[mrjirey]

So, I have been using the adaptive cruse control on my Nero Touring with Tech package and have found in most cases it reduces your MPG due to bad logic. Issue is that the car dose not smoothly accelerate or decelerate when objects enter into your patch, dispute changing the distance settings.

What happens is if you have your cruse set at 65 mph and there is a car in front of you traveling at 55 mph and that car then pulls out of hour path, rather than steadily increasing the speed to 65, the car just punches the accelerator, downshifts and gets to 65 as quickly as possible. Likewise if a call enters your path even with a safe distance, the cruse will apply braking to decrease your speed as quickly as possible to match that cars speed and distance. This being the case, the car operates almost erratically in anything other than limited traffic.

When you observe this effect over and extended time you can notice that the MPG is dramatically decreased and in some cases the driver efficiency rating will even show aggressive behavior.

I have used the Subaru adaptive cruse with their EyeSight and this is not the case. It leads me to think that there is a programming correction that is needed to remedy this issue.

All this being said, I have stopped using cruse except in very light traffic and can better manage the fuel economy by contorting speed manually.

Hope they release an update for this soom

 

[suman]

There is a setting in the menus for how aggressive the adaptive cruise control is. You can try to reduce the sensitivity and therefore increase the smoothness and potential MPG.

 

[mrjirey]

Thanks!!! Let me take a look and see if that does the trick.

 

[PAULRIDES]

Interesting. Thanks

 

[DeNiro]

What wold reducing the sensitivity do?

 

[mrjirey]

Well, I adjusted the sensitivity from Normal to Slow for the adaptive cruse and it made a slight difference, but not much.

I drove from Austin TX to Dallas TX (approx 200 miles) without cruse control and achieved 44.2 mpg. On the way back I used cruse controls over the exact same road and only achieved 32.8 mpg.

The issue is how the logic is setup in the adaptive cruse control. If there is no car in front of you it drives fine, until a car is there. Then it races up to the car and breaks heavily. Once the car moves or changes speed the car accelerates dramatically to resume the programed speed.

You can see this in the power meter on the dash. Rather than a nice smooth deceleration and acceleration, the meter jumps into charging and than to power sections to indicate how the car is operating.

in a normal gas only car this would be not too bad, but because of the hybrid nature of the Niro, this causes it to switch between gas and electric drive and destroys your mileage.

Seems like they need to work the program for the adaptive cruse and not just use the standard version they use in all their other cars

 

[JasonC]

On more reason to not get the tech package.

 

[PAULRIDES]

I have not done a lot of HWY (Interstate) travel with Cruise Control. When I have, can't say I see much difference (for sure not a 25% reduction 44 MPG to 32 MPG). .

In general, I would say any cruise control will reduce MPG (some) cause you can with manual - speed up down hill and coast up hill (if you are constantly thinking to drive with soft pedal pressure).

Other than that, I expect any convenience thing costs to operate.

 

[NJ Niro]

The cruise control on the Touring is annoying and wastes a ton of gas. If the car in front of you slows down, you slow down. And when it speeds up, the Niro slams on the gas to catch back up to the original speed you set. I do mostly city driving so it isn't that big of a deal but I was on a 50 mile highway ride yesterday and didn't use it.

 

[OldNYFirefighter]

Well, I adjusted the sensitivity from Normal to Slow for the adaptive cruse and it made a slight difference, but not much.

I drove from Austin TX to Dallas TX (approx 200 miles) without cruse control and achieved 44.2 mpg. On the way back I used cruse controls over the exact same road and only achieved 32.8 mpg.

The issue is how the logic is setup in the adaptive cruse control. If there is no car in front of you it drives fine, until a car is there. Then it races up to the car and breaks heavily. Once the car moves or changes speed the car accelerates dramatically to resume the programed speed.

You can see this in the power meter on the dash. Rather than a nice smooth deceleration and acceleration, the meter jumps into charging and than to power sections to indicate how the car is operating.

in a normal gas only car this would be not too bad, but because of the hybrid nature of the Niro, this causes it to switch between gas and electric drive and destroys your mileage.

Seems like they need to work the program for the adaptive cruse and not just use the standard version they use in all their other cars

I have a 2020 Niro plug-in & my ACC slows down gradually when approaching a vehicle & speeds back up slowly to set speed if the car in front increases speed or turns off of the road. Maybe they have changed the software as there is no issue with this one.

 

[jmurphEV]

I have a 2020 Niro plug-in & my ACC slows down gradually when approaching a vehicle & speeds back up slowly to set speed if the car in front increases speed or turns off of the road. Maybe they have changed the software as there is no issue with this one.

That agrees with my experience in my '18 PHEV. It's very good at matching the speed of slower traffic and then resuming the set speed. Often it slows so gradually I don't even notice unless I have the digital speedo display up.

 

[atc98092]

My previous car was an '18 Outback with Eyesight. In my opinion, the Kia adaptive cruise is smoother than the Subaru cruise. The Subaru would speed up and slow down within a 3-4MPH range, while the Kia stays +/-1MPH in general. Same thing going downhill. The Sube would reach 5-7 MPH over the set speed, then slowly come back down. The Kia never lets it get that far away from the set speed. And (again in my opinion) it brakes smoother than the Sube system as well. I think some of it is because Subaru Eyesight is camera based, while Kia uses camera and radar.

 

[yticolev]

The Subaru doesn't have a mechanism to slow down on hills to keep a set point. So of course it is going to speed up - gravity sucks! The Kia has regen to hold speed constant on cruise control.

 

[atc98092]

The Subaru doesn't have a mechanism to slow down on hills to keep a set point. So of course it is going to speed up - gravity sucks! The Kia has regen to hold speed constant on cruise control.

My Outlook certainly did. The dash display had a pictograph of the car and would show if a door was open, and also showed when the brake lights came on. Going down a long hill the brake lights would come on. The car was applying the brakes to slow the car to keep the set speed. As I said, it was a bit see saw, in that it would slow then let it speed up, then slow again. Regen works far better for holding speed downhill.

 

[yticolev]

I've never heard of brake cruise control synthesis before. Interesting. Makes sense I guess. I've always downshifted but even that won't hold speed on certain downhills.

 

[atc98092]

My Outback was the first car I've owned with adaptive cruise. When I was car shopping, I tried the Mazda CX-5, the RAV4, and the Honda CR-X. The Mazda and Toyota would both hold speed downhill, but the Honda didn't appear to. Not certain if this is something recent, or only with a handful of manufacturers. I too had always downshifted my cars in the past. Because of the steep hill I live on, we could go through brakes fast. I think I replaced the brakes on my daughter's Routan (she lives even higher on the hill at the plateau) every 10,000 miles or so, and one of the discs would still be warped within a month.

My Diesel Passat would hold 30 MPH (speed limit) just fine if I kept it in 3rd gear. Their DSG is a great transmission, but the one in the Niro is pretty good too.

 

[deltasmith]

if I'm recalling correctly, there's a config option for Adaptive Cruise Control that lets you dial in how responsive you want it to be.