Low speed follow--Have you used it much?

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Rob_v1

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Having only tried low speed follow during my initial test drive at a dealer, I haven't had a chance to try it since getting the car. But I didn't like what I experienced when I did try it out. It tended to slow down or stop too abruptly, obviously distressing the driver following our car. I found myself fighting the feature by feathering the throttle, bringing criticism from the salesman. I just didn't want to be rear-ended.

Some questions:
1. Is this about what you've experienced?
2. Does adjusting following distance mitigate the deceleration rate? i.e., if I change following distance to "extra long," does that help prevent sudden slow-downs?
3. Is this behavior just part of overall ACC characteristics? I think some have said that ACC slows down too abruptly.

Thanks!
 
I quit using it. Too erratic for comfort. Maybe it would be more useful in stop and go freeway traffic, but not so much in city driving with red lights and stop signs.
 
When I first tried it, it seemed to work well but I think I had the following distance set long. A few days ago when I tried it again, I had the distance set to 1 bar under the car icon and it did decelerate way to hard.
 
I've used it for stop and go traffic. Works well for me at one bar, though acceleration and braking is a bit more abrupt than I would do manually. However, too gradual of an acceleration and braking would cause the person behind too honk at me or someone to cut in front of me.

Be aware that this system isn't recommended for normal driving on local streets, as there is the danger of someone forgetting that they need to brake manually at a stop sign or traffic light.
 
I agree with others. It brakes too hard, accelerates to slow. Honda needs to tweak the algorithms and give us an update.
 
I only tried it on the freeway, with stop-and-go traffic. Didn't try different following distances, except for normal ACC driving at higher speeds. It did seem as though it ignored slowing traffic until reaching the preset distance limit, at which point it abruptly slowed.
 
I find it works well in the middle distance setting and normal, not Econ mode. In Econ mode it does not keep up enough when the car in front accelerates.
 
I now consider most of the Honda Sense features to be like toys for people like me who like to fiddle and play.

- Lane Keep Assist: Doesn't handle curves except for the slightest radius.
- Lane Departure: Shaking wheel is a novelty but I've never noticed the car helping to put it back in the lane.
- Low Speed Follow: Brakes too hard. Accelerates too slowly. Requires input from me to get going again. Sometimes loses the car ahead and would happily slam into a stopped car ahead.
- High Speed Follow / Cruise: Works great for just following on a freeway. Does not handle changing lanes well at all. On curves it looses sight of the car ahead. It can also think an oncoming car, on a two lane road, is in my lane and break heavily.
- Brake Hold: The best feature of the bunch.

My wife doesn't use any of the features as they are too unreliable and unpredictable. The steering assist needs to be beefed up. It should allow hands-free driving on freeways. The whole system isn't smart enough.
I use all of the features as novelties.

Honda Sense is a big disappointment to me. I still really like the car though for it's quiet ride, EV all the time for us except on occasional trips, comfort, smooth acceleration, and tech features.
 
I still get a kick out of lane keep assist on the highway. I find myself cheering the car along through curves and let out a cheer when it makes it without me touching the wheel. I'm a dork.

But I get mad at adaptive cruise when it slows down behind a car going like 5 mph slower than me and I don't notice it for a few miles because it is so subtle. I could have passed that car a long time ago if I had been paying attention!

I totally agree that Brake Hold is the best.

I doubt my wife uses any of them.
 
loomis2 said:
I still get a kick out of lane keep assist on the highway. I find myself cheering the car along through curves and let out a cheer when it makes it without me touching the wheel. I'm a dork.

But I get mad at adaptive cruise when it slows down behind a car going like 5 mph slower than me and I don't notice it for a few miles because it is so subtle. I could have passed that car a long time ago if I had been paying attention!

I totally agree that Brake Hold is the best.

I doubt my wife uses any of them.
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I don't know, my experience with Lane Keep is the same as jdonald's. I would never describe it as even a remotely 'self-driving' feature. Then we have the lane departure that simply gives you a tactile alert that you're drifting out of the lane. It just doesn't steer you back.

These things don't bother me, since I never expected them to behave anything like my Tesla's self-driving feature.
 
I think the lane assist is fun. It works so much better than my previous 2014 Avalon, so I may be prejudiced toward it. It seems to hold the road on most of the winding roads I travel. It does weave a bit, but usually finds the center without my input. I agree that it is not fully self-driving, but it doesn't claim to be. Again, I probably have set the bar low due to my previous experience.
 
Can someone compare Honda Sensing and Subaru EyeSight adaptive cruise control? I ask because I own a '16 Subaru Outback and I've liked the ACC feature so much that I now refuse to purchase a car without ACC that doesn't work well. I use EyeSight during stop-and-go rush hour traffic on the freeway and it does an admirably smooth job of following the lead car. I also use it on long road trips and generally only have to touch the accelerator and brake a few times over a hundred miles of driving and only when there's a sudden slowdown or speedup or if I get cut off (CA freeway driving o_O). My main two complaints about EyeSight are that it's a bit slow to accelerate on all except the shortest following distance and that it's too slow to brake on the two shorter following distances when traffic suddenly slows from 70mph to 15mph (again, CA freeway driving o_O), but it's otherwise completely usable. From what I've read online about Honda Sensing on previous generation Hondas, it seems that acceleration and braking is too abrupt and almost unusable in moderate to heavy traffic, out of fear of being rear ended or scaring the passengers. I'd love to hear your comments on whether Honda addressed these issues on the Clarity, because the Clarity is one of the cars I'm considering due to the Model 3 delay.
 
jdonalds said:
I now consider most of the Honda Sense features to be like toys for people like me who like to fiddle and play.

- Lane Keep Assist: Doesn't handle curves except for the slightest radius.
- Lane Departure: Shaking wheel is a novelty but I've never noticed the car helping to put it back in the lane.
- Low Speed Follow: Brakes too hard. Accelerates too slowly. Requires input from me to get going again. Sometimes loses the car ahead and would happily slam into a stopped car ahead.
- High Speed Follow / Cruise: Works great for just following on a freeway. Does not handle changing lanes well at all. On curves it looses sight of the car ahead. It can also think an oncoming car, on a two lane road, is in my lane and break heavily.
- Brake Hold: The best feature of the bunch.

My wife doesn't use any of the features as they are too unreliable and unpredictable. The steering assist needs to be beefed up. It should allow hands-free driving on freeways. The whole system isn't smart enough.
I use all of the features as novelties.

Honda Sense is a big disappointment to me. I still really like the car though for it's quiet ride, EV all the time for us except on occasional trips, comfort, smooth acceleration, and tech features.
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I agree - I think Honda needs to tweak all those features you mentioned. Hopefully, the next generation those features will be improved upon. THe only time I use adaptive cruise with LKAS is on long distance freeway driving. That was one of the few reasons I purchased the car. I drive from Palm Springs to LA about twice/week and it does make the drive somewhat easier. But I really have to be alert because as you stated, those features are unreliable and unpredictable.
 
David L said:
Can someone compare Honda Sensing and Subaru EyeSight adaptive cruise control? I ask because I own a '16 Subaru Outback and I've liked the ACC feature so much that I now refuse to purchase a car without ACC that doesn't work well. I use EyeSight during stop-and-go rush hour traffic on the freeway and it does an admirably smooth job of following the lead car. I also use it on long road trips and generally only have to touch the accelerator and brake a few times over a hundred miles of driving and only when there's a sudden slowdown or speedup or if I get cut off (CA freeway driving o_O). My main two complaints about EyeSight are that it's a bit slow to accelerate on all except the shortest following distance and that it's too slow to brake on the two shorter following distances when traffic suddenly slows from 70mph to 15mph (again, CA freeway driving o_O), but it's otherwise completely usable. From what I've read online about Honda Sensing on previous generation Hondas, it seems that acceleration and braking is too abrupt and almost unusable in moderate to heavy traffic, out of fear of being rear ended or scaring the passengers. I'd love to hear your comments on whether Honda addressed these issues on the Clarity, because the Clarity is one of the cars I'm considering due to the Model 3 delay.
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Acceleration from a stop is slow to start but I usually bypass that by hitting the gas pedal. Deceleration can be unpredictable especially if someone cuts in front of you. Nothing is perfect yet with any of these features. However, if you learn it's limitations you can adjust your driving habits. It's better than not having the features at all.
 
Initially, I did not like using this feature because it breaks hard and is slow to accelerate when the car in front moves. However, I have found that at speeds less than 10 mph, no more than 15 mph, this becomes very useful to give yourself a break to stretch in heavy traffic. How hard the car breaks is proportional to how fast the car is moving. Therefore at very low speeds the breaking is not as aggressive.
 
David L said:
Can someone compare Honda Sensing and Subaru EyeSight adaptive cruise control?
Click to expand...

Honda had a Clarity driving event in La Jolla yesterday, so I went for a test drive to experience the ACC myself. I drove for about 15 minutes on La Jolla Village Dr., which is a major surface street with a 45mph speed limit. I set the Clarity to normal driving mode. When starting from a stop, the Clarity began to accelerate once the lead car had moved a reasonable distance; but once the lead car pulled away, it continued to accelerate very slowly regardless of which distance setting I had set. I'd say 1-bar on the Clarity accelerates more slowly than 4-bar (max) on the Outback.

I also had a chance to try a few different braking scenarios.
(1) When braking when the lead car is fairly close, it did just fine. I think I was on two bars.
(2) When approaching a distant stopped car at a slow speed (~10mph), the collision mitigation braking system (CMBS) kicked it. Aside from that, it did just fine, so Honda should reprogram their UI to not flash the CMBS alert.
(3) When approaching a distant stopped car at a moderate speed (~20mph), the Clarity failed to initiate braking at a safe distance. I manually hit the brakes. This is a scenario that the Outback would have handled just fine in any distance setting.
(4) When a car cut in between the lead car and the Clarity with very little following distance (I considered it to be an unsafe lane change), CMBS kicked in. Aside from that, it did about as well as the Outback, which is that it applied the brakes, but later than I would have preferred.
Overall, I felt like the Clarity ACC required too much intervention. Therefore, it's best used on the highway in light traffic conditions, when most cars are driving at the similar speeds, or in dense stop and go traffic, when the lead car is close and driving at a similar speed.

Aside from ACC, the car drove well and would be an excellent highway cruiser or a road trip car. It was quiet and smooth. I couldn't tell when the engine was on or off without looking at the dash, and blending of the regenerative and friction brakes was prefect.
 
David L said:
Honda had a Clarity driving event in La Jolla yesterday, so I went for a test drive to experience the ACC myself. I drove for about 15 minutes on La Jolla Village Dr., which is a major surface street with a 45mph speed limit. I set the Clarity to normal driving mode. When starting from a stop, the Clarity began to accelerate once the lead car had moved a reasonable distance; but once the lead car pulled away, it continued to accelerate very slowly regardless of which distance setting I had set. I'd say 1-bar on the Clarity accelerates more slowly than 4-bar (max) on the Outback.

I also had a chance to try a few different braking scenarios.
(1) When braking when the lead car is fairly close, it did just fine. I think I was on two bars.
(2) When approaching a distant stopped car at a slow speed (~10mph), the collision mitigation braking system (CMBS) kicked it. Aside from that, it did just fine, so Honda should reprogram their UI to not flash the CMBS alert.
(3) When approaching a distant stopped car at a moderate speed (~20mph), the Clarity failed to initiate braking at a safe distance. I manually hit the brakes. This is a scenario that the Outback would have handled just fine in any distance setting.
(4) When a car cut in between the lead car and the Clarity with very little following distance (I considered it to be an unsafe lane change), CMBS kicked in. Aside from that, it did about as well as the Outback, which is that it applied the brakes, but later than I would have preferred.
Overall, I felt like the Clarity ACC required too much intervention. Therefore, it's best used on the highway in light traffic conditions, when most cars are driving at the similar speeds, or in dense stop and go traffic, when the lead car is close and driving at a similar speed.

Aside from ACC, the car drove well and would be an excellent highway cruiser or a road trip car. It was quiet and smooth. I couldn't tell when the engine was on or off without looking at the dash, and blending of the regenerative and friction brakes was prefect.
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Great review. I agree with your description of the Honda Sense on the Clarity. It’s not bad, but an update would be terrific.



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