I mean, you are 100% still the driver. Expecting to not have to pay attention is 100% your own fault here. The system greatly takes away the fatigue of a long trip, but at not point should you not be aware of the situation. Even after you grow to trust the system, you still have to be mindful of areas you know darn well it's going to get thrown off. I use it all the time, but I never let it "drive itself". It just takes away from 95% of the effort I need.

 

I am on the fence here. Adaptive cruise control is awesome. And, even without pilot assist, you still get that "nudge" from the lane-keep-assist. I trust it, in all conditions, and it has never failed me (although it has scared me once or twice with late braking - I have learns to keep it at 2-3 cars distance setting).

Pilot assist - on one side, I think there are some really nasty features. The fact that it can disengage all of a sudden, without notification (or no audio, at least), in the middle of a turn... I had a couple of instances in which it led to some dicey situations, despite me having both hands of the wheel and looking at the road. The typical scenarios is, you are in the middle of a turn, it disengages, the car goes straight, you get scared and risk overcorrecting.... And I had one or two instances in which the car decided to hit an exit instead of following the road, which also can lead to some panicky last-minute corrections...

On the other side, I fully agree with DFrantz. Despite what I wrote above, and despite my misgivings.... I keep using it. I drove 958 miles on a trip last week, most of it with PA on. I got to destination a lot more relaxed and fresh than with any other vehicle I have ever driven. It really does allow for a more relaxed driving experience. When it does not attempt to murder you, that is.

 

Even at Level 4 autonomy (which Volvo's current generation PA isn't), I wouldn't assume it can drive without intervention under the very conditions it is designed to operate "autonomously" in. I think most responders here agree that it does help with long trips, and I can count myself as one of them having had covered a little over 2500 miles in 5 nights a few years ago with PA on for a good amount of time.

Without PA, a road with sharper consecutive turns require more energy than one with less. With PA, I think it feels like a fraction of those turns are "straightened" so we only need to put slight nudges here and there. Maybe a good analogy is those trainer cars that come with 2 steering wheels, and your teenage kid is doing the driving. Every once in a while, you'd nudge the steering wheel a bit or add a tad more pressure on the 2nd brake pedal. Their choice of taking the line when the road curves may not be the same as what you prefer, and they may change lanes for unknown reasons.

Pilot assist - on one side, I think there are some really nasty features. The fact that it can disengage all of a sudden, without notification (or no audio, at least), in the middle of a turn... I had a couple of instances in which it led to some dicey situations, despite me having both hands of the wheel and looking at the road.

I thought the last time I used PA on my SPA xc90 sometime 1-2 weeks ago, the steering wheel transmitted a brief tactile feel. I don't recall if it was a very long vibration, but long enough for me to notice and see that the dashboard's green steering wheel disappeared. I thought that was nice instead of a loud beep or something more noticeable for the rest of the occupants.

 

The system is good BUT you do have to be careful...expecially around sharp turns or at fast speeds. AND, if the road markings are not good on a curve...guess what???

 

The places I most frequently need to retake control are driving in the right lane (my typical - doing the speed limit can piss some people off) and skipping exits where it wants to follow the exit. Driving nearer the left lane markers seems to help - it almost feels like if you're nearer the fog line it figures that you want to follow that. It's worst, at least for me, if the exit is on the inside of a curve as I typically stay closer to the inside.

Ended up doing ~320 miles yesterday and the vast majority was using pilot assist. I love it and the adaptive cruise control - they work well for me but force me to stay engaged enough to be safe in a car that isn't supposed to be self-driving.

I haven't had issues with shadows or fading light. Unclear lane markings will have it "shaking it's head" - vibrating the steering wheel - to tell me to take over, as can long off/on ramps that cut off the fog line.

 

I love pilot assist but it does take practice to learn the scenarios where it needs more help V’s others. I use it religiously on my straight aways and vast expanses of I-25 in Wyoming and 70 in Colorado west of the mountain towns and out in the plains. But I do pay attention always and in curves and barely trust it. I let jt run in hwy curves but almost always give steering more correction than PA would otherwise. You always have to watch free way exits when there is not car in front of you. Seems to want to exit on its own fairly often. Every scenario is different, and I’m not sure lane makes much difference. I have always attributed the one off weird reactions it sometimes does to lack of car in front, sun glare, poor lane markings etc. I barely use it in urban areas except for stop and go traffic for reasons above

 

@DFrantz - to be clear, I did not release control to vehicle 100%, I had hands on the wheel (lightly) to take over safely if needed. My observation/question was more around understanding the way the system works w/ merging lanes etc. @ptpatrick - good feedback RE: it liking a vehicle in front of it to work optimally.

Yeah... I do not plan on using this as a Tesla but just got it and wanted to see how it behaved.

I appreciate both of your feedback.

 

There is no safe way to use this thing. It works 99% of the time. But it would kill you once every 100 miles, at least, if you don't pay attention...

Jokes aside, a lot of it depends on road markings quality and traffic. It works a lot better when there is a car in front of you. But on empty roads here in the Midwest, with poor road markings and inconsistent lines, there is no safe lane. It really hates any exits that interrupt lines (it will try to exit). So the right lane is probably the most dangerous.

 

There is no safe way to use this thing. It works 99% of the time. But it would kill you once every 100 miles, at least, if you don't pay attention...

Jokes aside, a lot of it depends on road markings quality and traffic. It works a lot better when there is a car in front of you. But on empty roads here in the Midwest, with poor road markings and inconsistent lines, there is no safe lane. It really hates any exits that interrupt lines (it will try to exit). So the right lane is probably the most dangerous.

I guess if i want true self driving... TESLA lol.

 

It's not supposed to release you from driving responsibilities at all... so to say it's unsafe is to misunderstand the system (maybe your salesperson over sold it to you). It cuts down greatly on fatigue, and to use your numbers, 99% of the time it helps if you aren't being a perfect driver (something I know I'm not far too often).

 

I hear you loud and clear!

Aside from Pilot Assist, do you find the adaptive cruise control (just keeping you @ speed stopping is more reliable/safe to allow/trust the car? I could see that being very useful to have it slow you down to a stop while driving (both freeway/city street) assuming someone is in front of me.

Have you had more reliable experience w/ Adaptive Cruise?

 

I love it personally. On back roads I set a long gap, and on highways its close as possible. I use it to follow my daughters bus in the morning and let it come to a full stop for me (again I find it works best here at long gap). I find on the highway it's great for sun blindness, heavy rains, and just general moderate congestion in my area. I use it for stop and go as well. One "not how it's intended" use I found is for merging. I have an on ramp that is upward and coming off a curve of the highway. You have to look over your shoulder to see if someone is coming as the mirrors aren't commonly able to see the highway. I toss the adaptive cruise on and pump it quickly up to max speed while looking... that way if the car in front of me unexpectedly slows/stops, the car is my extra set of eyes. It's a bit of a "high level" maneuver, and probably goes against my earlier two rants on this thread... but IMO it's still safer than just looking over my shoulder and hoping the car in front of me doesn't stop. I can't say I've ever had the adaptive portion not work... but for me, it's all about pilot assist... That's what makes the system worthwhile for me for the mindless commute.

 

great to hear... i did have a pucker moment today trying the adaptive (with pilot assist off) in that I was approaching a red light and i didn't sense the car stopping (i was set at widest gap) so i took over... I turned ACC off and on again and then on the next one it worked just fine... probably something i did wrong...

When you come to a full stop, it disengages teh ACC right? You then have to tap on the gas pedal and it will re-engage auto or you need to set it again?

I feel like the ACC would probably get used more by me with the driving conditions i'm in but i really love it.

 

ACC is not supposed to work with static objects. So it hates parked cars. But, to be honest, I have played around with it a lot - and it ALWAYS stops on time. It often feels like it won't, and it can lead to some scary moments if you refuse to take over, but it does stop. Yet, it brakes VERY late on stopped traffic.

No, it does not disengage. For a short stop (less than 20 seconds, I think), it should re-engage. For a longer stop, you can just press "arrow up" on the left controls of the wheel for the car to start going again, if there is a car in front. If there is no car in front, you have to re-engage. But the "arrow up" trick is often lost on people.

 

I totally agree with DFrantz. Pilot Assist "assists". It's not meant to drive the car unattended. Ultimately, it's just a driver aid meant to assist the driver, reduce driver fatigue and mitigate risk. Glad that your hands were on the wheel. I very much like Volvo's pilot assist feature, and it's helped me to greatly reduce driver fatigue while on several 5+ hour, 260+ mile trips to New England.

Particularly in construction site areas (the picture you provided, with the sudden dark road surface appearing during a bend in the road) and/or during inclement weather, pilot-assist will probably run into problems. My V90's owner's manual, in the pilot-assist area, states: "When the vehicle is approaching an offramp or a fork in the road, the driver
should steer toward the desired lane to indicate to Pilot Assist the desired direction of travel."

The owner's manual also states the following:

 

Driver must monitor road condition and take action before anything beyond capability of PA, including and not limited to:

unclear lane mark
lane revising
construction zone
merging
forking
road barriers
sunlight in front
bright cement road surface
shades on road
...

These are easy for human to detect and handle, so please use your wisdom before unsafe situation happens.


Sent from my Z978 using Tapatalk

 

thanks everyone!!! this is great feedback and good to know.

 

Pilot Assist, Lane Keep Aid, etc are merely support systems. I detest Volvo's Marketing campaign on Pilot Assist where a man reads the newspaper. While I do not have a vehicle with this feature, it's wreckless and irresponsible to market the technology as a supplement for attentiveness.

 

When you stop for more than 3 seconds it requires you to tap the gas pedal, for brief stops it will continue forward on its own, or at your pedal tap.

 

Thanks for the reply, I'm really starting to fall in love with it... i find my foot is less tired keeping it at a 45 degree angle...

 

The marketing ad was not for the current generation of pilot assist... it is for the future of autonomy.. but assuming people are smart enough to know that might have been their mistake... I've had a few people call and ask about it after seeing some of the promotional films.

 

Just because people have money, doesn't always mean they have brains....One should never assume, because some people take promotional advertising literally.

I hope when people called, you explained how the system truly works and current limitations.

 

It really depends on road conditions and time of day. Mostly middle or left lane on a highway. Left lane on a 4 lane road. Sometimes it’s just best to turn it off and use ACC like going through a construction zone.

 

Pilot Assist (PA) I believe is Level 2 autonomy so hope folks don't expect too much. In fact, there are zero (yes, 0) cars available right now that are Level 3 or above. Tesla is still Level 2 (and kickin arse no less), no matter the noise out there . . .

For some reason (calibration?) my PA loves the left side of the lane so I find PA works best in the leftmost lane as it keeps maximum side-side distance from cars in the lane to the right. Sharp curves and merging leaves something to be desired.

But I enjoy PA on long drives as it definitely helps relieve some of the routine, non-emergency stuff.

I hypermile most of the time because I've read here that ACC (& PA too?) applies brakes as speed correction (not talking about avoiding objects) which defeats my hypermiling intent and find hypermiling lowers my stress levels significantly!

 

You can also just press the resume button on the wheel if your feet are tired after the 3-5s stop.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

In my experience so far I have enjoyed using PA. I've ridden in plenty of Teslas and I didn't expect the Volvo PA to really compare...I think that it actually does. Tesla (for the worse IMO) lets you get away with less attentiveness where I feel like the Volvo gets on you pretty quickly if you aren't moving or gripping the wheel.

I only ever use PA if I am on long drives where I am usually sitting in the fast lane (not the passing lane). So that's the lane second furthest to the left. I do think it prefers the driver side and fades a bit into turns so I am often giving it little tweaks whenever I don't agree with it's line, regardless of whether it would have made the turn or not.

I definitely get nervous around any merging and so will often just take over in those moments. Again this is rare since I am usually further to the left and if I am entering or exiting the freeway then I am taking control anyways.

 

Looking at the photo you posted I can see why it happened. Volvo Subaru Toyota and Hyundai I’ve owned has pa. They need to see the lines. I’m guessing it lost the left line and went to split the width. Poorly painted lines is a bad recipe. Volvo and Hyundai system is better than Toyota and Subaru out of my cars. I’ve driven 6500 miles using the system over the summer. There are def some short comings but overall quite good.

 

Do you find there is a best practice/safest lane to use on the freeway with Pilot Assist?

I had a very scary experience happen yesterday in the slow lane, there was an interchange w/ lane merge to my right and in Pilot Assist mode the car wanted to pull me right into the shoulder/crash.

I was maintaining hand position to take over should something like this happen (and the car not auto correct) which I had to take over.

After this experience, I do not feel safe using this feature in a lane that has any sort of shoulder/merge as i feel the computer can't figure out what to do.

Do you only use Pilot Assist in middle lanes?

Thanks!!

How about actually driving instead of relying on the car to do it for you?

 

1) I like adaptive cruise control quite a bit, though it is a little annoying when the surface of the road is rough with ruts or potholes and I want to move aside and it wants to stay on the bad pavement. Especially with a V60 Polestar, I avoid the rough surfaces. I leave the distance spacing at moderate to far.

2) Pilot Assist is, IMHO, extremely prone to inducing driver overconfidence. I have started using it on rural stretches of interstate highways, where I tend to snack and spend more time looking at the scenery. It helps maintain lane in that circumstance. I do not trust it (nor ACC) in areas where there is construction or the lines on the pavement aren't clear and distinct. I watch the little lane-observing indicator on the top of the dash vigilantly, make sure it is monitoring the lanes and when it's turning itself on and off.

3) Personally, I think relying on any of these tools, in their current incarnation, in congested or urban roads is setting yourself up to find out how well your Volvo's impact absorbing technology is able to save your life. Pardon me for saying so, but merging onto a highway and relying on ACC to prevent running into someone's back end while looking behind for a place to merge is incredibly bad driving technique that reflects weak insight on the need for drivers to maintain situational awareness. The computer cannot do that for the driver, though it has the advantage of A) being replaceable, B) not feeling chronic pain, or C) not having relatives who will miss it.

 

Whenever you are approaching any curve, you have to be mindful that the PA might fail. So I never take my hands off the wheel on curves for that matter. As a matter of fact, never to take them off any time. Maybe just to show it might work on straight highways is the only time I might take hands off. Just be mindful it is an ASSIST only. Know the limit and drive safely. It does take a lot of fatigue off especially for long rides.

 

I agree with all the comments about the road markers (lines of paint separating the lanes). On Interstate highways I have noticed that many states are painting dotted lines across the exit lanes; I think this is because automated driving will require constant lane markers to avoid the steering computers attempting trying to "center the vehicle in the lane" when it believes that the lane getting wider, when it is just the markers that have vanished.