Does Driver+ (Self Drive) Work?

[SeaGeo]

Sure they do. Here is a screenshot.

You probably won't believe me, but I had been looking for that statement several times recently because that was what I had recalled at one point as well, and I kept looking in all of these tabs:

It's proof because Ford, Kia, Hyundai, and many more do NOT have that restriction as you just stayed. They allow lane centering on all roads with lane markings... Not just mapped roads.

You are trying to compare Driver+ mapping to Bluecruise mapping, but that's apples to oranges. Ford's Bluecruise mapping only applies to hands free driving. All of the other aspects of Ford's driver assistance system is available everywhere... Including the lane centering. What part of that do you not believe?

Rivian is truly one of the only companies limiting these features to mapped highways.

Rivian's functionality currently with how it performs is the same as Bluecruise except that Rivian *currently* requires you to literally just touch the wheel while your hand is on the steering wheel in most situations. Feedback shuts it off when you overrule it. The way the vehicle handles on the road and how it behaves when you provide input to the steering wheel is significantly different than how VW or Volvo or Ford handle lane centering when you aren't on a pre-mapped road with for example Bluecruise. I'd generally consider Bluecruise more advanced than basic lane centering that VW and Volvo are doing, and what Ford does when not on mapped roadways.

If you take Driver+ highway assist and rotate your hand position so that it's cupping your knee instead of the steering wheel, you have Bluecruise. Otherwise the two systems seem to have the same philosophical approach, and from what I've seen Bluecruise is inferior at handling curves. You said you want Driver+ to be hands free. So if they pushed and update tomorrow to say it's "hands free" they'd have skipped what's basically advanced lane keep assist for bluecruise, which Ford has only just very recently actually rolled out.

At which point, is Driver+ more advanced than systems that require frequent human correction and don't handle curves and exits as well? I have to correct the truck while it's on Driver+ very infrequently while driving. When using VW or Volvo's unmapped systems I have to provide very frequent minor tweaks to what the car is doing on curves (as an example). Those systems also feel rather suicidal when approaching slow vehicles, which driver+ handles significantly better in my experience. Or are the systems that don't have hands free driving more advanced because they require intervention but don't need mapping?

I just don't buy the logic that there are only two ways to measure the level of sophistication of a system, and that's whether the systems allows hands free and whether they rely on maps. That neglects all of the other performance aspects of the system overall by focusing on what is a safety decisions (have a hand at least on the wheel, and is likely temporary), and a philosophical decision to address the problem. The latter makes more sense from an evaluation standpoint, but there is still nuance that needs to play in there.

IMO a system that doesn't need mapping but drives like a drunk 6 year old isn't more advanced than a system that drives like a reasonably safe and competent driver but is limited to a reasonable number of specific roads.

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[ERguy]

You probably won't believe me, but I had been looking for that statement several times recently because that was what I had recalled at one point as well, and I kept looking in all of these tabs:

Rivian's functionality currently with how it performs is the same as Bluecruise except that Rivian *currently* requires you to literally just touch the wheel while your hand is on the steering wheel in most situations. Feedback shuts it off when you overrule it. The way the vehicle handles on the road and how it behaves when you provide input to the steering wheel is significantly different than how VW or Volvo or Ford handle lane centering when you aren't on a pre-mapped road with for example Bluecruise. I'd generally consider Bluecruise more advanced than basic lane centering that VW and Volvo are doing, and what Ford does when not on mapped roadways.

If you take Driver+ highway assist and rotate your hand position so that it's cupping your knee instead of the steering wheel, you have Bluecruise. Otherwise the two systems seem to have the same philosophical approach, and from what I've seen Bluecruise is inferior at handling curves. You said you want Driver+ to be hands free. So if they pushed and update tomorrow to say it's "hands free" they'd have skipped what's basically advanced lane keep assist for bluecruise, which Ford has only just very recently actually rolled out.

At which point, is Driver+ more advanced than systems that require frequent human correction and don't handle curves and exits as well? I have to correct the truck while it's on Driver+ very infrequently while driving. When using VW or Volvo's unmapped systems I have to provide very frequent minor tweaks to what the car is doing on curves (as an example). Those systems also feel rather suicidal when approaching slow vehicles, which driver+ handles significantly better in my experience. Or are the systems that don't have hands free driving more advanced because they require intervention but don't need mapping?

I just don't buy the logic that there are only two ways to measure the level of sophistication of a system, and that's whether the systems allows hands free and whether they rely on maps. That neglects all of the other performance aspects of the system overall by focusing on what is a safety decisions (have a hand at least on the wheel, and is likely temporary), and a philosophical decision to address the problem. The latter makes more sense from an evaluation standpoint, but there is still nuance that needs to play in there.

IMO a system that doesn't need mapping but drives like a drunk 6 year old isn't more advanced than a system that drives like a reasonably safe and competent driver but is limited to a reasonable number of specific roads.

You are having a very, very different experience with Ford than me. In my car, Ford's lane centering is exactly the same whether using Bluecruise or not... Except Bluecruise doesn't require you to touch the wheel. In my Mach E, the lane centering functions really well on on any marked road. I can drive down any city road, and my Mach E will center the car and navigate curves without any input as long as I touch the wheel a bit every now and then.

This is analogous to what Rivian is offering... Or at least trying to offer.

I also recently drive the EV6 and Ionic 5. They both had really good Kane centering on city streets. They both centered the car as they rounded curves. I did not need to provide any steering inputs other than the occasional movement every now and then to let the car know I was paying attention.

None of these cars required mapped highways to use their most advanced lance centering capabilities.

I think you should take Bluecruise out of the picture because it does not provide any more advanced driver assistance than what Ford offers without Bluecruise... It just takes away the requirement o touch the wheel. Rivian has no comparable product to Bluecruise because Rivian is not yet hands free; therefore there is no comparison between Bluecruise and Driver+. Driver+ is trying to offer what Ford does on regular roads, but Driver+ only allows it on select highways.

In fact, not only does the Mach E handle lane centering well, the driver can control where in the lane the car tracks. I can make it stay a little to the left, right in the middle, or a little to the right in any lane on any marked road.

Maybe your a right about Driver+ being better than some others... I've never used it. I can only kids Driver+ based on the features it offers at this point, which are very limited on most roads and require hands on the wheel even on mapped roads.

 

[VHRivian]

All of this conversation is great, but...

My biggest question is - How can they claim from day one that Driver + is a hands-free system and then have it not be a hands-free system? I don't even see a 'not yet available' disclaimer on the site.

By the time I get my 12/20 pre-order R1S in 2030 (or whatever) I'm sure it will be able to pass without intervention and I will be super happy.

 

[rodhx]

In fact, not only does the Mach E handle lane centering well, the driver can control where in the lane the car tracks. I can make it stay a little to the left, right in the middle, or a little to the right in any lane on any marked road.

This is the first time I've seen that claim. I've got 23k miles on my Mach E and have never seen the ability to control where in the lane the car "centers". Of course I can take control and move over a bit by hand but the car has always returned to its normal position when hands free. Most common in the Mach E world is the complaint the car rides too close to the right edge of the lane vs truly centering.

 

[ERguy]

This is the first time I've seen that claim. I've got 23k miles on my Mach E and have never seen the ability to control where in the lane the car "centers". Of course I can take control and move over a bit by hand but the car has always returned to its normal position when hands free. Most common in the Mach E world is the complaint the car rides too close to the right edge of the lane vs truly centering.

It's not a secret. It's in the manual.

There is also a video Ford made showing how it works. You have to forcefully override the car's attempt to steer for about 3 seconds, then you will feel the car stop resisting you. It will then hold the position in the lane you selected.

 

[rodhx]

Interesting. Never had mine behave that way and I have definitely overridden it for more than 3 seconds as it hugs the right line too close to tractor trailers. You would think someone would have pointed this out in response to the hundreds of “lane centering doesn’t actually center“ posts on the MME forums. Or maybe I started ignoring those before it got dug out of the manual

the things you learn right before you sell a vehicle…

 

[LaunchGreen]

Driver+ is lane centering and adaptive speed control that works on mapped roads only currently. It's as good or better than other companies that I've used at that right now. Very smooth and I haven't had to take over yet, but I haven't put tons of hours on it.

Everyone needs to keep in mind that we are 3 months in. This is the very limited early stage release and it has far exceeded my expectations. Real lives are at stake and data is important so I don't expect them to be pushing the boundaries early on.

The R1T has 10 exterior cameras, 1 interior, 12 ultrasonic sensors, 4 corner radars and 1 forward radar. It's the most loaded vehicle out there from a hardware perspective. This is clearly going to be a huge focus from them so I expect the training wheels to come off once they get that critical mass on the road where they can validate things quickly.

 

[Craigins]

Does not have a “resume” feature. After taking control or canceling adaptive cruise via hitting the brake, you need to manually get back to your desired speed and then reinitiate it.

I've been wondering, how does this work with one pedal driving?

If you tap the break does it disengage cruise control and immediately apply full regen since your foot is not on the accelerator?

 

[Gshenderson]

I've been wondering, how does this work with one pedal driving?

If you tap the break does it disengage cruise control and immediately apply full regen since your foot is not on the accelerator?

Yes

 

[Craigins]

Yes

Is there an easy way to disengage then? In my current vehicles i tap the brake to disengage to avoid wear on the physical buttons.

What happens if you press the accelerator when cruise is active?

 

[Gshenderson]

Is there an easy way to disengage then? In my current vehicles i tap the brake to disengage to avoid wear on the physical buttons.

What happens if you press the accelerator when cruise is active?

You speed up. Best option I’ve found is to leave adaptive cruise active and just take over the steering I you need to do a lane change. If you are canceling adaptive cruise intentionally, chances are you want to slow down anyhow. You just need to be ready to control braking with the go pedal once you tap the brake pedal.

This aspect of it isn’t all that bad IMO. What I don’t like is that if I’ve got cruise set to a certain speed, I can’t tell it to resume that speed after disengaging it. You have to manually get the truck back to whatever speed you want, the re-engage adaptive cruise or highway assist..

 

[RexRemus]

You speed up. Best option I’ve found is to leave adaptive cruise active and just take over the steering I you need to do a lane change. If you are canceling adaptive cruise intentionally, chances are you want to slow down anyhow. You just need to be ready to control braking with the go pedal once you tap the brake pedal.

This aspect of it isn’t all that bad IMO. What I don’t like is that if I’ve got cruise set to a certain speed, I can’t tell it to resume that speed after disengaging it. You have to manually get the truck back to whatever speed you want, the re-engage adaptive cruise or highway assist..

This, again, seems like a massive oversight that's - sure - going to be fixed, but even in the most half-baked of half-baked initial implementations there SHOULD be resume functionality. Like at the very least match the features of the dumbest cruise control systems from the... 80s?

Once again, I am kinda glad I won't be getting mine till next year when hopefully all of these system are a little more baked.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

Does the system learn and map based on miles driven? Or is there a seperate effort?

Another words. If I drive the same road 500,000 times. Will the car then recognize it from then on? Or do I need to wait for Bob to show up to work in December to program it in?

 

[Gshenderson]

This, again, seems like a massive oversight that's - sure - going to be fixed, but even in the most half-baked of half-baked initial implementations there SHOULD be resume functionality. Like at the very least match the features of the dumbest cruise control systems from the... 80s?

Once again, I am kinda glad I won't be getting mine till next year when hopefully all of these system are a little more baked.

I paid a little more attention to this yesterday, and did notice that when you disengage ACC by tapping the brake, the regen brakes don’t immediately engage. It sort of coasts for a second and then engages.

 

[godfodder0901]

I paid a little more attention to this yesterday, and did notice that when you disengage ACC by tapping the brake, the regen brakes don’t immediately engage. It sort of coasts for a second and then engages.

This is part of the newest update. Prior, it would try to do that but it was still pretty aggressive.

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