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Car and driver says that steering assist will only work below 31 mph if tracking a car in front of it. So as theorized above, yes auto steer will work in stop and go traffic.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15347772/nissan-propilot-automated-driving-for-those-in-the-cheap-seats/
 
As a side note, there have been a couple reviewers and online folks who try to compare the M3 to the LEAF and appear to think PP does not include steering assist, therefore must be inferior to M3 AP. From this regards the LEAF L2 PP most definitely is not. Where it lacks is the L3 lane changing ability, and AP following highway navigation. It would be a pleasant surprise if the existing hardware would at least enable simple highway navigation. I understand if lane changing would not be possible due to additional cams / sensors needed.
 
DanCar said:
Car and driver says that steering assist will only work below 31 mph if tracking a car in front of it. So as theorized above, yes auto steer will work in stop and go traffic.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15347772/nissan-propilot-automated-driving-for-those-in-the-cheap-seats/

Not my experience at all. Pro Pilot is very able to maintain lanes from at speeds down to zero.

https://daveinolywa.blogspot.com/2017/11/washington-gridlock-test-of-2018-nissan.html
 
DanCar said:
Car and driver says that steering assist will only work below 31 mph if tracking a car in front of it. So as theorized above, yes auto steer will work in stop and go traffic.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15347772/nissan-propilot-automated-driving-for-those-in-the-cheap-seats/
Some of the time anyway. It sounds like a target will have to re-acquired when either you or the car in front turns.
 
SageBrush said:
DanCar said:
Car and driver says that steering assist will only work below 31 mph if tracking a car in front of it. So as theorized above, yes auto steer will work in stop and go traffic.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15347772/nissan-propilot-automated-driving-for-those-in-the-cheap-seats/
Some of the time anyway. It sounds like a target will have to re-acquired when either you or the car in front turns.

IOW, works like all automated driving systems.... "sometimes" oh wait!! I hear feathers getting ruffled... Lets change that to "nearly all the time"

Feel better?... Cause I don't.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
SageBrush said:
DanCar said:
Car and driver says that steering assist will only work below 31 mph if tracking a car in front of it. So as theorized above, yes auto steer will work in stop and go traffic.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15347772/nissan-propilot-automated-driving-for-those-in-the-cheap-seats/
Some of the time anyway. It sounds like a target will have to re-acquired when either you or the car in front turns.

IOW, works like all automated driving systems.... "sometimes"
The difference is relying *entirely* on the car in front like it sounds the Nissan system operates, or using the car in front as one of several inputs (like I think is true for the Tesla system.)

FWIW, I am an automated driving system skeptic and I bought my Tesla without EAP or FSD. Part of that was the cost but the other part was my opinion that systems that encourage me to hand over driving duties to the car are not a good idea. I want systems that make me a better driver. Augment, not replace. To me it is an important distinction.

For the next few days Tesla is offering Tesla owners like me the opportunity to buy AP (mostly lane keeping and radar assisted cruise control) for $2000. I'm thinking about it.
 
I think the tech is great for allowing you to judicially direct your attention elsewhere for a few seconds here and there and although that does not seem like much, its actually quite helpful when dealing with driver fatigue. Trusting beyond that is simply stupid. This thing about Tesla going 781,231,181 miles 1271 feet between errors resulting in fatalities might make you feel better but it does not me. It is really surprising that the Feds allow it. If Tesla was a plane, it would be grounded right now.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
I think the tech is great for allowing you to judicially direct your attention elsewhere for a few seconds here and there and although that does not seem like much, its actually quite helpful when dealing with driver fatigue. Trusting beyond that is simply stupid. This thing about Tesla going 781,231,181 miles 1271 feet between errors resulting in fatalities might make you feel better but it does not me. It is really surprising that the Feds allow it. If Tesla was a plane, it would be grounded right now.

I generally agree with your view on current assisted driving tech. However, we probably should not compare current AP incidents with aviation. If that were the case, then all cars would be banned from the road for inflicting 30,000 deaths per year! But I get your point on how they are overselling their AP capabilities causing negligence by drivers.
 
I can confirm that ProPilot will function below 30 mph if you're in traffic. I live in Los Angeles and use it daily for my commute. I would say that its ability to function in stop-and-go traffic is highly dubious though. The system will force you to press the Resume button if you are stopped for more than 2ish seconds. If you have parking lot like commutes like me, this really diminishes the benefits of the driver assist capabilities, since you're trading pumping the brakes and accelerator pedals for pushing a button all the time. It's an improvement but far from the homerun feature it could be.

I'm really hoping that Nissan will offer a software upgrade to fix this, as I can't seem to figure out the rationale why manually resuming is required after stopping for 2+ seconds. What happens after 2 seconds? The car seems fully capable of continuing to apply adaptive cruise control and steering assist. If they could just fix this, I would be a super happy owner.

Oddly though, I really don't see anyone else talking about this issue. Is ProPilot just not used often by most people?
 
I think that the issue is the possibility of someone stopping while using PP in traffic, and getting out of the car for whatever reason, leaving it engaged. Would the car then take off alone and empty, and resume following the car ahead, or not.....?
 
LeftieBiker said:
I think that the issue is the possibility of someone stopping while using PP in traffic, and getting out of the car for whatever reason, leaving it engaged. Would the car then take off alone and empty, and resume following the car ahead, or not.....?

Can't fix stupid. A simple seat sensor would do the trick but that is one more thing to fix. Nevertheless, I have full faith in Mankind's ability to circumvent the best of intentions.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I think that the issue is the possibility of someone stopping while using PP in traffic, and getting out of the car for whatever reason, leaving it engaged. Would the car then take off alone and empty, and resume following the car ahead, or not.....?

The vehicle will not even go forward once it senses the driver's door is opened, as it automatically switches from Drive mode to Park immediately. Therefore, PP would not be engaged. I actually tested this inadvertently when I was backing in, and wanted to verify my ground position by opening the door.

I've already thought of a way to bypass this though. Just open the window all the way, crawl out, and I'm pretty sure the vehicle will just take off on its own, IF PP is on and in standby mode while it's stopped. If a small 300 g weight is attached to the steering wheel, it could literally keep going until it crashes or automatically stops. Who wants to test my theory? :-D
 
Given the above info, I think that Nissan wants to prevent inattention/distraction while stopped in traffic from causing the car to be responsible for a crash.
 
Another sort of crazy idea: This solution could be applied to any EV with some sort of AP that works well on highways. Theoretically, if one person needed to transport a EV some distance along a highway / or relatively straight road without deep turns, etc., you could place the weight on the steering wheel, engage PP, exit the vehicle out the window, enter the "vehicle ahead", drive off, and theoretically be "towing" the LEAF (or other EV) behind you for quite awhile. Almost like a tractor beam tow! :-D
 
ProPilot won't start the car from a complete stop if the car has been stopped for more than ~3 seconds. After that, you have to either gently tap the accelerator or press a button for it to resume driving.
 
Astros said:
ProPilot won't start the car from a complete stop if the car has been stopped for more than ~3 seconds. After that, you have to either gently tap the accelerator or press a button for it to resume driving.

...which is theoretically possible if you're standing outside the car and tap the button by reaching in...thus beginning the hands free tow. Although, I can see why you would need that 2nd person in the lead vehicle already moving to ensure the 3 sec window is not exceeded.
 
I get the inattention/distraction argument in principle, but in practice the car already has sensors to determine if you're holding the wheel, sensors to determine if you're adequately paying attention to the road, and sensors to determine if you've exited the vehicle. So it seems beyond overkill to cripple ProPilot as well.

On top of that, I don't see why Nissan couldn't bump up the stop time to something more reasonable like 5-7 seconds. In practice, the 2ish seconds right now is incredibly awkward. In traffic-heavy cities, stops over 2 seconds are incredibly common. And if the car comes to a stop, I never really know if it'll continue to the follow the car in front of me or not. This is because it seems like it takes more than 2 seconds for the car to come to a full stop and then allow the car in front to gain a sufficient gap before the LEAF starts moving again. In most situations in Los Angeles, if the car comes to a stop, you're going to have to manually engage ProPilot again. It's almost as if Nissan never opted to drive with ProPilot in a city like LA.
 
I get the inattention/distraction argument in principle, but in practice the car already has sensors to determine if you're holding the wheel, sensors to determine if you're adequately paying attention to the road, and sensors to determine if you've exited the vehicle.

AFAIK there are NO sensors to determine if you are paying attention. Those are in development, but if any manufacturer is using them yet, it isn't Nissan.
 
AFAIK there are NO sensors to determine if you are paying attention. Those are in development, but if any manufacturer is using them yet, it isn't Nissan.

This is incorrect. My 2018 SL has the Intelligent Driver Alertness system, which has warned me on a few occasions after I've spaced out during a drive.
 
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