Why are manufacturers promoting this? It seems like a massive liability.
Taking your hands off the wheel lends itself very nicely to many forms of distraction.
A lot of the user functionality of these large gps/info screens is disabled while the vehicle is in motion.....ostensibly to reduce distracted driving. Hands free driving doesn't seem like it would be that big of a selling point either. So why the huge liability for seemingly very little return?

There are cameras watching the driver, if the driver's eyes aren't on the road, the vehicle will raise hell until the driver looks up.

because they want to take advantage of the tesla cool factor

Big brother is watching you!

Think of all the children saved from rollover crashes on the way to daycare when their mothers are late to work and applying mascara while they drive.

but I can finally safely sing Queen while I'm driving now!!

How else are you going to get people to pay $80k for a truck when the base model has a $35k MSRP?

It makes it much easier to eat on the go

I start "hands free" mode on my Ford truck and often it quickly tells me to put my bands on the steering wheel. But.....not always

I don't trust any of the new tech on these vehicles. My super duty has collision assist and it drives me freaking crazy. If you're at a stop and start creeping up toward the car in front of you, the effing thing slams on the brakes, starts making all this racket and won't let you move for about ten seconds. Had to turn it off.

Cruise control in stop & go traffic is awesome.

We bought my wife a 2022 Highlander Hybrid Platinum yesterday and drove it four hours home from Houston last night. I didn't realize it had radar cruise and lane centering capability until we were on the road.

Overall, it's pretty cool, but far from "hands free". For one you have to keep your hand on the wheel to use lane centering and it will beep at you if you don't keep enough pressure. It also will turn off if you're going through a relatively high speed sharp sweeping turn. It gets confused when the right line disappears when there's a turn lane and tries to center between the left line and the turn lane far line. So you have to pay attention and correct it when it does something wrong. It only works when cruise control is on. It's nice for cruising down interstate style roads where it lets you relax a little by not having to keep the car centered between lines, but that's about it. It's not as capable as an autopilot equipped Tesla I demoed several years ago.

The radar cruise worked flawlessly, but sometimes I forget about it and then realize I'm going well below the speed limit because the car in front of me is slow. When you change lanes, it's pedal to the metal which isn't ideal in high traffic. It helps that the hybrid Highlander is really slow.

We've got a long way to go, but I hope we have reliable and safe full self driving by the time my 9 year old daughter gets her DL.

I've used Blue Cruise in mine occasionally but find it a little unnerving when I'm doing 75 or more on the interstate and passing an 18 wheeler. What's it going to do if the 18 wheeler weaves into my lane? I'm thinking I'm going to try it in stop and go traffic to see what it does. Overall, i think it's more of novelty though than a particularly useful feature.

maverick12 said:

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I've used Blue Cruise in mine occasionally but find it a little unnerving when I'm doing 75 or more on the interstate and passing an 18 wheeler. What's it going to do if the 18 wheeler weaves into my lane? I'm thinking I'm going to try it in stop and go traffic to see what it does. Overall, i think it's more of novelty though than a particularly useful feature.

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I think the ideal use case is interstate driving where there's no oncoming traffic worry about. Even then all it's really going to do, is allow you a tiny bit of relaxation since you don't have to keep the vehicle centered in the lane. You still have to closely monitor what it's doing and anticipate road changes that will throw it for a loop.

True, but since you don't exactly know what will confuse it, how relaxing is it really?

I think I like adaptive cruise control. At least in my cars. Have used it in some rental where it really really sucked. Interesting how different the quality of the tech is between models. Had a yukon rental that the farthest space setting between cars was pretty much in the trunk of the car ahead. And, as someone said earlier, it was pedal to the metal to get there if you let it.

Interestingly while, I like the cruise on our Infinitis, I hate the lane centering. It is constantly trying to correct and literally makes me seasick. So that stays off.

Personally, I think the hands free is a gimmick that will fade. There is not really a point in having it if you have to watch the road, except for air musical instrument playing and eating I guess. It seems like a huge liability for the manufacturers that serves no point other than advertising.

Before screens, I'd learn where all the knobs were on my vehicle, and could do anything without looking. Change the channel, adjust the air, etc etc. I'm sure most of you are the same.

But now Im forced to look at the screen to change the channel, etc.

It will always seem odd to me, that they banned holding a cell phone while talking to my wife in the car. But they've installed [distracting] ipads onto everyone's dash.

This is why I liked my Blackberry with real buttons. I could easily text and email while driving.

All of these tech gizmos in cars are steadily making people worse at driving. Is it a bad thing overall? I can't decide that, but for me, I LIKE driving. I'm into it and I study it. The last thing I want is the car to do it for me. In my case that extends to ABS, Traction control, anything that automatically applies the brakes, etc.

Radar based cruise control is awesome though.

Absolute said:

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True, but since you don't exactly know what will confuse it, how relaxing is it really?

I think I like adaptive cruise control. At least in my cars. Have used it in some rental where it really really sucked. Interesting how different the quality of the tech is between models. Had a yukon rental that the farthest space setting between cars was pretty much in the trunk of the car ahead. And, as someone said earlier, it was pedal to the metal to get there if you let it.

Interestingly while, I like the cruise on our Infinitis, I hate the lane centering. It is constantly trying to correct and literally makes me seasick. So that stays off.

Personally, I think the hands free is a gimmick that will fade. There is not really a point in having it if you have to watch the road, except for air musical instrument playing and eating I guess. It seems like a huge liability for the manufacturers that serves no point other than advertising.

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I don't think there is a lot of difference, but in the road trip down interstate scenario, I think it can take slight workload off that can make a difference when you're driving for hours on end and tired. You're having to watch for things that will throw the system off (like exits where the right white line disappears) and you're having to keep your hand on the wheel, but you're not having to constantly compute and input steering corrections (even if you do those unconsciously).