My first "self steer" car - RAV4

Mrs. Deuce just got a new car. 2020 RAV4 XLE AWD. So just one level off of base with AWD. Cloth seats, no sunroof, pretty basic. Except it has radar cruise with lane assist and it's amazeballs. I'm still in the "learning to trust it" phase but it's been great so far. You leave hands on the wheel (if you don't it knows, somehow) and relax your shoulder and it steers itself. Slows down for cars in front of you, speeds back up when the road is clear. I haven't played with proper curvy roads (because Houston, we don't really have any) but so far it's been about perfect. I'm just blown away at how good it is as long as you think of it like really good cruise control and not actual self driving. I can see the transition from this to proper self driving being a much smaller step than I thought. 

The ability to sense your hands works kina like those used on exersize machines and the like.

The wife's Pacifica has the radar cruise and lane sensing.  It works pretty well, except it really doesn't like roads where the old markings are still visible or if they don't exist, not a big deal except it tries to steer you away from the lines you actually need to get close to or cross.  It also really, doesn't like lots of crosswind as it struggled with it for a few miles before turning itself off when we hit some really bad cross winds on a road trip a while back.  We just leave it off since it doesn't really help for day to day driving.

I haven't been able to figure the radar cruise out yet, I need to go back through the owner's manual since it didn't seem to do anything when I activated it a few times previously.

A lot of times it's usually just looking for some amount of input on the steering wheel. On at least the older teslas you could fool the system by strapping a small weight to one of the spokes of the steering wheel. I'm glad to hear that the toyota system works well for you. I've used some of the honda systems and every one I've experienced was awful to the point of being seemingly more dangerous than driving yourself. Though driving a pilot though a heavy crosswind it did help a little bit in keeping it from getting blown off the road. My favorite was the active cruise control that would lose sight of the car in front if you crested a hill and do its best to try to rear end them on the downhill as it floored it to get back up to the speed the cruise was set at.

We rented a Mazda6 for family vacation in Cali a couple summers ago, and it was my first experience with radar cruise.  I'm sure the systems will get better and better.  I would want to couple it with heads up speedo because it lulls you into forgetting that you're now behind someone at 57 MPH when you were at 68 before they changed lanes and it regulated the distance.  Also, the brain is much better about not standing on the brakes when someone does a lane change in front of you and it has a mini-panic attack as the radar signal says "whoa, didn't see that a second ago."

Overall I liked it but it did take some getting used to.  I'll be interested to try another one.

That's cool I drove a Subaru and new ranger with those features and loved them. 
 

good luck with the rav4. I've had mine 14 years and it's still running.  Though 600 miles per quart of oil is annoying and it's going soon. 

I had radar cruise on the R63 and thought it was great, once I learned to trust it. Mrs. Deuce thinks that's why I'm so smitten with this system. It's just adding another layer of assist to something that I was already used to. 

Our new E400 wagon has all the self driving stuff, it will even do stop and go traffic for you apparently.  Due to the Covid we have only put about 130 miles on it but have tried the stuff a bit and it seems quite good.  Looking forward to a road trip with it to give it a try, plus the car seems like an epic long distance car. 

I had a self-steering car once. It was a '95 Buick Century. But that was because the one torque box for the rear suspension rotted out, so then you would press the brake and the beam axle would pivot and shoot you off towards the ditch. Quite bracing!

Mazda's does stop and go (yours probably does too) - nothing is better in the world than being able to not deal with traffic going through a city center or traffic jam. When the system comes to a complete stop and hold you have to tap the gas or the resume button on the mazdas - still, so much better than dealing with it. Subaru's speed matching was the best I've ever used and the smoothest, but their lane keep assist was TERRIBLE in the one I drove (~2 years ago or so?) - ping ponged you down the lane and was very jerky. The Mazda's lane keep doesn't really help that much, you don't let it drive (well, on the 2018 I have, maybe 2020 has what you're talking about).

It's part of the reason I "tow" with a cx-9. The NVH of a Mercedes, reliability and maintenance of a Mazda, drives like a smaller car and has decent towing capacity w/ adaptive cruise, etc. 

My one experience with the adaptive cruise control was in a Toyota Corolla, and I loathed it. I'd be bombing along at 70mph in the right lane on the interstate and it'd pick up a car way ahead doing 50mph and gradually start matching my speed and I wouldn't notice. Then everyone would be blowing past me in the right lane like I was standing still and I'd look down and see I'd been doing 50mph in a 65 for god knows how long and would have to get in the other lane and punch it to get back up to speed.

We rented a Fusion Titanium that had all this out in Vegas in 2019 and put about 1,300 miles on it.   The interstates around Vegas had had a lot of construction going on and the lane lines had been painted over and over many times.  The lane departure system would freak out when you passed over one of these areas and would wrestle with me for control.  It takes some effort to make it go where YOU want, with an inexperienced driver that might not produce a great result.   I didn't go through the options, I'd assume it's possible to turn the lane departure off.

The radar cruise control worked great, I used it a ton on the open highways.  The only exception was a particular type of tandem trailer hopper truck we saw going to and from a side trip to Utah.   I was passing one of the hopper trailers in the left lane in a winding mountain pass near the Arizona / Utah border and the car started fighting me as we started by the first trailer.  All I can figure is it was something about the shape of the hoppers was messing with the radar sensors.    We passed a couple more on the way back from Utah fortunately on wide open roads with similar results but at least I was expecting it. Messed up both the lane control and cruise control each time, the car HATED them.

I have driven a couple Subarus with those features and I absolutely hated the lane depature feature.

11GTCS said:

We rented a Fusion Titanium that had all this out in Vegas in 2019 and put about 1,300 miles on it.   The interstates around Vegas had had a lot of construction going on and the lane lines had been painted over and over many times.  The lane departure system would freak out when you passed over one of these areas and would wrestle with me for control.

I remain flabbergasted that these systems are in production. IMHO, a thousand-in-one chance of experiencing this should make it a nonstarter. Yet it sounds like the reliability of this occurrence would make it the best odds in Vegas...

In reply to (Jesse) Ransom :

LOL, true that.   I personally wouldn't pay extra for any of these features but then again I prefer driving cars with manual transmissions.   I'm probably (definitely?) not the demographic the manufacturers are listening to anyway.

In reply to (Jesse) Ransom :

That's why these systems disable when you don't have your hands on the steering wheel. It's not a strong pull, if it's defeating you for steering control, you're asleep anyways....

My partner and I went out west last summer to Montana and did some light off roading/backwoods camping. We rented a 4Runner and while not quite self steering, it did come equipped with the active traction control, dynamic suspension, and descent control. Being a firm Luddite in my automotive habits, I was surprised at how much I appreciated these. Not sure I have the courage yet to trust a self-steerer, but I'm sure the day will come soon when I don't have an option. 

In reply to accordionfolder :

Not based on the descriptions I've read, including the one I quoted. My objection isn't that they turn off when you're not making inputs, it's that they don't turn off when you ARE making inputs. Clearly since 11GTCS is still here and not describing the crash, he won the battle with the steering, but the fact that it continued to try for its own inputs rather than just ceding control quickly... Gah.

The nominal goal is to allow the driver to pay less attention and/or help make up for attention deficit. If it's actively working against someone who's making specific inputs, that strikes me as bad.

It's a moot point; they're here, they're not going anywhere, hopefully they're going to improve (and I'm sure they will). I shouldn't have posted anything, as my desire to not deal with the current generation has already been recorded in the forum, so... I'm really not contributing anything. Sorry.

The lane keeping system in the Volvos we have works fine... I just think they're kind of pointless.  If I actually have to drive anyway, I might as well just drive and not have to quibble with the car about it.  Also, a lot of our roads around here are somewhat curvy but narrow 2-lane blacktop with markings, and it gets grumpy when you shave the apexes a little.  But the system does competently function as intended.

The adaptive cruise control, OTOH, I love.  I hate regular dumb fixed-speed cruise control because if there are more than 2 cars in any given mile of roadway, it is effectively useless.  You will always get trapped behind one car while waiting for the other car that is in your blind spot to finally pass you both at a delta-V of 1 mph.  So you basically end up regulating your speed by canceling and reinstating the cruise incessantly.

With the radar cruise, though, you just have spend a little attention making sure you're not blindly following somebody going a lot slower than your set point.

The Volvos have a nice feature that prevents the radar cruise from backing off the throttle if you signal for a lane change as you come up behind slower traffic.  That lets you keep a comfortable following distance set but crowd it a little and maintain momentum as you make the pass.

In reply to (Jesse) Ransom :

Go try one.  They are not intrusive and the first time you experience them in that particular state, it's no worse than feeling the steering tighten up one way or another based on the road.

In reply to (Jesse) Ransom :

Not trying to sway you either way, just noting that I don't think they could be a danger unless you're not paying attention or not holding on (both cases you're already more dangerous than the system). On my car at least it's very easy to turn off though, a single dedicated button - so that's nice for the people that don't like it. Also note-worthy, on the 2018 I have, it has 3 levels of assist. The lightest is barely noticeable, I keep mine on the heaviest.

The nannies already saved this moron once though, the auto braking saved me when someone swerved at me from the left (he was texting) and I lingered looking his way for a breath when the car in front of me decided to turn right. The Mazda saved my ass from rear ending the guy.

Part of it is letting it do it's job enough that you understand what it's trying to do. The Toyota system (in this car anyway) wants to keep you exactly in the center of the lane. I tend to drive over to the right a bit. If I insist on being in the lane where I would usually be, then I'm fighting it, if I let it do it's job, then it's damn good. It makes choices about 95% of how I do. Reminds me of driving with a solid teen driver to be honest. They're not unsafe, but not necessarily doing what I'm doing after 25 years behind the wheel.

If you want to take it to the next level check out https://comma.ai/

Its a plug in device that gives Tesla like self driving capabilities.