ACC and LKAS on our 2019 Honda is so awful I simply can't use it.
When someone crosses 3 lanes in front of me ACC will hit the brakes hard to maintain the correct distance. It's jolting and scary.
LKAS only sees about 80% of the lanes. Rather than just driving like normal which I'm experienced with I have to sit there paranoid that something will go wrong and I'll need to react to a surprise event.
I don't know if it's the idea or the just the implementation that I hate. Am considering comma.ai
I've put tens of thousands of miles on a comma.ai. it's just hands free lane keep assist. it solves my hand/shoulder fatigue issues over long drives. it's not autonomous driving and doesn't pretend to be.
if you want to drive across the ultra straight highway flyover states it's game changing. if you don't do that, it's not that useful.
I've logged a lot of miles of Comma in a 2023 Hyundai Ioniq and 2022 Toyota Prius Prime, and the built in driving assist of both cars is nowhere near Comma, both in terms of steering and accelerator/brake.
Things that Comma handles seamlessly that the built-in cruise in both cars will not:
- Full stop and go
- Sharp turns on the highway that require slowing down (both built-in adaptive cruise modes will gladly just drive you off a cliff at 65 mph)
- Situations where the lane lines are hard to see or are implied
- Non-highway driving
- Not requiring me to touch the steering wheel every 20 seconds
Maybe those things work in higher end cars (though I'd say the Ioniq is a fairly high-end car), but then again with Comma you get it for ~$2k in a ton of cars instead of having to buy a luxury car.
It is true that if you are on a highway, with clear lane lines, the steering assist in both cars is certainly a lot better than nothing, but it's just not nearly matching the reliability and versatility of Comma in any sort of imperfect situation.
The comma only works on a few (maybe just one) Honda car that has a built-in front facing radar that they're able to tap into. With that, comma is using roughly the same sensor package as the V1 Tesla autopilot.
I have the original Comma 3 in my car (2019 Acura RDX), and it's pretty game-changing for long drives. The car already has adaptive cruise control and lane-keep-assist, but you need to keep your hands on the wheel. With the Comma, I can set it up on most of the roads I drive (local or highway) and it'll keep me going at the desired speed in the center of the lane (up to a certain max turning torque, which is a limitation on the Acura LKAS system - if you're in the Bay Area, it handles 101 just fine but will struggle on the 280).
I've logged about 3k miles of autonomous driving at this point and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it if your car supports it, with the understanding that it's a limited system and you still have to pay attention the entire time. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of the newer cars have tighter security around CAN bus communication, so it may not be easy for Comma to continue to do their thing.
Installation is not consumer friendly (though I'm sure any auto shop would happily install it), but functionality certainly is. My wife who is not particularly tech savvy has no problem using Comma.
I have a car that isn't even the best for Comma because of steering limits (Honda CRV), and on road trips I've been able to not touch the steering wheel or accelerator/brake for 30+ minutes on open stretches of the 101. You'd think it doesn't matter all that much, but it saves so much energy. A 4 hour drive feels like a 1 hour drive. Monitoring that the car is driving sensibly uses far less energy than actually driving.
And as you say, in bumper to bumper traffic it is just amazing. I was in a 2.5 (!) hour backup between LA and San Diego a few weeks ago and Comma did 99% of the driving. And the only times I had to take over were when other frustrated drivers were doing insane things out of boredom or anger that endangered me. Computers don't get frustrated or angry! The aggravation saved on that one trip paid for the cost.
You seem to have pretty strong opinions without even actually taking the time to look into comma.ai and how it works.
All it takes is 5 minutes to know that it actually uses the built-in safety systems in cars like ADAS, LKAS, ACC. Hence, they only support only specific make/models. It's not just the "single front facing camera".
One major reason I've hesitated to buy a Comma is because it seems that it won't apply enough steering force in (most? any?) cars to reliably be able to navigate any turn, and it also won't let you know in advance if it can't do that.
So in the middle of a turn it may just not be able to steer enough and you have to suddenly take over.
I know you have to be aware and be ready to take over in any case (and when I've driven a Tesla it's tried to kill me at least a couple of times every day), but for some reason I really want anything I buy for driver assistance to be able to apply enough force for any turn.
Am I mistaken about that or what's your experience?
I have seen and driven recent BMW, latest VW (ID.3) and OpenPilot on Toyota RAV4 was giving me a much better experience in both lane keeping and as a product (driver monitoring, communication with the driver, overall UI and UX). BMW, VW score by having maps data integrated, that allows them to adjust speed for curves and traffic signs. However, it is not directly related to what comma is doing right now, so I am taking it out of the equation.
Moreover, I think adding map data is just a matter of time for Comma.ai and I can imagine that adjusting speed in before entering a steep curve will be much better solved with vision, which seems also to be on Comma's roadmap.
After reading a description of the comma device and how it's being used it seems uncannily like how my Mach E drives. But also as both my first EV and my first semi self-driving car, perhaps I have a different set of standards. My TLDR was that the adaptive cruise control and automatic lane keeping extended my daily driving range by several hundred miles by reducing cognitive load significantly. It was the best 900 miles I've ever driven.
But watching people nitpick various variants of electric crossover SUVs, I realize I would probably like just about all of them because none of my cars have been anything like that up to now.
So I keyed in my other two cars to see if I could put the comma into it and alas I cannot. They are 2013 and 2016 models respectively.
I have a 2019 Subaru with Eyesight. The system isn't half as good as you think it is. The comma system is seriously so far ahead in regards to LKAS (lane centering, cornering, etc) than Subaru's eyesight system.
I love ACC in my 2020 accord (which is the same generation as your 2019). I've never had it hit the brakes hard enough to be jolting, even when a car changes into my lane.
The LKAS is hit and miss, like you said, unless the lines are very clearly visible, it can't stay in the lane. I wish it looked at the car ahead to help with lanekeeping. But it's never surprising when it loses sight of the lane markers (though it does tend to drift to the right at exits, but it doesn't make a sharp move). But even in its current state, LKAS is great for long freeway drives.
Yeah, the stock driver assists in most cars still need a LOT of work. I drove from San Diego to LA last weekend with a comma, and openpilot handled the entire trip without a single disengagement until I got off the highway. I’d be really impressed to see a stock LKA manage the same (although I’ve heard great things about super cruise!)
I wish the Honda LKA were tunable, it's much too noticeable when it nudges you back into the lane.
I typically disable it on long car drives because in California even long car drives often have a lot of other cars that I keep my distance from, and I have a kid who gets motion sick easily. If I keep the LKA on, on a typical drive it results in a bunch of jerky movements that trigger his motion sickness.
If it were paired with driver monitoring it could know that my eyes are indeed on the road and nudge less or not at all.
I thought the same until I tried a good L2 system. ACC and LKA are pure value adds. Lower the number of moments where your focus snaps back in as you are meandering out of the lane or creeping up on the person in front of you.
When someone crosses 3 lanes in front of me ACC will hit the brakes hard to maintain the correct distance. It's jolting and scary.
LKAS only sees about 80% of the lanes. Rather than just driving like normal which I'm experienced with I have to sit there paranoid that something will go wrong and I'll need to react to a surprise event.
I don't know if it's the idea or the just the implementation that I hate. Am considering comma.ai
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