I love my drive pilot feature but there are some weird instances that I am wondering if it is just me, or it is the system. Hoping this thread would be a good place for people to list their issues or questions about the system.

1. Does anyone else feel that their car on drive pilot is a bit off centered and is more on the right hand side of the lane? I dont know if its my eyes, but I always fear people around me think I am too close to them.

2. I cannot figure out why sometimes, the drive pilot is able to resume from a complete stop, and other times, it requires a tap of the gas pedal. I thought each time it came to a stop for more than 2 seconds, you have to resume it. But I have had countless times when i have been at a stop for way longer and it is able to resume automatically.

 

If the car comes to a complete stop the system can be "resumed" in two ways: tap the gas or pull the control lever towards you (my preffered way). If the car is not at a complete stop it will resume on its own (almost always).

 

If the car is stopped for more than 3 seconds, you have to resume acceleration either by tapping the gas pedal or pulling the cruise control stock towards you. If the car is stopped for less than 3 seconds, it will automatically resume acceleration on its own.

 

Yes, but I noticed it does auto resume even past 3 seconds of being stopped sometimes...

 

In the UK at least, if you come to a stop on a fast road (divided multi lane fast roads) it will sit for up to 30 seconds and resume with no input. Utterly beautiful for stop start crawling though roadworks and the like. Really wish it was legal to read a book or check email at the wheel in those situations. Elsewhere, it's only a few seconds till you have to push throttle or pull lever towards you (my preferred method). Often in those situations, if the car ahead moves off with 30 or so seconds the engine restarts in anticipation of moving off but waits for your confirmation.

Mine is a bit erratic at keeping centre lane, sometimes wanders left and right especially on wide lanes. Definitely sits further towards curb side then I usually do, though I prefer to see round cars ahead so stick towards dividing line and need to recalibrate my "centre" when letting the car steer!

Problems with it for me is erratic follow distances. Sometimes it's happy to get close, sometimes it hangs me way back resulting in following traffic being right up backside wondering why I've left a massive gap. I know the follow distance is proportional to speed, growing as speed increases but with min distance set on stalk and at same road speed sometimes the car leaves maybe 50 feet, sometimes 80 feet. Haven't fathomed why. It's also inconsistent with speed matching when approaching slower traffic ahead, sometimes slows down when car is very first detected, others it hurtles towards it without slowing down causing me to cover the brake incase something's gone wrong. Again, the delta between my speed and car ahead will influence how the car behaves but I see a lot of inconsistent behaviour that I can't quite understand. I have a grasp of control laws from my work with aircraft (I'm a chartered engineer in the aeronautical industry) and I'm spending time trying to figure the envelope of this but, alas, like my wife's logic, it presently escapes me!

 

1) I have stopped using DP on city streets. The behavior is too unpredictable. However, on a divided highway clearly marked I can go 30+ miles with continuous DP, just tapping the touch pad when prompted. DP will keep the car pretty dead center even in highway turns.

2) You and me both. I don't use DP on the streets, but the Adaptive Cruise sometimes will start up after a lengthy red light. Other times a 10 second stop can disengage it. Sometimes in the HUD the green car icon flashes, sometimes is solid, sometimes it blue. The flashing green I need to look up it's meaning.

 

I also noticed that at and under 65mph, the drive pilot is pretty good at taking turns of decent curvature. Anything faster say 70mph, the drive pilot just gives up mid or at the start of the turn. I dislike how there is no audible warning when this happens like on a Tesla.

 

I just ordered a car with Drive Pilot. Does anyone know if there will be any software updates over time to improve the system?

 

Just an observation, drive pilot steering is terrible during rain. Does not follow the lines at all and also cuts out very often, making it pretty much unusable.

Also during the rain, I received a "radar sensor dirty, see manual" message. The cruise control stalk was unresponsive and there was no drive pilot available. This was funny to me because on my Lexus with radar CC, you can switch back to normal CC without the radar. A few minutes later, I got another message that said "distronic now available" and everything was back.

 

Had exact same sensor dirty warning. And only for about three or four minutes.

 

I've noticed the same thing. It feels like the car centers itself 60/40 to the right, but I've also been unsure if it was the car or just me. If there were a setting available (like in the mythical Engineering Menu that you need a warlock's permission to enter) I would nudge it a few steps to the left.

 

We know for certain that some cars have improved hardware and improved software Drive Pilot/Intelligent Pilot.

The 2018 S Class (USA) has it.
The 2019 E Class Wagon has it.
The 2019 E Class E53 coupe and cab have it.
The 2019 CLS has it.
It appears to me; if the photos or description indicate new steering wheel ie the new aluminium look left and right controls; that is a clue the car has the newer hardware software.

Below ares abridged excerpts from car magazines (with my bold emphasis). A Benz engineer is reported to have said; the previous Drive Pilot was useful 20% of the time. The new improved Drive Pilot is useful 80% of the time. A big key is; the newer version incorporates GPS as well as cameras and radar.

No one will beat Audi to Level 3 autonomy, but Mercedes argues its broader speed-range Level 2 Active Distance Assist Distronic w/Active Steer Assist will prove more useful more of the time. Upgrades include broadening speed range at which both the cruise and steering assist functions operate, Active Lane Change Assist (checks blind spots, then changes lanes), Active Speed Limit Assist (which will vary speed to match the limit, & Route-Based Speed Adaptation (will slow the car as needed for impending tighter radius turns or navigation-recommended exits).

The active blind spot and lane keeping assist functions operate at a wider range of speeds now.

S-Class technology is refined further in the 2018, w/sensor systems looking farther ahead and behind the car, building on advances first seen in the redesigned 2017 E-Class sedan. The adaptive cruise control now uses navigation GPS & map data to adjust speed for upcoming curves, turns & intersections It takes a while to trust, but the system worked smoothly in my testing.

Steering assist also is advanced beyond previous lane centering to handle tighter curves, more speeds and degraded lane markings, as well as assisting in keeping control in evasive swerves. It also now includes an automatic lane change: Press the turn signal and the car will search for a safe opening, including checking the speed of more distant approaching vehicles, and then change lanes on its own.

The overall package pushes the envelope of Level 2 autonomous driving but is more conservative than some of the coming A8's Level 3 autonomous technology,

 

what I don't understand is how drive pilot will sometimes be unable to follow the lanes
yet the steering wheel will vibrate when you cross the white line.
IE one system does and the other does not "see" the lines...?

 

it seems that if the car stops only every now and then, it's the driver that has to re-activate.
if it stops frequently (traffic jam) it will keep going by itself.

 

Ive figured this out since I made that initial posting. The car knows from the navigation if you are on streets or on a highway. If the latter, it will auto resume no matter how long you have stopped. If you are on city streets, it will auto resume only if you stop for less than a second or two.

 

My car will resume after being stopped for a red light that is often 3 minutes duration.

Edit - a tap on the throttle is required to get the car moving, but the cruise control speed is still set.

 

Still a work in progress and not as they advertise. Be careful in stop and go traffic, if a car abruptly cuts in front of you the system doesn't seem to recognize this and the car will continue to accelerate. I'm sure the cars have hardware to improve the DrivePilot with just software upgrades. However I don't think the Germans have figured out one of the reasons why people love their Teslas is the ability of over the air software updates. From what I understand that when you take your Mercedes in for routine service they don't necessary update the software on their own.

 

correct. but on the freeway, it will resume without the tap no matter how long the stop is for.

 

I tested it on a 6 lane divided numbered highway and had to tap the throttle after being stopped at a red light. Even with the congestion in the Tampa Bay metro area I've never stopped on I-275 the only freeway in my county.

 

All MB distronic systems (W215, W221 D-plus and W204 D-plus) I have used behaved in the exact same way. Sometimes the car will maintain a distance further than the marker on the display for no reason, other times it will encroach into the limited area for no reason as well. It is frustrating. It would be nice if we could tune its behaviour.

I understand the BMW systems have much less hysterisis and are much more exact, at the expensive of passenger comfort (that said, distronic is jerky if the car in front is jerky too!)

 

I also thought that it kept the car far to the right of where I normally drive, but when I check the lines on both sides using the side mirrors, I see that with DrivePilot the car is usually perfectly centered, and it is ME that tends to be left of center.

 

I think most people tend to favor one side of the lane over the other, I tend to hug left, my wife stays to the right of the lane. I thought the AP was favoring the right, but when I checked both mirrors it was pretty much dead center.

 

Works the other way, too. If the car you are following makes a quick turn off the road, revealing another car STOPPED, the system doesn't recognize the second car as a vehicle. (Because it hasn't been tracking that vehicle, I guess.) You would think that if the system thinks it's a wall, it would stop the car anyway, but it didn't. I braked about a foot from the guy's bumper.

 

Anyone using a radar detector? Any problems caused by the AP lidar and such?