SaratogaLefty

Yesterday on my way home I had a really scary situation. I was on the freeway and my cruise was set at 75 mph. So I'm driving in the fast lane and all of a sudden a piece of what I'm guessing was aluminum foil comes floating down the road toward me. My car immediately slammed on the brakes very hard and cinched down my seat belt apparently thinking I was about to have a collision. Fortunately the car behind me was far enough back that he was able to react just in time and avoided rear ending me. He obviously was totally pissed off and let me know it with his middle finger and horn. I waved apologetically but I don't think he cared at that point.

So now I'm wondering if the collision avoidance system is really worth having?? Anyone else have a similar experience?

SillyGoose

Absolutely unacceptable

Is this a feature that would've activated even if you weren't set on cruise control? Can it be turned off if its a passive feature?

rsabeebe

aluminum foil? i have to believe there's a limit to the scope of the feature in relation to the size of the object. how big was this piece of 'foil'? how close the vehicle before the car hit the brakes? i have to assume it headed directly towards a sensor. i wonder about some of these safety features sometimes, but usually not from the system overreacting point of view.

amelen

My lane keep assist did something similar recently (I even had the dealership check out the cameras after). I've disabled it since. Definitely have to be careful becoming so reliant on this kind of technology.

SaratogaLefty

So I think it was about 12" x 12", basically a square foot in size. It was being blown by the wind directly at the center front of my car so that is why I think it was a piece of foil as metal would not have been "floating" down the middle of the lane. The large Collision Alert display came on immediately as the car was slamming on the brakes. Not sure if this has anything to do with the ACC?? I believe it is a built in safety feature but I can assure you if the person behind me had been a little closer he would have definitely hit me hard.

knowspin

Were you able to override the system and immediately apply power?

These new high tech systems are great overall, but they don't supplant an alert driver at the wheel.

manitou202

Here is the opposite situation with a Tesla. The car deactivates the autobraking above a certain speed. As a result this guy plowed into the back of a car.

Automakers still have a lot of work to do with these systems.

SaratogaLefty

I was able to regain control fairly quickly but needless to say by that time I was probably traveling around 35 mph. I quickly steered the car into the next lane on the right and then I was able to accelerate fairly rapidly back up to a safe speed. Luckily as I stated the guy behind me was far enough back and alert so he didn't hit me in the rear and the middle lane was unoccupied to my immediate right so all turned out okay. That said if the traffic had been heavy would have been a major accident.

911topanamera

SL, glad you're safe! Thats insane. My car has none of that stuff because I had it on my bMW and hated it cause it was so sloppy. This is something I haven't heard yet, thats crazy!

SaratogaLefty

I'm not sure it is related to the ACC. I think it may be a standard "safety" feature?? I guess one way you could find out is to drive up closely to the car in front of you on the freeway and see if the "Collision Warning" comes up.

Benedict14

SaratogaLefty

Don't have Innodrive. Didn't see any real practical use for it. I do have ACC.

Chris 911

cometguy

The default in my 2018 Panamera 4 E-Hybrid is that these emergency-braking systems are off, as far as I can tell. What does happen, if they are off, is that I'll still get a warning tone and sign in the instrument panel if I get "too close" to something "suddenly" -- which I'm sometimes baffled by. Happens maybe once or twice a week, but no emergency braking as far as I can tell -- just gets me looking more closely to see if I'm missing something (and I haven't yet -- I'm a pretty alert driver, which is why I drive Porsches).

I got the Innodrive in the Driver Assistance Package, not because I wanted it (I don't), but simply because it was cheaper than getting the two other things that I did want in that package separately (ACC and night-vision infrared camera, both of which I have used a lot). I've not yet used Innodrive -- have no desire to try, so I just keep it off. I think you have to go into a menu to enable it. I test-drove some Volvos in the past year with their version of "Innodrive", and I found them horrible and jerky in terms of trying to keep within lanes -- so annoying that after a couple of attempts with two different vehicles just to turn the thing off. I have no faith in such "Innodrive" systems in any other brands' cars, either.

I don't use ACC much "around town" on a daily basis, but I use it extensively on any trips longer than an hour or so -- and I really love the ACC. As I wrote in my thread on my 7600-mile trip a couple months ago, it worked extremely well -- only turning off suddenly once in that 2.5-week span when the sensors got really dirty (resolved as soon as I cleaned the front sensors), and having the occasional braking blip when a car in the adjacent lane on an expressway got too close to the line separating our lanes (or sometimes in a strong curve on an expressway, where the ACC sensed the vehicle in the next lane over was too close to straight ahead for comfort -- although I think that the software allows for wheel turning, so it doesn't happen a lot). As far as Saratoga's experience, I think that's good to know generally for all of us who use ACC, to be extra alert for that kind of thing; yes, you can immediately put your foot on the accelerator pedal and it will disengage the ACC control, and I've done that sometimes when a passing car cut closely in front of me and my car braked a bit too abruptly. But overall, I find the Panamera ACC to be better than in other brands' cars I've driven (Volvos, Toyota Avalon) in the past year.

The brake lights do come on when you're in ACC and the car suddenly slows down (I've seen reflections of my brake lights behind me at night to confirm this), but I can't find any information from Porsche as to exactly what threshold causes the brake lights to come on. Surely they don't come on if you are behind a car going 1 mph slower than you are, and your speed goes down 1 mph. But I don't know for sure. Does anybody else know what limits there are to the rear brake lights coming on when slowing down via ACC?

socalcarguy

This just happened to me today on the 405; the system was fooled by a mylar balloon on the highway and it drifted into my lane. Car suddenly started applying brakes and tighten the seat beat. I was lucky the car behind me was able to brake/slow down in time. Really freaked me out and immediately disabled the Porsche assistance system.

Edited: I was not on cruise control.