Pre-Purchase Questions - Cruise Control, Headlamps

[David T in Silicon Valley]

From my experience, the left paddle is not active when SCC is engaged. In fact, I get an error message on the middle screen saying something to the effect of, "This feature not available when cruise control is active."

Yes! That happened to me today. Scary. Used the brake. I was confusing it with the auto regen setting. I also heard the chime after an SCC stop and saw the instrument panel tell me to toggle the cruise control lever to resume or use the accelerator. The SCC is a bit too aggressive for my taste, accelerating hard to get back to speed and hitting the brake pretty hard (I am sure this was not a regen setting, but maybe regen was used in parallel) rather than gradually applying it, I suppose for safety, but I did notice my efficiency to be much lower in SCC.

The manual talks about SCC sensitivity settings:

• Slow: Vehicle speed to the vehicle ahead to maintain the set distance is slower than the normal speed
• Normal: Vehicle speed to the vehicle ahead to maintain the set distance is normal
  
• Fast: Vehicle speed to the vehicle ahead to maintain the set distance is faster than the normal speed

Are they talking about acceleration to match speeds ? As it is written it is not clear. Have you played with this setting?

 

[niro525]

The SCC is a bit too aggressive for my taste, accelerating hard to get back to speed and hitting the brake pretty hard

The manual talks about SCC sensitivity settings:

Are they talking about acceleration to match speeds ? As it is written it is not clear. Have you played with this setting?

My wife had the same comment about the aggressive SCC acceleration the other day. Thank you for reminding me about this setting. I will change it today, see how the drive feels and report back.

 

[niro525]

The manual talks about SCC sensitivity settings:

Are they talking about acceleration to match speeds ? As it is written it is not clear. Have you played with this setting?

Tested the SCC settings today. My test was on the freeway between 65-75mph. The settings impact how much acceleration and deceleration the SCC uses to get to the smart cruise control speed.


Slow: Gently and gradually speeds up and slows down. Feels like a comfortable drive with a comfortable slowing distance. Basically feels like a defensive driver or EV driver saving on battery. I preferred this mode.

Normal: Moderate acceleration and deceleration to catch up or slow down to the car in front. Comfortable enough. If the speed is set higher than the current speed, it can feel a little too zoomy when the car in front merged out of your lane and the Niro accelerates to catch up to the next car in front. Deceleration feels appropriate. It's normal.

Fast: Jolty. Extremly petal to the metal acceleration from SCC. Merging the Niro to the fast lane, the acceleration feels appropriate for passing someone. I felt I was thrown back into my seat during acceleration. Not as much as Sport Mode, but on par with stepping on it in Normal Mode. Coming up to slower cars, the Niro's SCC decelerated rapidly. It felt like a safe slow down to match the car in front. Not physically comfortable for me, but performed safely. Feels like Normal to Aggressive on the Driving Style menu. I will not use the Fast SCC setting.

 

[David T in Silicon Valley]

Thanks for your detailed notes. They are consistent with my casual observations. I felt like in fast it was using the brake, and not just the regenerative braking to slow down. I also prefer the slow mode.

In general, I feel like SCC is less power efficient than manual driving. I wonder if it is more frequently accelerating and then using regen to tweak the speed back down.