Assistance systems causing dangerous situations (serious)

[USMA81]

I believe the OP’s round-about issue is the vehicle’s collision avoidance system falsely detecting an imminent collision. I had this happen in my Audi EV when an oncoming car was turning left in front of me, which I saw. This system slammed on the brakes when I let my vehicle get closer to the turning vehicle than it thought I should. In fairness to the system in my circumstance, I did shave it closer than I should have, but the other vehicle was going to be out of my path before I hit it.

The Innodrive for me is great. I mostly use it on the highway. It’s better than the Audi technology from just a few years earlier. I initially thought Innodrive was biased to keeping me too close to the right side of the lane, but I now think I previously had developed a bad habit of manually driving too far left in the lane. So the system has done a better job than me in centering (except in those situations where I do want to be slightly off-center).

I do use the LKA, and disable it briefly with the turn signal as necessary. LKA will “ping pong,” but that Is normal, as the name suggests - just keeping in the lane, and no more.

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[Timcat]

Lane Keep Assist is hopeless in my Macan and keeps trying to cause the car to veer off course, but in my experience, the equivalent systems in all current cars are just as bad! Innodrive 's Active lane Keeping, on the other hand, is on a par with Autopilot in my Tesla in most respects and better in one, it doesn't suffer from phantom braking.

My "pre-flight" routine is to disable both the speed limit warning, via the diamond button, Lane Keep Assist via the button under the cruise control as soon as I get into the car and I'm then not bothered by these irksome systems!

The presence of these two systems is not the fault of manufacturers like Porsche, but the result of meddling politicians who think they know best, which they don't, and who seek to control every aspect of our lives!

 

[Wivenhoe]

Timcat- I haven’t got my car yet so can’t check it myself. When you turn off the speed limit warning do you still get the speed limits in one of the displays / HUD. I ask as in my very soon to be gone Lexus, if I turn off the warning the limits disappear as well. Hopefully the Porsche system is a bit more sensible.

 

[Timcat]

Timcat- I haven’t got my car yet so can’t check it myself. When you turn off the speed limit warning do you still get the speed limits in one of the displays / HUD. I ask as in my very soon to be gone Lexus, if I turn off the warning the limits disappear as well. Hopefully the Porsche system is a bit more sensible.

@Wivenhoe, When you turn off the speed limit warning, the actual speed limit (or what Porsche thinks it is!) remains displayed in the main display (in front of the driver), but the otherwise irritating audible warning is silenced.

 

[ColdCase]

Finally, I'm pretty certain I know of scenarios where the distance measuring and braking system is just impaired by condensation from humidity and doesn't function correctly. As I do more experiments, I'll write this up.

I think distance sensing is RADAR based so it shouldn't be affected by condensation. It may be augmented by optics to reduce false alerts. The most annoying thing about my BMW is the optical based distance measure, which drops out in the sun, rain, reflections from road signs and just on a whim. Couple that with instant regen/recoup when it drops out... good way to get rear ended... or be subjected to road rage...

Years ago there were warnings not to use things like cruise control or other driving aid in traffic as those systems were easily confused and unpredictable, just not smart enough to safely depend on. Wonderful out on the more open highway.

 

[Wivenhoe]

Thanks Timcat- good to know

 

[Yves]

While it works 99% of the time great.
I have now 2 spots where the car will abruptly try to follow a black tar mark that is not a line and would drive the car of the highway, very dangerous indeed! To be honest I experienced this with my iX as well but that seems way less now to none existent anymore …
I just cannot understand why those mechanisms try to kill people, in this case they surely know the action is borderline criminal …

 

[SteveInKirkland]

I think distance sensing is RADAR based so it shouldn't be affected by condensation. It may be augmented by optics to reduce false alerts.

I can recreate my condensation problem on many days, because it occurs when the car leaves my temperature and humidity controlled garage and is driven in a humid environment. Given the current location of the car and that the outdoors in this location is generally a high humidity environment (except during the winter), I already have a lot of experience with this failure scenario.

What I can tell you is that the condensation shutting off the safety systems is happening., regardless of whether we know said safety system is radar or camera based. How long the safety systems stay off (as the condensation clears) or whether other remedies work (the dealership has suggested wiping the front of the vehicle's sensors with a microfiber towel) is still unknown to me.

 

[SuperH]

None of these systems are infallible, the car manufacturers are doomed if they are too sensitive, and they are doomed if they are not sensitive enough.

Older, more analog cars don’t have these issues and are more enjoyable to drive. But let’s not overlook that the manufacturers are being forced to equip cars with these systems by law, regardless of how imperfect they are.

I’m not sure that’s a valid justification on the part of the manufacturers. I’ve been particularly frustrated at the poor quality, quite frankly dangerous safety systems of the Macan, particularly as they all worked perfectly 99.9% of the time on my etron Sportback, and as Porsche and Audi are the same group - how can Audi have it spot on 4 years ago yet Porsche can’t get anywhere close with the Macan? This is my first, and potentially my last, Porsche.

 

[rmwrip]

For me, lane keeping seems very similar to my 22 X5. I am used to it and will just keep it on for now.

 

[Wivenhoe]

I think the manufacturers are making the ‘safety’ systems more intrusive to ensure they get the best safety certification. I watched a review of the new (to the UK) Volvo EX30 and the car went a little over the line and it slammed the brakes on - the reviewer said the car was totally unsafe to drive.
In my (very annoying) Lexus RZ 450e if you looked out the side or passenger window at a junction the driver awareness alarm went off. To turn it off (always defaults to on) it was buried in the menus.
I haven't seen any criticism of the Porsche driver awareness camera so it must be much less sensitive than the Lexus.

 

[USMA81]

I’m not sure that’s a valid justification on the part of the manufacturers. I’ve been particularly frustrated at the poor quality, quite frankly dangerous safety systems of the Macan, particularly as they all worked perfectly 99.9% of the time on my etron Sportback, and as Porsche and Audi are the same group - how can Audi have it spot on 4 years ago yet Porsche can’t get anywhere close with the Macan? This is my first, and potentially my last, Porsche.

I have a 2024 Porsche Macan EV and an Audi 2023 Q8 Etron in my garage. Your experience is completely opposite to mine. My impression is that the Macan system is superior to the Etron. The Audi system doesn’t do well when driving into the sun with glare reflecting from the road; the Porsche is fine in similar situations. The Porsche is generally better at lane centering and doesn’t disconnect as readily. Porsche has had a couple of extra years to improve upon the system in the Audi.

There may be specific situations where any vehicle might under-perform and where I need to be vigilant. I’m still learning where those might exist in both vehicles.

 

[SuperH]

I have a 2024 Porsche Macan EV and an Audi 2023 Q8 Etron in my garage. Your experience is completely opposite to mine. My impression is that the Macan system is superior to the Etron. The Audi system doesn’t do well when driving into the sun with glare reflecting from the road; the Porsche is fine in similar situations. The Porsche is generally better at lane centering and doesn’t disconnect as readily. Porsche has had a couple of extra years to improve upon the system in the Audi.

There may be specific situations where any vehicle might under-perform and where I need to be vigilant. I’m still learning where those might exist in both vehicles.

All I can tell you is that my 21 plate launch edition e-tron Sportback kept in the lanes, 99% of the time got the speed limit recognition spot on (generally only confused by the managed motorways going back to 70 mph from a lower limit if the only notice had been the lack of lower speed limit sign) and kept to the speed it was manually set to if it was overridden from the speed limit (me being naughty and speeding slightly!). It also had the bonus of slowing itself down when approaching junctions and lowering speed limits.

The Macan on the other hand had me suddenly going from 70 mph to 5 mph (yes - that's 50 mph but ignoring the 0 on the sign!) on a busy dual carriage way, generally thinks that motorways are either 60 mph or 30 mph, and keeps resetting any manual speed I set as soon as it sees what it thinks in a road sign. So basically the innodrive I paid nearly £1500 is redundant and has had to be turned off and reverted back to manual speed setting with just distance control from the car in front (although lane assist does work effectively for me), which is a pain in the a** as that was the feature I used the most on the e-tron due to the amount of motorway driving I do.

I can't trust it at all; I have been monitoring the speed limits the car thinks it should be at, vs what the limits actually are, in case there's a software update and it starts working as it should, but so far it's wrong 75% or more of the time.

I can't say as I've had a glare issue, but then the weather has been pretty dull since I got the car at the end of November, so maybe I have that to look forward to too! lol

So from my experience, I can only presume that Porsche, and possibly Audi - based on your issues, have thrown away a perfectly good system on the older electric Audi's in preference for some new and quite frankly dangerous redevelopments.

 

[Timcat]

If I recall correctly, the original topic of this thread was the Lane Keep Assist "feature" not the Innodrive function, which comprises Active Lane Keeping and Adaptive Cruise Control. I have no experience of the Audi systems, but I have a Tesla and Innodrive is basically the same as Tesla's Autopilot.

All current cars have an equivalent to Porsche's Lane Keep Assist (it's mandated in Europe) and none of them work at all well away from multi-lane highways. Fortunately, this can be deactivated at the push of a single button in the Macan.

As I understand it @SuperH, your issue is with the use of speed limit sign recognition to set the maximum speed for the Adaptive Cruise Control part of Innodrive. My Macan is also largely incapable of accurately reading speed limit signs. It fails to read about 30% of these where a number is displayed and 100% of the national speed limit signs (white disc with a diagonal black line across it for those outside the UK). This is clearly unacceptable and my car is going back to the Porsche Centre to have this and other software issues attended to.

However, at least in my car, this does not render Innodrive redundant at all. I do not utilise the speed limit sign recognition feature and simply manually set the max speed and adjust this when the limit changes. My car does not attempt to override a manually set speed. Doing this does not effect Active Lane Keeping, which continues to work very well. Incidentally, used in this way, Porsche's Innodrive is better than Tesla's Autopilot because it does not indulge in the Tesla's dangerous habit of random hard phantom braking. Personally, I would never rely upon speed limit sign recognition to set my speed because, In my experience, none of these systems get even close to 100% accuracy.

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