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Comment by focusgroup0 | Hacker News Reader

Would you drive to Tahoe in the snow with this?

Not sure that's the right question to ask. It takes two hours to get from San Francisco to Auburn, and it's highly unusual to have snow there.

Setting aside that I80 is generally cleared of snow very quickly, two hours of lane assist seems nice before tackling the remainder. And in most cases, it's more like "use this all the way to truckee and then drive the last 30 mins to squaw valley"

I use my Nissan LKA all the way to maybe Colfax. Beyond that I'm skeptical any modern system can tolerate the relatively tight turns and varying road conditions even in the summer. Still, getting 2+ hours with LKA is really helpful.

https://comma.ai/faq

Why even ask?

Long trips means spending a lot of time boringly driving on the highway with clear weather. I do not care for help in the more difficult first 15 min or last 15 min. I care about having help during the many hours in between.

That's interesting. I'm the complete opposite. Highway driving is the least taxing -- I can do it subconsciously. It's the more difficult first/last 15 mins of stop and go that I want automated. I could care less about the highway in clear weather. I might even enjoy that bit occasionally.

I thought the same until I tried a good L2 system. ACC and LKA are pure value adds. Lower the number of moments where your focus snaps back in as you are meandering out of the lane or creeping up on the person in front of you.

I generally agree, but heading north on I-5 from LA to SF is bumper to bumper traffic constantly swinging between 50 MPH and 75 MPH. Normal cruise control is worthless here because you're never going the same speed long enough to be a net benefit. I would absolutely love adaptive cruise control plus semi-automatic steering in that one scenario.

Stick me out in the middle of nowhere and I'm perfectly content driving for hundreds of miles straight. I don't find myself in that too often now, though.

This is purely anecdotal, but I've found driving like a "grandma" makes the drive completely stress free even in bumper to bumper traffic on the freeway. Just pick the center lane and set the cruise control to just around the average speed of that lane. Sure, I might arrive 5 mins latter and annoy some impatient people, but it does the trick most days. Hopefully more people start doing this and we can reduce phantom traffic jams.

That's absolutely the sane approach: shoot for the middle of the pack. It still never fails that someone races past me and cuts in, then forgets that their car also has cruise control and sucks at manually maintaining a constant speed.

It's still a perfectly valid question, how will this system work in the snow? Even flat featureless highways get covered in snow and ice.

You clearly missed my ref to their faq: https://comma.ai/faq

But if you still need to keep your attention on the road, what is the actual gain?

What else can you be doing that gets past the distraction detection?

As someone else here wrote: until I tried a good L2 system. ACC and LKA are pure value adds. Lower the number of moments where your focus snaps back in as you are meandering out of the lane or creeping up on the person in front of you.

So where has your focus been when it has needed to snap back in?

If I can use it with my 4x4 that has a winch.

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