Kia Niro PHEV report: The one where kilbo tries self driving
Posted by
oblique (aka kkuphal)
Nov 8 '21, 07:16
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So, we had a quick lunch trip planned to see my son and his girlfriend in Peoria on Saturday and since I hadn't had a chance to try out the automated cruise control on our new Kia Niro PHEV, we decided to take my wife's car. Friday night, I stumbled on a Reddit post about how to turn on the different levels of regenerative braking on the car so I was also anxious to try that.
For clarity, the cruise control feature is one where there is a button on the steering wheel that controls how much distance the car will put between you and the car in front of you. It will control your speed all the way down to a full stop in traffic. Cool.
As we're driving on the highway, I see another button on the column next to the cruise distance button. Looks like a steering wheel. I turn it on and small light next to the lane guidance turns on. Now, the lane guidance is a feature which keeps you in a lane but it is pretty gentle. It beeps when you drift but I didn't find it to be very aggressive.
Well, once I turned on the steering feature, I noticed the car was actively keeping me in the lane. We came up on the first turn and WTFBBQ!?! The car drove itself around the turn.
Over the course of the trip, I found that the combination of auto cruise and the steering feature that I was 90-95% confident in the cars ability to drive down the highway unassisted INCLUDING these situations
- Slowing down to match the car speed in front of us in a construction zone
- Coming to a complete stop in traffic and resuming acceleration when the car in front moved.
- Navigating highway turns and even driving a ramp connecting two highways unassisted.
It was freaking cool. I also tried out those regenerative braking levels which basically is the "1 pedal" driving you may have heard of. Basically if you take your foot entirely off the gas, the car will brake and varying levels. Level 3 is pretty aggressive (like it will come to a full stop in seconds). Level 1 is probably where I like it but the "no brake" driving is a bit weird to get used to.
The "self" driving, however is wicked cool and surprisingly effective on a car that I had no idea had that feature before we bought it.
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