I do miss my Honda's dumb cruise control!

[Dch53]

I used to use my Honda's cruise control everywhere - 50kph zones, 60kphs zones etc and every sort of road. It was a great way to avoid speeding tickets and I didn't have to keep my foot on the accelerator all the time. All the control buttons required were right under your right thumb.

As great as my new Model 3's TACC is on freeways and in heavy traffic (it doesn't keep up with traffic when taking off as well as I'd like and it brakes later and more heavily than I'd like - maybe it's optimising regenerative braking) it's painful on any roads that can have cross traffic or vehicles turning off to the left and right, often slowing unnecessarily.

You have to be ready to put your foot on the accelerator all the time to ensure a smooth drive. It's not relaxing at all.

Maybe I'll get used to it like the way my thumb used to hover over and instinctively use the Cancel and Resume buttons.

To me it's an indication of the gap that still exists between a human driver and a software driver. My mind can quickly assess whether a crossing car is a concern or not but the software driver can't. Yet, at least.

Maybe as processing power increases the software will be able to assess the crossing speed of a vehicle 100m in front of the car and be able to work out whether braking is required.

The same for a car turning off to the left; it'll be long gone by the time your car gets there and doesn't require action.

Why TACC slows for vehicles turning left or right in dedicated turning lanes though I don't know.

 

[cafz]

The cross street thing is probably true, but for the left-turning thing neither you nor the car know that they're going to complete the turn immediately - you're just assuming they will, but some day they'll stop for a pedestrian or something and you'll have to deploy the anchors!

 

[Dch53]

...or if there's room, steer around them.

 

[cafz]

Yeah, but TACC doesn't do that, hence the cautious approach it takes.

 

[Dch53]

Yes, it's definitely conservative. I'm sure there'll be a time when processing power is such that it could do that.

I've long felt that more smarts need to be in the road itself. Certainly freeways. So that traffic can be organised for optimum throughput. Human drivers are too slow and do things like changing lanes and clogging up the works. Where I am most drivers have absolutely no idea how to merge and getting onto freeways is often chaotic. Imagine if all the cars and trucks could be merged at high speed. I don't have full self driving but from what I've seen of TACC it would have to be slower even than human drivers.

 

[paulp]

The cross street thing is probably true, but for the left-turning thing neither you nor the car know that they're going to complete the turn immediately - you're just assuming they will, but some day they'll stop for a pedestrian or something and you'll have to deploy the anchors!

No cannot agree. It slows down for the car in front that is massively in front, often after the car in front has departed. Tesla tacc is absolute dangerous junk.

 

[Dch53]

I don't agree with that. On freeways and in heavy, stop, start traffic, TAAC is fantastic. To be fair, the user manual does say "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control is primarily intended for driving on dry, straight roads, such as highways".

The conservativeness problem is common to all adaptive cruise systems, not just Tesla's.

 

[doggy1]

All my European cars, for years, have had cruise control and speed limiter. I frequently used the limiter in town but never used CC (in town) because of no "traffic awareness". But I used CC a lot on the highways. I really thought I would miss the speed limiter with Tesla (My Zoe ZE40 has limiter and CC). In reality, I use TACC (on the Tesla) a lot around town and am happy with the behavior. Of course I do override it a bit here and there but overall it makes life easier. On the freeway I am very impressed with the speed keeping accuracy of TACC. But I always disable it overtaking and similar manouvres.

I do not miss the limiter at all.....

 

[evpaddie]

Like the original poster I always use cruise control to speed in 50, 60 etc zones. No problems in our Golf with smart cruise control. With the latest software with vision only TACC, my foot is hovering over the accelerator pedal ready to deal with the more and more common phantom braking. Much less relaxing than our Golf.

 

[doggy1]

This might offend Kia owners. Early last year my Zoe was off the road for almost 6wks due to a charging fault. They lent me a petrol powered Kia Sportage. Almost brand new. Oh dear, it was terrible and I'm not talking about the petrol part. I had a good chance to try out the lane-keeping; absolutely terrible. Could not keep the car between the lane markings reliably and when it did, the wheel was constantly oscillating left and right like an over-gained servo loop (on the cusp of going unstable). The equivalent to TACC was equally unusable. Maybe they have improved these features on the Kia and Hyundai EVs. Sure hope so for the sake of those driving them. It certainly meant Kia went out the window and I opted for the Tesla which I found way better. Also, pairing a phone or setting radio stations were major undertakings on the Kia!

 

[Dch53]

Tesla stopped fitting radar a month or 2 after I ordered. It would be interesting to compare TACC with and without radar.

 

[Maximillan]

Tesla stopped fitting radar a month or 2 after I ordered. It would be interesting to compare TACC with and without radar.

I can. It used to be much better although still the worst distance control cruise control of any car that I've owned due to the number of false positives.

 

[paulp]

I don't agree with that. On freeways and in heavy, stop, start traffic, TAAC is fantastic. To be fair, the user manual does say "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control is primarily intended for driving on dry, straight roads, such as highways".

The conservativeness problem is common to all adaptive cruise systems, not just Tesla's.

So it should be just fine on a dry straight 2 lane road with a 60Kmh limit then…but it is not.

the manual also now admits the issue…it is bordering on comical;

“Traffic-Aware Cruise Control may react to vehicles or objects that either do not exist, or are not in your lane of travel, causing Model 3 to slow down unnecessarily or inappropriately”

 

[Dch53]

“Traffic-Aware Cruise Control may react to vehicles or objects that either do not exist, or are not in your lane of travel, causing Model 3 to slow down unnecessarily or inappropriately”

I agree, it doesn't inspire confidence does it!

This morning I did have to do 30km down the freeway and back and most of the time driving on the smooth bits with lane following and TAAC on reminded me of traveling on the fast trains in Europe. I did have a phantom braking incident though alongside a truck in an 80kph roadwork section. Just mild deceleration for no obvious reason.

 

[drtimhill]

As great as my new Model 3's TACC is on freeways and in heavy traffic (it doesn't keep up with traffic when taking off as well as I'd like and it brakes later and more heavily than I'd like - maybe it's optimising regenerative braking) it's painful on any roads that can have cross traffic or vehicles turning off to the left and right, often slowing unnecessarily.

You have to be ready to put your foot on the accelerator all the time to ensure a smooth drive. It's not relaxing at all.

It might be more relaxing for you with the Honda, but not for the pedestrians unaware that the Honda might plow into them at any time. It really sounds like you should not have been using any sort of cruise, smart or not, on some of those roads. The Honda, being dumb, is going to be convenient, but unsafe. The Tesla, inconvenient but safe. I know which I'd choose.

 

[Zoltrix77]

I agree with the original poster, plain old dumb cruise control is sometimes great. On the open road, you are not paying attension if yoy can't slow down for obsticals. What frequently annoys me about TACC is that you end up slowing down on just because the car ahead is slowing down, with plain old dumb crusie, you brake, check whats going on and go around the car in front instead of just slowing down like an idiot.

I suburbia, I just don't bother.

 

[blubbernator]

I feel you! I am currently in Europe driving a 2021 M3P and even the basic Autopilot is so much worse than my current MY17 Audi SQ5 radar cruise. It is a 2021 so still has radar fitted, so i assume my new one is going to be even worse.

 

[cafz]

I feel you! I am currently in Europe driving a 2021 M3P and even the basic Autopilot is so much worse than my current MY17 Audi SQ5 radar cruise. It is a 2021 so still has radar fitted, so i assume my new one is going to be even worse.

Unless it's on pretty old software, it won't be using the radar now anyway (for TACC at least).

 

[meloccom]

Was coming back from Canberra last week in my AP1 Model S and we hit heavy wet weather and the car asked to take over and didn’t allow activation of TACC or Autopilot until the weather improved some 30 minutes later. So even with radar there are limitations.

 

[doggy1]

Are you still on an early release (therefore with radar)?
I've got radar hardware but I understand now deactivated with TeslaVision......(release 2022.36.2)