| Cruise Steering Assist review - not too bad actually | |
Thought I’d share a few thoughts on cruise steering assist.
Having had a Tesla Model S for 5 years and 50k miles, I was pretty curious how the RR would stack up.
Well, I’m pleased to say it’s really pretty decent.
Enabling:
As easy as switching on the adaptive cruise control.
Availability:
Enabled every time I wanted it to, no fuss, no complaining about road or weather conditions, no fault messages (Audi A8 owners take note).
Functionality:
It has a friendlier milder approach to keeping you centred in lane. The Tesla absolutely locks you in the middle with millimetre precision and the steering fights you if you try to deviate. The RR keeps you roughly in the middle give or take a few centimetres here or there, yet still allows you to move the wheel to favour the left or right of the lane if you so wish.
I found this a little unnerving as I wasn’t really sure if the system was working at times. How far can I steer before I cross the lane? Will it stop me before I do? Seemed to me that it would let you keep going so it’s clearly less of a nannying type of system, something I think many will prefer over the Tesla’s approach.
Downsides:
It will quietly disengage if you pull in one direction or another, even if done quite softly and slowly. It’s not immediately obvious when it’s disengaged as there are no beeps or bongs, just a subtle change to the graphic on the speedo and head-up displays (if you’ve enabled them). This almost caught me out a couple of times and could have been pretty dangerous had I not noticed.
It nags a lot and I can’t seem to figure out how to keep it happy! In the Tesla you just apply a little force to the wheel at all times (hang a hand off a spoke) and it’s as good as gold. Do that in the RR and it’ll start steering in that direction (see above), so that’s a no-go. Ultimately I didn’t discover what the right behaviour is to keep the car happy that I’m alert and in control, so had to suffer its rather alarming warning chimes pretty often. If anyone’s figure it out please do tell.å
Overall I would say it’s definitely more advanced than I’d expected, and actually does what it says on the tin. I could imagine it’s the sort system the average RR owner expects; a helping hand but not overbearing. In my personal scoring system wåhich sees Tesla at the top (and yes I know it’s FAR from perfect but I’ve yet to drive a car with a better system), I’d give it a solid 7/10; perfectly acceptable and comfortably classified as a good feature rather than gimmick or afterthought. 2018 P400e AB LWB
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24th May 2023 1:25pm
