Unhappy with 'Driver Assist' features that reset themselves !

dtbaker61

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I am NOT a fan of some of the automatic Alerts and Driver Assistance features. I find them distracting at best, and dangerous when they activate unexpectedness. The purpose of this thread is to document the specific ones that I have found that reset themselves to factory setting to provide assistance that I DO NOT want.

- Traction control. This is a minor one, but when driving in snow I usually turn this off. I want this to STAY off, and it would be nice if it were a button to push while driving rather than digging thru the menus.

There are a few that I leave on:
+ blind spot system
+ auto hold

And several that won't stay off, these are 'features' that I really wish would STAY off if you turn them off.:

- Driver Assistance - Pre-Collision Assist - Automatic Emergency Braking
This one almost got me rear-ended at an intersection yesterday.... turning left at an intersection, car in front starts left at a gap so I follow, then they tap their brakes so I was closing on them at 5 mph, and the Assist slammed on my brakes! The car in front had already resumed, and the car behind me kept coming.... almost nailed me.

- Driver Assistance - Pre-Collision Assist - evasive steering
No thank you! I don't want the car to EVER steer itself.

- Driver Assistance - Pre-Collision Assist - Cross Traffic Alert
No thanks! I see them, and I find the flashing red and beeping on the dash distracting and takes my eyes OFF the road.
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RickMachE

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Unfortunately, much of what you're annoyed by is government-mandated, and is installed on all new vehicles, not just this EV. Other things like traction control have always been a "disable each time you start" feature with Ford. My 2013 F-150 is like that.
 
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dtbaker61

dtbaker61

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Unfortunately, much of what you're annoyed by is government-mandated, and is installed on all new vehicles, not just this EV. Other things like traction control have always been a "disable each time you start" feature with Ford. My 2013 F-150 is like that.
I think things like cross-traffic altert, automatic emergency braking, and evasive steering are fine to be available for people that want it.... but I object to it resetting itself back ON every trip and not remaining where I set it.
 

bshaw

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Why do you want the traction control turned off when there is snow on the ground? Seems like this is one of the times it would be most helpful?
 


MachEnation

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This could be one of those notorious "settings" bugs, similar to how the Mach-E won't save your preferred speaker orientation in settings unless you use the guest mode workaround.

My Mach-E has a mind of its own on what settings it wants to save and what settings it doesn't. It won't keep my "rear camera delay" preference, for example. And, like you, traction control won't stay off. I"m amazed it even keeps my preferred driving mode since this thing is so flaky.

I've just put it in guest mode and saved the settings to see if it sticks with my profile. I'll report back if it works.
 

noway

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I think there are a lot of misunderstandings here..

The traction control thing first.. There are always going to be some people thinking that traction control OFF on snow is a good thing, but it does not make it safer to drive with it disabled, by any way! Being able to control a car without traction control/stability control is good, but there is no way a human can compete when it really does its job. Being able to turn it off by default, having it accidentaly turned off without expecting it will cause lots of accidents that can be avoided. If you want it turned off you have to accept the risk of having it turned off, and you will have to confirm it every time the car is being used.

For me, driving in Norway with snow, ice, anything.. I have never ever seen any use case for traction control OFF in snow for any other reason than "for fun". There are no safety benefits, there are no benefts in traction, the car will in no way go faster or further with system turned off.

For the automatic braking part.. Just go watch some youtube videos from various systems like this and see how late it will brake and how far away from the object it will stop for (if it did manage to). You will be surprised how "last second" or "last millisecond" the system will activate the brakes. It will brake at the absolute last opportunity where the math says that not braking now, with no way to avoid it, WILL in fact cause the car to crash into the object. It will take into account the speed of a human can active the brake also. The point when the system will automatically start braking is late enough that a human cannot in any way press the brake pedal fast enough to activate the brakes to avoid a crash.

There is a small window before automatic brake where it will just assist in braking. As soon as the brake pedal is touched it will consider it a confirmation that the driver has seen the problem and is in fact trying to stop. It will assist by activating full brake force just from the touch of the brake pedal. The default for this is if I remember correctly when it will detect there will be a crash in less than a second from now if nothing is done by the driver or by the automatic braking. This gap is what can be adjusted by the "warning threshold" setting of "low", "medium" or "high".

For evasive steering assist. If you ever see this in action there has to be two conditions met:
- The calculations have to say that the car will in fact crash into the object, even with full braking force applied. In other words, a crash cannot be avoided by braking in any way, just by steering around the object.
- The driver applies steering force to go around.

When evasive steering assist activates it will not steer by itself, it will just assist in steering around by reducing the torque necessary on the steering wheel to
1) Steer around the object.
2) Steer the car back into the same direction as before.

It still will not apply any more steering than is being applied by the steering wheel, it will just make it easier to do this fast and give enough steering angle to actually avoid a collision and steer the car back again into the same direction.

If no steering force is applied by the driver the auto brake system will apply and try to reduce the speed as much as possible, but at this point there is no way to avoid crashing. It WILL crash into whatever it sees, by fact. If steering is applied it will release the brakes automatically and use the brakes as additional steering force if necessary (applying brake to one of the rear wheels, that is understeer assist by stability control, and hopefully this has not been turned off)

But.. of course there are going to be cases where the systems do something wrong, but I will sugguest, with no facts to prove it, that in most cases where the system is blamed to do something wrong, it did not, it had just done a calculation where the outcome would have been a crash if the current conditions would continue (like the car in front could have continued to deaccelerate). It will not take into account that the driver in front "probably" will start to accelerate again, it just simply can't, and it should not. It is intended to avoid crashing when humans do it wrong, and humans sometimes will make mistakes, and may do things based on probablility of another action, but will crash the one time something unexpected happens.
 
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dtbaker61

dtbaker61

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Why do you want the traction control turned off when there is snow on the ground? Seems like this is one of the times it would be most helpful?
I have found that when attempting a steep hill in snow/ice, especially with sharp corners, that traction control cuts power to prevent spin sometimes when I WANT to keep momentum and speed up even if it means one or more wheels might lose traction.

*most of the time* traction control is a good thing....

I don't want to have to dig thru the menu and turn it off, I would much prefer a button I can hit quickly when conditions warrant.... but since we don't have a button, this is one of several settings that I wish would not reset itself every trip.
 

breeves002

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One thing I will note is the evasive steering assist doesn't actually steer the car it just gives you more assistance to your steering inputs. It allows you to steer the car faster. Kind of like overclocking the EPAS motor.

The collision warning and AEB should be able to be turned off and stay off, I think it is a bug it comes back on.

You can add the TC button by getting the headlight switch from a GT. It's not too hard to just click the car and then driver assistance then flip it off though. Especially if you only have to do it on occasion. I would MUCH rather ford put a hard trunk button than the TC button.
 

TruWrecks

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Anyone who truly believes they can react faster than a computer that is tuned for that specific purpose, is in need of higher insurance premiums. Because they think they are some how super human.

Go spend some time in a race course school and you will quickly learn the human brain is slow.
 

breeves002

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Anyone who truly believes they can react faster than a computer that is tuned for that specific purpose, is in need of higher insurance premiums. Because they think they are some how super human.

Go spend some time in a race course school and you will quickly learn the human brain is slow.
Except a lot of times you can react faster than the computer because the human brain can anticipate. The computer can't. For example...you can see 2 cars ahead slamming on their brakes and you react to that. The computer only reacts to the car in front of you. Another example is if you're coming up at high speed on a stopped vehicle. The computer can only react when it comes in range of the camera/radar. You can see the car well before the computer and react accordingly.

The computers are secondary to our abilities in my opinion. An aid, not a replacement at this point. You, with a human brain as a driver in *most* cases know better than the computer. The computers are there to help when your brain doesn't work as well as it should or you aren't paying attention.
 

TruWrecks

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Except a lot of times you can react faster than the computer because the human brain can anticipate. The computer can't. For example...you can see 2 cars ahead slamming on their brakes and you react to that. The computer only reacts to the car in front of you. Another example is if you're coming up at high speed on a stopped vehicle. The computer can only react when it comes in range of the camera/radar. You can see the car well before the computer and react accordingly.

The computers are secondary to our abilities in my opinion. An aid, not a replacement at this point. You, with a human brain as a driver in *most* cases know better than the computer. The computers are there to help when your brain doesn't work as well as it should or you aren't paying attention.
Your are assuming I meant replacing us for every situation.

ASSume all you want. I never said nor implied what you are claiming.
 

breeves002

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Your are assuming I meant replacing us for every situation.

ASSume all you want. I never said nor implied what you are claiming.
Then why don't you explain yourself?

I wasn't assuming replace the driver for every situation because that car doesn't do this and we all know it...just chiming to the driver assist features this vehicle has.

With the driver assist features the MME has, in almost all situations if a driver is aware they can react faster than the computer. There are edge cases...but usually those are false alerts anyways.
 

TruWrecks

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Then why don't you explain yourself?

I wasn't assuming replace the driver for every situation because that car doesn't do this and we all know it...just chiming to the driver assist features this vehicle has.
These features are tuned and developed specifically for those "OH shit" moments. They do nothing unless it is needed. By that time the human brain is already in fight mode or has not perceived the danger. Both are common states of drivers in critical situations.

The assistive feature take over when the human fails to react or perform a critical task in time.

The number 1 cause of all crashes is humans being distracted. When an emergency happens most people's brains are too busy doing other things.

Yes, human vision can see and detect multiple objects. So can computer radar and cameras. It it a software limitation.

The average reaction time from trigger to action with humans is between 1.5 and 1.7 seconds. A purpose built computer has a reaction time in the milliseconds.

If you think you are a great driver go take a race track course from a reputable school and you will learn just how poor your skills really are.
 

breeves002

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Your first post basically said that you don't think anyone can react faster than a computer. When you explained yourself we are on the same page. It's a secondary system to help save the driver in those distracted moments. In normal situations when you're paying attention the driver generally can react faster than the computer. That's my point, I think we can agree on this.
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