It will be a controversial view — I hope 
— but I think our feelings about driving aids are as much about ourselves as about the aids themselves. I reckon I can adapt to most things (apart from the neck of a classical guitar) pretty quickly, so I don’t get too bothered by lane assist, the occasional abrupt deceleration, emergency braking when the system thinks I’m about to hit something (as someone else said, the software is still in its infancy), but I can quite imagine other people finding them infuriating.
Purely for research I left it enabled on a short run this evening. It definitely only kicks in only above 40MPH in the RS3 and did not interfere on the way to the local shop and back. It also seemed more positive about when it could figure out the road edges. Possibly there are some incremental improvements over the S3 - I have no idea of the “version number” of the system. The RS3 has some additional driver aids over what the S3 had but I think that is because it has surround cameras whereas the S3 did not.
So jury still out I’m afraid
1 Like
It thinks you’re changing lanes 
I think one should be able to turn them off permanently, like when they first came out +/- ten years ago. At least you can still adjust the viciousness with which it tries to wrestle the steering wheels from your hands.
We just turned it to minimum interference and it was never an issue on our BMW i4, I would have thought the S/W is pretty com9n across the range. While maybe the dealer can adjust sensitivity during a service or whne doing a local update, there’s no way they can fiddle with a mass system’s update. There’d be chaos. The OTA updates shouldn’t be changing any of your settings either.
I’m sure a bit of Googling about your model would reveal all, there are probably fora for all BMW models. The i4 one is excellent.
yes. and I know I’m getting boring but it amazes me that some commentators of great intelligence on here still gets seduced by anything tech or EV assuming it is always good.
1 Like
Is that an indicator of frequency or personality type?
Asking for a friend.
3 Likes
60 Kph is the legal minimum but I believe some makes of car are set to 70 kph, 80
kph or even 90 kph. Perhaps a sensible solution would be for this value to be driver selectable.
1 Like
On the other hand, others can’t recognise the threat from state subsidised BYD number 23s with optional fried rice to our car industry. I guess we all have our blind spots
1 Like
It really isn’t a problem and it isn’t going away, so people should just learn to live with it and enjoy the workout it gives their arm muscles 
No doubt there is more of this stuff coming down the line. My car already keeps an eye me to see if IT thinks I am getting tired. The new car I’m considering has a €300 option that allows you to get out of it and use your phone to tell it to go park itself. Could be the best 300 quid I’ve ever spent.
That would be a bargain for my wife who has the spacial awareness of a bull in a china shop.
2 Likes
Why are so many EVs RWD? I started looking and it seems to be vert popular across all manufacturers.
It won’t be long before we can just tell the car where we want to go, and not much longer after that before it decides we aren’t worth taking along for the ride.
Why not?
There are advantages to ICE FWD, cheap, easy to manufacture compact drive trains, cabin space, no transmission tunnel, low loading space in boot/hatch back, etc. but in general they are, now, worse handling than RWD. Unlike the good old days of nippy short wheelbase FWDs. Today’s lumps of a FWDs are understeerers.
So of one want’s a medium sized car that handles well , RWD is the answer, and since an electric motor can be put anywhere ( no transmission tunnel etc,) and is small why not stick it where it should be, in the back
AWD is another story. In 2012 we were snowed in and I assumed this would be an annual event so we swapped my wife’s new Golf GTD for a new 170 bhp Tiguan, it was a pleasure to drive. We were very happy with it. In 2017 we traded it in for a new 240bhp Tiguan (as usual, fatter, heavier bigger than the previous model) and it was a pig to drive. The difference? Some clown in Wolfsburg had decided that the rear biased Tiguan Mk1 drive train should become front biased in the Tiguan Mk 2. It completely changed the dynamics of the car. Big, heavy cars should not FWD IMO.
Though, I’ve very happy memories of a very fast CX I once had, but they were exceptional.
Our little R5e, which I would regard as ideally proportioned for FWD, is galloping through her front tyres. Like the old FWD days.
1 Like
Dunno, except I thought FWD was safer; the only RWD car we owned was a Volvo 340 and you had to be careful on roundabouts in the rain.
I think (not wishing to be negative) that this will be my last new car. I think you are completely right and “driving” as I grew up with it and as I enjoy it is on the cusp, the day of a car being only a domestic appliance is nigh.
Cars have been a passion for me since I changed my weekly subscription at the newsagents from the Victor and Hurricane to Motor and Autocar, sixty plus years ago. Subsequently, and decades ahead of the crowd, technology became another passion. Which I was fortunate to do well in. Now my two passions are merging. Which is quite amazing, I understand both, in depth, from the bottom up, first principles
I think a blend of a fast car with no shit, the Moragan. and a high tech car with less shit than is on the horizon will see me out
clarified
Like the personal computer.
I don’t mind, but I suspect you view the prospect like I and others view Suno and its ilk.
I hope your planning is based on the assumption that both cars will last well over 30 years.
1 Like