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Affordable cars with good traffic assistance/auto stop/laser cruise/autopilot?

7K views 111 replies 50 participants last post by  HI SPEED 
#1 ·
I am considering changing jobs. Huge existential crisis is that It will be a torturous 45 minutes to a hour of bumper to bumper traffic each way. Company is completely against telecommuting and has their hours strictly putting you at peak rush hour.

After years of living a 15 minute bike ride from work, I am allergic to being stuck on traffic. Above any other feature, if I do take the job, I want a car that can handle most of the slowly lurching along.

What are some entry level new cars, or used cars that have reliable starting and stopping systems? Don't need anything for driving at high speed, up to 25mph is fine. I'm not at the point where I'm willing to trust my life to a computer, but would risk a fender bender.

Seems like the model 3, or Y would probably be my best bet. Open to anything in that range, but the cheaper the better.
 
#8 ·
My wife has a 2019 CR-V with Honda Sensing. It has cruise control with low speed follow (down to a complete stop) and lane keep assist (above 45 mph). The lane keep assist is a game changer. It will keep you centered in the lane, as opposed to Subaru EyeSight which will only activate if you hit the edge of a lane. You have no idea how much energy is spent making tiny steering corrections until you use a system like this. I find it helps with mental fatigue a lot and as a result, you pay more attention to cars around you and what they are doing. Using the cruise control in traffic is similarly helpful.

For a long commute, I would look into an Insight EX, which has the same features and gets 50+ MPG. New ones are under being discounted to under $22k now.
 
#18 ·
My wife has a 2019 CR-V with Honda Sensing. It has cruise control with low speed follow (down to a complete stop) and lane keep assist (above 45 mph). The lane keep assist is a game changer. It will keep you centered in the lane, as opposed to Subaru EyeSight which will only activate if you hit the edge of a lane. You have no idea how much energy is spent making tiny steering corrections until you use a system like this. I find it helps with mental fatigue a lot and as a result, you pay more attention to cars around you and what they are doing. Using the cruise control in traffic is similarly helpful.

For a long commute, I would look into an Insight EX, which has the same features and gets 50+ MPG. New ones are under being discounted to under $22k now.
Really? We have it in our 2019 Accord and I don’t like it. It feels like it’s fighting me, or at least nudging me. I don’t think it’s smooth. It can’t go hands free for more than a few seconds, so I don’t see the point. Either the car should drive or I should drive, we shouldn’t both be trying to drive. It still makes step inputs and isn’t as centered as I think it should be.
I shut off the lane departure warning - it’s obnoxious. Don’t tell me what to do car!

That said, we like the radar cruise. I haven’t tried it in surface street traffic but it’s great on the highway.
 
#9 ·
You can get an A3/S3 with Audi Stop and Go if Prestige 2017+.
 
#102 ·
Good idea, it's the most reliable car Honda makes, has lots of room, gets lots of MPG's and can be ordered with a manual.
 
#12 · (Edited)
The new Corolla, Corolla hatch and RAV4 (maybe a few others) have v2.0 of Safety Sense which has full-speed radar cruise control which will brake to a stop and then re-accelerate back up to speed in traffic. (In the stick shift Corolla it works down to 25 MPH, though you can up/downshift without it deactivating).

The 2.0 system also has Lane Tracing Assist which keeps the car centered in the lane. It's not quite ProPilot or Tesla level, but it is a lot more advanced than the v1.0 system that's on our car - ours just bounces you off the white line if you are about to run off the road and firmly shoves you back into the lane if you try to change lanes without signaling. The radar cruise in ours is pretty good but since it is the v1.0 version it only works down to 25 MPH and brakes late/hard for my taste in traffic (it's more for the interstate).


 
#30 ·
The new Corolla, Corolla hatch and RAV4 (maybe a few others) have v2.0 of Safety Sense which has full-speed radar cruise control which will brake to a stop and then re-accelerate back up to speed in traffic. (In the stick shift Corolla it works down to 25 MPH, though you can up/downshift without it deactivating).

The 2.0 system also has Lane Tracing Assist which keeps the car centered in the lane. It's not quite ProPilot or Tesla level, but it is a lot more advanced than the v1.0 system that's on our car - ours just bounces you off the white line if you are about to run off the road and firmly shoves you back into the lane if you try to change lanes without signaling. The radar cruise in ours is pretty good but since it is the v1.0 version it only works down to 25 MPH and brakes late/hard for my taste in traffic (it's more for the interstate).
:thumbup: I agree with adrew. I don't have a 2020 Corolla with all the Safety Sense system, but even my 2018 Corolla has standard adaptive cruise that works very well on the highway. Nice thing is that while adaptive cruise is now being offered to even compact car segment, Toyota is the only one that has them standard on most of their models. Don't get the Yaris though, since it's really a Mazda, I don't think safety sense is standard.
 
#15 ·
I think all trims of the Civic have the full Honda Sensing suite, or at the very least the EX and up do and you'd really only want to be looking at upper trims if you want a comfortable cruiser. At least as of a year ago Car and Driver had said that Honda Sensing was one of the most capable radar cruise control, lane keep assist, and crash mitigation braking suites of any automaker. My parents have a CR-V and it's a very good system, the cruise in particular. The lane keep assist isn't quite as important in rush hour traffic because you're probably not going fast enough to have a meaningful amount of lane and gap for it to play a big role, but for rush hour rubber banding I personally love the radar cruise control.

Great system and Honda's works all the way down to a stop and resume again just by tapping the gas and/or hitting resume on the wheel. In practice I found that it rarely came down to an absolute stop because it would creep at like 0.1 mph for a good number of seconds before getting close enough to come to a complete stop. That meant less intervention on the driver's part when it didn't have to come to a complete stop. Perhaps worth checking out to see if you even like the Civic. Or alternately if you're looking higher up, the Accord or CR-V. Honestly the CR-V costs the same or a few hundred less for an equal trim level Accord and still has a good amount of power with the turbo motor and it quite comfortable.
 
#17 ·
Just spent a few days with a brand new Corolla LE up in Portland and it had the full radar cruise with start/stop traffic and lane assistance. I was pleasantly surprised how well it did in bumper-to-bumper traffic. At the very least, worth a test drive and it's a relatively inexpensive option.
 
#25 ·
Out of curiosity, what are you people doing while this slow-speed cruise is doing its thing?

Playing with your distraction device?
Snoozing?
Eating?
Masturbating?
Calculating the angle of sunshine hitting your dermis via the automobile glass through refraction?
 
#26 ·
I was wondering this as well. Have we really lost faith in our own driving abilities such that we NEED to have AEB and auto cruise? Or am I all of a sudden a Luddite still driving around in c.2005 technology to not know any better?

I’m saying this as someone who also had a long commute with stop/go traffic. Unless this is your dream job and comes with a substantial pay increase, it ain’t worth it - it will kill your soul in a short matter of time. And even then, the weight of the commute will crush that passion, and the money won’t be able to make up for it.
 
#31 ·
Subaru Eyesight= The lane keep is crap, if you rely on that it's like a ping pong ball in the lane, you have to make sure the Eyesight has adjustable acceleration, otherwise you will get car-sick very quickly, I believe only Ascent right now has the adjustable acceleration, with Legacy and Outback following shortly.

Toyota Safety Sense = Lane keep is crap, most still don't let you adjust acceleration, and the auto braking is too sensitive

Nissan ProPilot = better lane keep, but not that great, I couldn't find the ability to adjust the acceleration, and it doesn't do follow function at stop and go.

Honda = the worst lane keep, it just doesn't follow very well, the acceleration is less violent, but otherwise ok.

Kia Telluride has surprisingly good stop and go traffic, and you DON'T have to hold steering wheel constantly, in my Subaru, when the lane keep assist is on, sometimes it would yell at me to keep hands on steering wheel when I'm holding it with both hands.

BMW is pretty good, but I don't trust lane keep function at low speed.

Cadillac SuperCruise is one the best so far
 
#32 · (Edited)
Toyota Safety Sense = Lane keep is crap, most still don't let you adjust acceleration, and the auto braking is too sensitive
This has been improved with v2.0 of the system. Instead of bouncing off the edges of the lane it will actively keep you in the center of the lane.

Re: the braking -- I don't feel like ours is too sensitive. The only time it beeps is if I don't slow down for a car making a right turn in front of me, like turning into a business where I can see that it will complete the turn before I get close (like where I'm rapidly closing in on the car). If it were a stopped car in the lane it would be a problem, so I appreciate the notification.

I have only had it auto-brake on me 2 or 3 times in 40k miles, and that was when I was driving aggressively, like gunning it up the right lane past a pack of slow cars in the left. Then you just have to do something else (steer, accelerate, breathe on the brakes) to show it you're paying attention and it will stop the intervention.
 
#50 ·
The reason I want a car with traffic assistance is 100% for stop and go traffic. I can deal with sitting in the car for a while listening to a podcast, or book on tape. The constant speeding up and slowing down raises my blood pressure immensely though.


FWIW I doubt I will ever turn it on for highway speeds.

I am pretty sure we are at the point where under 25mph traffic with all cars headed in the same direction is a solvable issue. Not ready to bet my life on highway speeds.
 
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