Stop-gap car?

wyx087

mad_rich wrote: »

The trouble with adaptive cruise control is that it's reactive, rather than proactive.

You can see the traffic, the gradient, the bends in the road. You can anticipate the complex ballet of vehicles in there lanes and work out when it's worth lifting off a fraction or adding a bit of gas in order to maintain speed. You can also judge when dropping or adding 5mph is the best course of action.

The car can't. It just dumbly sits there and tries its best to maintain speed based on the limited feedback it has. Accurate, but not efficient.

The only adaptive cruise control I've used was in an Audi a few years ago. Nice gimmick if you're sitting in one lane, but even then it had to use the brakes far more often than I would.

The Tesla may be different. I believe the range forecasting tool takes account of road type, gradient, traffic and weather forecast (if you have your destination plugged in). It wouldn't be too much to expect the assisted driving mode you know these things too.

In theory, you are right. But from my experience with recent ACC cars, they have some sort of hysteresis built-in. So for example, if a car cuts in, the ACC doesn’t slam on the brakes to keep distance, it slowly slows down to build the gap back up. Same with approaching a slower car, slowly eases off the speed.

The Infiniti/Mercedes ACC also takes into account of cornering. So when cornering and it loses track of car in front, it doesn’t speed up, it maintains safe cornering speed until after the bend and if it’s clear. Unfortunately basic ACC on the Hyundai Ioniq I test drove did not have this, it attempted to speed up when lost track during a bend.


I’m just looking for the laziest way to work. Over 55 miles of my 60 miles commute is on motorway, if I sit behind another car (this is certain, there’s always cars), knowing the ACC has the speed covered, it would take a lot of stress out of the commute. If it can also nudge forward in stop-go traffic, that’s 99.8% of my commute covered.

I’m the lazy person that would use cruise control to accelerate back up to speed. Eg. a car turning left in front on a 30mph zone, it slows down, I slow down, it turns away, I check all clear, and resume my CC. Too lazy to press the accelerator pedal and then make sure I don’t go over speed limit, CC can take care of that.

k3lvc

wyx087 wrote: »

Okay. So approved used for that kind of money (10-12k) and walk away with an asset rather than hand the key back. Could C class/A4/3-er/Passat drop to that price while still be approved used?

I’ve seen Volvos V40 drop to 10k price range, probably Golf as well. Not sure about compact saloons......

You might get something from the other manufacturers but probably not loaded to the extent you want - Volvo/Saab used to be the classics choices at this level and a V40 is probably as good as anything at that level (and no I don't own one but was tempted by the financial sense of an already depreciated V60 for the comfort/spec/economy)

Zola.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/28/tesla-model-3-4-new-things-to-know.aspx

henry24

mad_rich wrote: »

$35k was the headline figure quoted at launch, although Tesla have since said that they expect most people will spend $42k or more with some pretty important options missing from the base price. And quite a lot more if you want to upgrade from the base 215mi (150-180 real world?) battery.

UK pricing not announced yet, but don't be surprised if the $42k car comes out at a lot more than the equivalent £34k!

You can take £4500 off at the moment, but a) I think the funding for that incentive is limited, and b) ISTR something about a cap on the car price of £40k

Thank you for your reply, I don't think I will be rushing to buy one yet. I drive a Mazda 6 diesel cost new about £20000 so half the Tesla will do 60 mpg and 600 mile between fills, I know it would do 300000 miles if needed and will stay with Mazda rather than trying to save a few quids worth of fuel on an unknown car.

parking_question_chap

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

How is buying a new car at £450-500 a month in any way sensible when your current car costs you £380?

Would it not be sensible just to buy a cheap 5-door hatchback like a Focus or something for £2-3K and with the money you save you'll be able to reach the goal of a Tesla more quickly, and you'll actually own the car so have something to dispose of and return a few quid when you get your Model 3.

Madness.

Agree with the above.

Maybe look for a Civic, leasing makes no sense if your ultimate goal is to spend less.

Apodemus

caprikid1 wrote: »

"Your wife is right - 3 door cars with babyseats are a nightmare."


Sorry disagree, I actually found 4 doors can be just as challenging.


Plus a child can't get his fingers caught in a 3 door coupe !.


1st world problems.

1st world indeed! Our first car with baby was a SWB series three Land Rover, with baby seat bolted to centre front seat! Wouldn't be legal now and probably wasn't safe then, but good for parent/child bonding!

wyx087

So what's the best way to search for ACC enabled cars?


Autotrader is no help, adaptive cruise returns adaptive headlights and standard cruise control. Many adverts are also confusing where they put adaptive cruise and later in car spec table lists as standard cruise.

Motor used to work with complex search keywords such as <"adaptive cruise" or "active cruise"> in the search box, now they have gone down to the lowest denominator and work the same as Autotrader.




Also, is there a good time to buy used cars? 9 years, 90k miles a good target? I think most cars need a complete big major service at around 8 years 80k miles. So if I buy at 90-100k miles, they should be reliable at least until 150k.

parking_question_chap wrote: »

Agree with the above.

Maybe look for a Civic, leasing makes no sense if your ultimate goal is to spend less.

Well, the goal isn't to spend less. It's to spend similar amount while having a known to be reliable car. My thinking was buying used there's always a chance of a big bill around a blind bend.

BeenThroughItAll

wyx087 wrote: »

Well, the goal isn't to spend less. It's to spend similar amount while having a known to be reliable car. My thinking was buying used there's always a chance of a big bill around a blind bend.

Well, one sure fire way to avoid big bills is to buy a car with a complex, not-particularly-useful set of features.


*bangs head*

Herzlos

wyx087 wrote: »

So what's the best way to search for ACC enabled cars?

Your best bet is probably to find out which cars/models have them it as standard and search for them.

harz99

Herzlos wrote: »

Your best bet is probably to find out which cars/models have them it as standard and search for them.

Exactly, blindingly obvious isn't it!