combination of buttons 5 times in order to set your speed just once the first time you turn cruise control on for your drive (assuming you want minimum following distance and no steering assist). Not good.
2. The distance is adjustable on the wheel, but only with a single button that cycles through the distances. If you overshoot your target distance you need to cycle through everything again. Distracing - eyes not on the road.
3. The adjustable distances range from "far" to "I can't even see the next car". The closest one puts you roughly 5 car lengths behind the next car.
4. The following distance massively over-reacts to people entering your lane. A specific example is when you are driving at constant speed and a car changes into your lane. Even if they immediately accelerate to match your speed or even exceed it, the Toyota will slam the brakes and then very very slowly accelerate back up to speed. The Polestar is far better at this - it seems to do some sort of brief distance over time calculation to check if the gap betwen you and the car that pulled into your lane is increasing or not, and will maintain speed (or decelerate) accordingly.
5. Cruise control will shed a ton of speed when taking corners. So much so that it feels like it's unsettling the car and putting far too much load on the outer front tire. Not pleasant.
Overall rating for the Rav 4's adaptive cruise is 4/10. It's annoying to use and gets in the way more than it helps. It feels overly cautious to the point where it has put me in dangerous situations. I therefore have it turned off 90% of the time and so don't really have opinions on the quality of the steering assist. I also do not have any experience with the behavior of this system at low speeds or in stop/go traffic.
My main takeaways and hopes for Scout:
1. The following distance is well tuned both for distance and for other vehicles being detected / undetected, and can easily be adjusted for both closer AND farther settings through distinct controls on the steering wheel
2. Steering assist does not generate false negatives that you are not holding the wheel when you are
3. Stop/go traffic is gracefully handled by the driving assists
Considering Scout is building on top of Rivian software in some way, I figure it's a reasonable assumption the the adaptive cruise control settings will be Rivian-esque? Would love to hear some feedback from current Rivian owners about the behaviors of their adaptive cruise control systems and driving assists, both positive and negative. Would also love to hear people's experiences in other cars! I hope we can croudsource some absolute dos and don'ts regarding driving assist behavior.
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