[aseem23]

I use ADAS features on my Tucson, and it is undoubtedly helpful for me. Forward Collision Warning, Blind-Spot Collision Warning, Blind-Spot View Monitor, Safe Exit Warning, and Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist have greatly helped me, especially during city traffic.

Om highways, lane keep & following assist, and adaptive cruise control are useful features to have. It all depends on how one is using it.

[souvik6]

A lot of the concerns in this poll thread seem to be valid from first time users but many people have voted without having any experience with ADAS.

I have been using ADAS since day 1 in my XUV700 for last 1.5 years without ever thinking that it is not suited for India. Not once have I felt the need to turn of any of the features.

Having ADAS has actually improved my driving style by a lot as previously I was a very heavy footed and rash driver. But now I really enjoy driving more smoothly which complements the ADAS IMO. Heavy footed drivers I believe would be unsatisfied with the ADAS since the system reacts "unfavorably" if one is used to tailgating and making sharp overtakes.

I am mostly driving the XUV in Delhi/Noida city traffic 60% and 40% on highways. AEB on few occasions has actually helped to stop the car while I was distracted on the wheel avoiding low speed fender bender incidents. On a few occasions even the pre warning has helped in me reacting to make the right decisions in milliseconds. If one reacts quickly then the AEB understands the inputs and doesn't force a decision on you. This really makes the tech a superior supplementary safety system.

I honestly think the ADAS tuned by Mahindra has been tested intensively in Indian driving conditions before being released. I cannot comment on other manufacturers but I am beyond satisfied with ADAS in my XUV700 and cannot imagine giving it up anymore. And this is just my experience with ADAS in city driving conditions, on the highways ACC is even more useful driving long distances on well paved and marked highways. It really helps to reduce a lot of fatigue while driving long distances. A lot of this credit has to also be given for the driving dynamics of the petrol XUV700 which is really enjoyable as well.

I really think that ADAS is not suited for drivers who like me previously who enjoyed swerving through traffic at high speeds and rushing to every destination like my life depended on it.

[SedateMotorhead]

Originally Posted by souvik6

Having ADAS has actually improved my driving style by a lot as previously I was a very heavy footed and rash driver. But now I really enjoy driving more smoothly which complements the ADAS IMO.

This right here is one of the best features of ADAS that goes unnoticed!

Originally Posted by souvik6

I honestly think the ADAS tuned by Mahindra has been tested intensively in Indian driving conditions before being released. I cannot comment on other manufacturers but I am beyond satisfied with ADAS in my XUV700 and cannot imagine giving it up anymore.

Sorry for going off topic, but I have read a lot on our forum about how well tuned ADAS from Mahindra is for Indian conditions. That makes me wonder if anyone has been able compare ADAS technologies across brands? For instance, How is ADAS on the XUV 700 better or different than say in the Innova Hycross?

Cheers.

[PaddleShifter]

Not voting as I am using a car with basic cruise control. Cruise control and fatigued driver is a recipe for disaster. My Uncle from US was sitting with me while I was driving him to a place and he was observing my driving inside Chandigarh using cruise control. His only comment was “Cruise control is very dangerous to use if the driver is fatigued and prone to sleep”.

Just few weeks back, my S-Cross had hit the roadside railing early morning because the person driving it slept off while driving under cruise control, last year (late 2022). The highway was well marked and ADAS would have prevented it for sure. Based purely on the specs, the three most important features of ADAS that I would want are:
1. Lane detection and lane keep assistance
2. Sleep detection/ steering correction.
3. Adaptive cruise control where car speed car reduce and increase based on cars in the front.

People often said that cruise control is useless in India but I find it very useful, especially at places where I need to drive under strict speed limit of 50kmph (city conditions) or 70kmph (some parts of highways) and 80kmph (most highways).

[Carevidence]

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

I do not have a car with ADAS, but I am keen on it being a feature in my next car.

Am totally in favour of ADAS having used it, though Indian traffic conditions can make it a challenge in the beginning, having said that it is not to say the problem lies with ADAS rather with the traffic conditions.
Ironically while local conditions make it a challenge,ADAS comes in handy against those very conditions too, for example-what are the chances brake lights of buses, trucks, light trucks etc will be working, or for the matter tractor trailers which invariably do not have tail lights?.
ADAS is going to spot it and react well before you do.
Secondly one's reflexes especially older drivers slow down with age, again a situation where ADAS will save you valuable reaction time.
I also use it in stop go bumper to bumper traffic where in the past without ADAS have bumped into the vehicle in front.
Not going into an inventory of all components of ADAS but there are other useful parts as well such as in my Tucson there is a speed limiter function which guards against inadvertent breaching of the speed limit especially in places where speed gun happy cops are just waiting to pounce on you.
So I would suggest do some homework and get used to driving with it, it takes a little time to anticipate what ADAS will do.
I am not thinking of becoming complacent rather accept the fact you may not be 100% attentive all the time, inspite of your best efforts.
No need to go in for top of the line ADAS list yet, if you have the option, and I do not wish to subscribe to the belief Indian traffic is like this only and will never get better.

P.S: I hope you noticed I did not use the word "feature".

[drive.helios]

Voted Yes but with catches. Right now its just marketing gimmick to showcase cars as futuristic. With the chaotic driving styles most of us are used to, these features are too conservative for our roads. I do like some of them - blind spot monitoring is quite handy given how many bikes and small vehicles lurk around the rear in hiding. I use cruise control quite a lot and hate it when I have to manually engage at times. Adaptive CC could really help. I'd have for the cars to brake on my behalf, I'd prefer to retain my control but nudges are welcome. I don't think ADAS is the problem. The vehicle density on our roads and our driving styles are.

[MysticMind]

I am unable to vote yet due to the minimum post requirement but want the forum's thoughts on aspects such as ADAS maintenance, and caliberation.

The top end variants of the cars I am considering for my next purchase have ADAS and I had a chance to experience it during my test drives. Though these features bring in a wow factor and a sense of safety to unsuspecting users, my initial thought was about how invasive these systems are. I also asked the SA about the maintenance and repair aspects of ADAS to understand complications that might arise during ownership. He did not have a straight answer and said that bumper damage needs replacement and is expensive. Overall, to make a quick sale, he mentioned that ADAS is not expensive and I need not worry about it.

Post the test drives, I looked up google for repair and maintenance aspects of ADAS and it threw up some worrisome factors into play:

1. Drop in voltage - as less as 0.2 volts, Frayed wires, corroded connectors, or blown fuses can affect ADAS sensors.
2. ADAS needs to be recalibrated after the windshield replacement or installation, after vehicle body repairs that may have affected the windshield after a control unit replacement, after accidents, after a wheel alignment, after a tire size change, after suspension levels change, after the replacement of the camera or radar.
3.. If a car with ADAS has been involved in a crash, crash-induced repairs were most likely to have persistent problems. Those who had repairs but never had the systems re-calibrated were significantly less likely to encounter recurring problems as compared to those who repaired and re-calibrated, signaling that some repaired but un-calibrated vehicles could falsely appear as functional. (source: autoweek)
4. Recalibration does not seem to be straight forward since some of the crash test car owners had to make multiple trips to the repair shop specifically for recalibration. Seems to indicate that it can be difficult to properly recalibrate these advanced systems following a crash.
5. If repairers are unable to calibrate the safety systems, they should inform customers and drivers about the necessity and importance of getting the system calibrated somewhere else, as well as the risks of an incorrect or not completed calibration. Is this something that we can expect from our A.S.S technicians?

Some of the questions on my mind right now:

Post launch of an ADAS feature, does the auto manufacturer or dealer train their service staff on recalibration or maintenance of ADAS features?

If most common use cases like change of tyre size, wheel balancing, windshield repair can affect ADAS caliberation, the who to run to for recaliberation?

Is it safe for a car with failure related to ADAS to be on the road?

I would like to disclose that I am huge technology adapter and being in the IT field itself, a propagator of innovation. However, I have reservations related to Artifical Intelligence and not in favor of it. ADAS in many ways seems like AI to me. Auto manufacturers and dealers do their best to sell their goods to the customer but never take initiative to educate the customer on how to deal with systems such as ADAS post their sale.

With future maintenance in mind, I am on the fence and unable to decide whether to go for top end variants with ADAS or sacrifice features and go in for a lower variant.

[Lobogris]

A resounding yes!
ADAS, along with a 5 star rating is my top priority in any vehicle. I will never purchase a vehicle without it. On my MG Astor, I use it daily and find it extremely useful. Adaptive cruise control and traffic jam assist are a boon in the cities and highways. Contrary to what most people have said, I find that the forward collision warning and brakes activate very rarely and way too late. In fact, I have had then kick in just a few times over the past year. I would like the warning to come on much earlier, especially at the maximum setting.

I believe that the people who don't like it are driving aggressively and not keeping a safe distance from the vehicle in the front. There is little chance of ADAS kicking in if you yourself keep a safe distance and slow down whenever a vehicle cuts in the front.

Originally Posted by for_cars1

While this is a great feature to have, the concerning aspect is how these autonomous aids has the potential to make the driver complacent and diminish/turn off his/her reflexes to go for the pedals in a normal car without these aids. In a normal non ADAS vehicle, driving as an activity engages our actions to accelerate or brake in an almost autonomous/reflex driven way, we really don't have to think about braking, the foot by default reaches to the right pedals even in a fraction of a second making all the difference between getting into danger or being safe. Imagine everyone getting used to these driver aids which will take all the decisions and disabling our "human-autonomous" driver actions. Such drivers will never be able to drive a normal car safely. If there is a need to do an emergency braking, such ADAS-drivers will simply not find their leg going for the brakes within the critical needed time.

This is not at all correct. ADAS level 2 is not self driving. The driver is always in control of the vehicle. You don't simply sit back and let autonomous emergency braking (AEB) brake for you. You are always braking, just like in a car without ADAS. AEB is for those very rare occasions where the driver might get distracted and not see something or an emergency where someone suddenly pops up in the front. Even then, you would try and brake as well and the system would help by doing it a little faster. No one relies on this system to brake under normal circumstances. Similarly, you don't use adaptive cruise control all the time. You might use in once in a while on the highway or some major city street but you are always ready to take over and you often have to take over from the system. So, if I am on a highway trip, I might use adaptive cruise control for around 50 to 70% of the time in a best case scenario and I would have to intervene dozens of times even when it is being used. In the city, its use would be less than 20% of the time. Let's say a taxi suddenly cuts a little into my lane by about 25%. I am not going to risk hitting it by testing to see whether the radar would pick it up. I would brake myself to be safe. ADAS is used when there is no immediate danger and the driver takes over whenever the situation looks tricky. Hence your fears are unfounded.

[Sunil@KA25]

On a lighter note, All our office Cabs - The Dzires, Ertigas, Marazos and even the Tempo travellers have our very own jugaad desi ADAS system.
We use an App to book our ride to and back from the office and as soon as you enter the secure pin, the mobile phone app says "Welcome" " Please Wear Seat belts" and at every interval of 10 or 15 mins it keeps alerting the driver " Driver!! - Please stay alert"

(mods please delete if not adding value or smiles to the readers)

[BlackBagheera]

Why aren't luxury vehicle manufacturers in India providing ADAS features? For example, the recently launched Mercedes EQB 350 doesn't even come with adaptive cruise control. I believe this is true for the entire Mercedes lineup in India.

[shamanth]

Originally Posted by abaliga

I do like the way Tata have implemented ADAS on Safari/Harrier and this will help a great deal by warning drivers incase one is not paying attention or there is something in the blind spot, rear cross traffic alert, traffic alert while opening doors etc are much more useful in our conditions than something like active lane keep assist which I felt was intrusive for my taste and scary at times when I tried this feature in the states, will be too intrusive for our conditions

These things even a dash-camera costing 8-10k does it, don't think it even qualifies for ADAS Level-1.

Some of the features in ADAS Level-2 like adaptive cruise control works great, it's as if it's made for Indian roads. Without this, the cruise control is pretty useless in Indian roads.

[GKMahajan]

Very interesting thread!

I have a Scorpio AT 2016 model and Jazz V CVT 2015. Both of them are without ADAS or anything equivalent.

In Jan 2023, I added a 70MAI A500S dual dashcam to my Scorpio. This has a ADAS feature. At that time I did not study it and the guy who did the installation did not even talk about it.

In Sep 2023, I realized that this feature is 'interesting'. So I went and enabled it.
I have been using it since 18 or 19 Sep 2023 only!

It has ability to sense lane changes, insufficient gap between me and the vehicle ahead of me, movement of vehicle ahead at a stop and (here I may be wrong) it tells if pedestrian is possibly coming in the way.

In all the cases mentioned, it cannot 'control' my car! It can only give me an audio warning and display a message on it's screen.

I have not experienced the kind of problems that are mentioned by some of my friends on this forum.

As far as my last couple of hundred kilometers of driving is concerned - I am very happy with the feedback mechanism. There were instances of what I felt were false alarms. However, I felt that they were few and far apart.

I think that most of us on this forum are mature and are not talking of compromising on safety for the sake of the thrills.

I noticed a common logic with the nay-sayers - they are not talking of compromising on the safety - it is just that they feel that they are equally good at it or may be better too!

I have voted 'YES'. I will definitely study this more.

In a recent visit to China, I saw some boards on the highway. I do not remember the exact words. But to the effect that at 80 km/hr keep a distance of 100 meters and at 100 km/hr maintain at least 200 meters gap. Then there were boards (in series) saying 0 m, 50 m and 100 m to give the drivers an idea of how much this distance means.

Most of the drivers seemed to be speeding beyond the specified limits but were maintaining good distances. In spite of this I witnessed a sort of pile up. The interesting part was that out of the 25-30 cars that has piled up - only 2 or 3 seemed damaged. The others had just touched the cars ahead with little damage to both.

On the Pune Mumbai Expressway, I found that the ADAS in the dashcam helped me keep a safe distance. Mind you - there were many who thought of that gap as an 'opportunity'! Anyway, I would just slow down and keep gap with this new vehicle in front.

On the topic of lane change, I always thought that I did very few lane changes. Now I realize that there are many lane changes that I HAVE to do. Now I am planning them better and that is also making me feel safer.

On the topic of sensing movement at a stop - I found that the guys in the cars behind me were honking much before the cars in front of me moved! But still, most of the times, the sensing and alerting process was very encouraging.

I am looking forward to using a system which has control too! Keeping my fingers crossed!

Thank you for reading through my rant!

[vijaykr]

Voted yes. The ADAS on the City is probably not as extensive as some of the others discussed in this thread. But I find what is available is pretty useful and has in a small way improved my driving.

On highways, the lane departure warning and lane keep assist are very helpful. The ACC is good but I find it a bit less useful as slow trucks on adjacent lanes makes the car slow down more often to maintain the gap. Maybe I've to figure out the optimum distances to set for this as currently I'm using the max gap setting.

The collision mitigation braking feature takes some getting used to, but now I have a good sense of when the audio warnings are going to sound and am able to start slowing/braking in advance But it is comforting to know that automated assist will kick in when other vehicles unexpectedly cut in front.

Overall pretty happy with ADAS and would not buy a car without it going forward. Cheers

[aakashsood]

Hi dear members,

I definitely did not want to start my journey here on TEAM-BHP with my first thread to be such, but unfortunately, life had other plans.
I bought the new Kia Seltos facelift model GTX+ DCT on 21st September, 2023. I was very happy with the overall experience of the car I had till now, until the dreaded afternoon of 30th September when an off-duty ambulance hit me from behind on the expressway.

My majority of the run is on Noida-Greater Noida expressway only since my home and workplace both lie on the same expressway. So, I also happened to use ADAS very frequently and effectively.

On 30th, I was coming back with my father after dropping our old Ritz for service, and we were on the expressway, at a speed around 50-70 mph when out of no where, a tractor decided to take a left turn exit from the right most lane. The turn was so dramatic that tractor was almost 90 degrees on the road. So instinctively, the Honda city in front of me applied brakes and so did I. That's where things took turn for the worse. When I applied the brakes, the cars ADAS also took over and applied the brakes as well (Collision avoidance system) and almost brought it to a standstill. Now everything happened so quickly so I don't remember the exact details, but I'm very sure that had the car not applied brakes itself, I could have probably swerved away and in fact, the amount of brakes I had applied were sufficient. Luckily, none of us (from both the vehicles) were hurt.

Now the ambulance driver says he had applied brakes but I don't think so because there were no tire marks where it happened and also, speed was not that much that it was difficult to stop the vehicle. He was probably also not maintaining a safe distance.

Regarding the repair, I have sent the vehicle to Kia and they've told me that any kind of work would start only after 3rd October since till 2nd, insurance surveyors are on leave. Also, it would take 14-15 days for it to be repaired.

I'm thinking of switching off the collision avoidance altogether to avoid such incidents in future. Do you people have any advice from experience?

Attaching some pictures of both the vehicles.

[PaddleShifter]

Originally Posted by aakashsood

but I'm very sure that had the car not applied brakes itself, I could have probably swerved away and in fact, the amount of brakes I had applied were sufficient.
…
Now the ambulance driver says he had applied brakes but I don't think so because there were no tire marks where it happened and also, speed was not that much that it was difficult to stop the vehicle. He was probably also not maintaining a safe distance.
…
I'm thinking of switching off the collision avoidance altogether to avoid such incidents in future. Do you people have any advice from experience?

Sorry to see this but I can assure you that the car will be back to its original glory. Let them take their time for repairs.

Having traveled in an ambulance for almost 4 years furing my younger days as a medical student on call duties, I have seen that quite a few ambulance drivers have had a bit of alcohol and have little care for the rules. This was a case of foolish person tailgating you at the wrong time.

I do not feel that ADAS is the sole reason for this accident. We think a lot of stuff after such incidents but the reality is that during a rear ending event, the vehicle tailing and hitting from behind is at fault and rightly so.