Not just this car, either. There was one particular road junction on the A30 going west out of Salisbury that always, without fail, caused my Tesla Model 3 to swerve to the right, quite forcefully. Seems its emergency lane keeping (ELK) was falsely triggered by the way the left hand side of the road dipped away.

Similarly, but not so violently, the ELK in the I Pace would sometimes trigger when it spotted wheelie bins, or very occasionally a parked car. The I Pace only gives a pretty gentle nudge, though, nowhere near as forceful as the Tesla.

Manufacturers pretty much have to fit ELK in order to gain a good NCAP rating, so I think we may well see more cases where ELK gets falsely triggered, perhaps enough to cause an accident, rather than prevent one.

 

I think it's legislation which means by default any safety enhancements have to be active on start up, so that's probably what the software update did.

But the strong response is just a clumsy/dangerous implementation, on our Mini the lane keeping is no more than a mild vibration in the steering wheel, which is great it alerts you if the car is wandering but any avoidance is up to the user who can assess all the other dangers.

But unfortunately I have seen previous Chinese software updates (not on cars) have unintended consequences, there was a while back in model radio control systems where the legislation changed to give you two options, 1) reduce power, 2) check channel is clear before transmitting, a Chinese manufacture chose the easier first option and model planes were going out of control, they denied anything was wrong for several months and then launched a new firmware which gave greater range (i.e. option 2!).

 

I think it's legislation which means by default any safety enhancements have to be active on start up, so that's probably what the software update did.

I haven't seen it worded that way, but in any case it does appear that the lane keep assist (or whatever they call it) is required by law to be on when you switch the car on, and can't be disabled permanently.
Same for reversing noise and fake engine noise (particularly loud on Kia cars. You could switch it off on older ones, but no longer on newer models.)

 

My e-tron 50 does some strange moving or pulling towards white lines sometimes, nothing as severe as leaving the lane I'm in but still not ideal. I don't fully like the fact these modern cars have the ability to move the steering wheel and could change the speed.

If you actually think about what you car could actually do if it malfunctioned you wouldn't probably get in one. Any car with cruise control, automatic braking and automatic parking has the ability, to automatically steer, accelerate and brake.

These are safety critical systems so in theory they would have full branch testing of all possible code paths, but it still enters my mind sometimes they in theory have the ability to take over at any point.

The whole AI thing would be even more scary if you added that to the mix.

 

My e-tron 50 does some strange moving or pulling towards white lines sometimes, nothing as severe as leaving the lane I'm in but still not ideal. I don't fully like the fact these modern cars have the ability to move the steering wheel and could change the speed.

If you actually think about what you car could actually do if it malfunctioned you wouldn't probably get in one. Any car with cruise control, automatic braking and automatic parking has the ability, to automatically steer, accelerate and brake.

These are safety critical systems so in theory they would have full branch testing of all possible code paths, but it still enters my mind sometimes they in theory have the ability to take over at any point.

The whole AI thing would be even more scary if you added that to the mix.

I agree, but there does seem to be a great deal of variation between manufacturers in how well these features operate and the level of intervention they apply if they sense a hazard.

For example, the Tesla Model 3 I owned (2019 LR AWD) had some well-known and quite forceful false interventions by its safety systems. Most common by far was so called "phantom braking", when the car would apply full emergency stop level braking, almost always on fast roads. this could be overridden by a push on the accelerator pedal, but was very unnerving the first few times it happened. I got used to when it might do this, the most common occasion was if overtaking a truck with flapping straps down the sides, or sometimes when approaching a bridge with a strong shadow beneath.
The same car used to pretty much always serve right at one particular road junction, too, again quite forcefully, enough to cause my wife to refuse to drive it after it happened to her.

The I Pace I owned until a couple of days ago would have its emergency lane keeping function false trigger sometimes, too, but never with enough force to cause the car to swerve, just an annoying hint that I should turn right, into oncoming traffic. The I Pace didn't ever do the full emergency stop braking thing, though, and was generally markedly less prone to false alarms in general.

I haven't owned the Mercedes EQA long enough to know whether its systems get triggered by false alarms or not. It's not something that seems to come up in forum discussions so I'm hoping its at least as robust as the I Pace in this respect.

The manufacturers seem to be stuck with having to implement these systems if they are going to be able to sell their cars and given the very wide range of different driving conditions around the world it must be one hell of a job trying to come up with a really comprehensive testing regime. Probably not helped by the right hand drive market being relatively small in global terms, either.

What I'd like to know is whether the nuisance false alert rate of these systems is worth it in terms of the lives the systems may save when they operate correctly. There has to be a degree of additional accident risk from drivers being startled by a false response to a non-existent threat.

 

These systems are a danger to road users. My Model Y decided to do an emergency stop on a 70mph dual carriageway on a slight curve because it spotted a truck sitting in a layby and thought I was going to hit it. If there'd been anyone behind me there could have been nasty consequences.

 

To be fair, I had a new 2017 Mercedes C220D, after a couple of years, I was driving at 60mph on a A road with my family and dog in, all of a sudden with no warning it crammed the brakes on as I was going around a bend. I actually nearly lost control and it would have been a big accident. I think the car saw a branch of a tree that was slightly pertruding but this wasn't actually in my path and somehow saw it as a threat and took emergency action.

Pretty crazy stuff really. Never really trusted it after that.

Ironic that the system that is meant to protect us nearly put us in harms way.

 

Crossing threads…

https://www.speakev.com/threads/have-euro-ncap-ratings-had-their-day-less-than-1-in-5-new-car-buyers-check-safety.185542/#replies

 

Our ID3 gives a gentle tug occasionally.
I've turned it off because neither of us like it, but it still comes on occasionally.
Maybe it needs to be turned off on every start up, not so sure.
We don't drive fast or corner erratically so most of the time it's fine and not too distracting.

 

There are two systems, one, ELK or Emergency Lane Keeping, has to be on by default every time the car is started, or in some cars all the time with no option to turn it off. The other system LKA or Lane Keeping Assist, sits on top of this and is driver selectable at will and doesn't need to come on at start up. In general, LKA provides more functionality, being effectively auto-steer on some cars.

 

As I said before I don't think that reducing the skills and attention of drivers is a good thing. On the other hand, had the Landrover that drove into a school playground last year when the driver had a seizure, had collision avoidance. then two eight-year-old girls would probably still be alive.

 

Maybe, maybe not. I was sitting in the car in stationary traffic today (it was school chucking out time and everything grinds to a halt as the mothers drive five yards to pick up their kids) and I was watching the Tesla's monitor. The camera picks up objects and shows them on the screen. It's quite interesting seeing what the camera's pick up. But, while it saw all the adults and showed shadowed images of them on the monitor, it very rarely registered the presence of a child.

 

Well imo the Lane Keep Assist is dangerous full stop. Violent steering grabs? Yep it does that. Luckily it's fairly easy to turn off every time I drive. Mokka-e and 500e...Stellantis ought to make turning it off permanent.

 

I do not think they are as smart as the worse driver in the world.

 

How come the LKA (and emergency braking) issues are always the MG4 and not other MG EVs?
Are there similar issues / faults in the ZS EV or MG5?

 

I ended up selling my MG4 because of the LKA being in my view dangerous and unpredictable. MG never seemed interested in trying to fix it despite it being highlighted by Which? magazine as a serious issue. I would take a lot of convincing to buy another MG.

 

Why didn't you simply turn it off, even if it's every time you drive it. That's what I do in the Mokka-e.

 

I've got an MG4 and that's what I do. There was a fair bit on the MG forums about this but the more I read the more I realise that it's a widespread problem. Implementations of the system may vary between cars but there does seem to be a more fundamental issue in the safety requirements.

 

Mercifully the ZS doesn't have the LKA on by default but the emergency braking is and its very disconcerting when the car makes an emergency stop. Nearly been rear ended three times. Again you can turn it off/down but you have to go through three screens of options every time you start the car and you know the one time it would have helped would be the one time you remember to turn it off.

 

MG are currently rollong out Service Campaign 77 - effectively a recall - which is an update for the LKA. I haven't had it yet myself but others report the system is far more sensible now.

 

I understand that there is a campaign to update the software and the new software is apparently far better. I am booked in for an update later in the month so I will be interested to see the improvement. Personally, I have got used to it so I leave it turned on most of the time anyway.
At least I don't get the unnecessary emergency braking that my daughter-in-law's Seat used to suffer.

 

On the Mokka-e, the LKA on a certain bend on the A12 seems determined to pull you into the bridge support. Quite a violent pull as well. Given the Bridge support looks quite solid, I declined the fireball option and turn the damned thing off every single time. Safety systems eh? Thanks EU.

 

The safety systems not working as intended are nothing to do with the EU. The idea of a safety a system is perfectly sound, the problem is how manufacturers implement it.

 

Has anyone told the EU it's nothing to do with them?

Vehicle Safety Systems

Road accidents are a major cause of death in industrial countries. Numerous intelligent transport systems can contribute to a possible solution.

transport.ec.europa.eu

They insist it's fitted, ergo it's their responsibility if it tries to force you to drive into a brick wall. Agreed Stellantis are also responsible.

 

The EU having mandatory safety regulations is a good thing and many manufacturers have very good and unobtrusive systems implemented. Don’t blame the EU for the fact your particular car sucks at it.

My I-Pace at worst does a gentle nudge of the steering wheel and it’s not remotely dangerous. Similarly my E-Tron would do a gentle pull that was easily corrected and not dangerously abrupt.

 

The EU having mandatory safety regulations is a good thing and many manufacturers have very good and unobtrusive systems implemented. Don’t blame the EU for the fact your particular car sucks at it.

Stellantis and MG. Seems the mandated tech isn't fit for purpose, full stop.

Very simply The EU mandate it is fitted. No EU regulations, then it wouldn't be fitted. The EU permit what's been fitted. They bear a lot of responsibility, not all but some. I'm sorry if basic logic isn't your thing.

 

lol, the irony of trying to tell me my logic is flawed.

Blaming poor implementation of mandatory car safety systems on the EU for having them in the first place, is a massive logical fallacy.

I can’t stress enough that when done right it has the potential to save lives without any increase in danger. The fact MG and obviously Stellantis have poorly designed LKA systems, is not on the EU.

Which.co.uk even did an article specifically on the dangerous implementation of LKA on the MG4. The article even states other brands did not have the same behaviour.

To blame this on the EU for daring to increase road safety is utterly laughable.

Your car may actually be doing ELK rather than LKA. Look up the difference.

 

The problem isn't the requirement to have such emergency safety systems it is the abject failure of the regulators to ensure that these systems are safe. This is not just a single manufacturer with a problem, either.

One reason I got rid of my Tesla was that emergency lane keeping was flawed. There were a couple of locations where I could pretty much guarantee that the car would try and swerve across the road. Neither the I Pace nor the Mercedes are falsely triggered at these locations, in fact the I Pace ELK never once activated in the three years I owned it. The Mercedes has a problem, not with ELK, but with the fact that you cannot permanently turn off LKA. LKA can be a nuisance, particularly on narrow lanes with passing places (lot of those around here) where it seemingly gets very confused and keeps wanting to nudge the car off the road. Turning it off every time I start the car is a PITA, but that's something that can be hacked, so it's going to be.

I think we need to distinguish between ELK (Emergency Lane Keeping) which must be always on, can be very vigorous and is intended as a "last ditch" safety measure to prevent an accident, and LKA, Lane Keeping Assist, which isn't required at all by any regulations and when it is provided can be turned on and off and only ever provides a bit of a nudge to keep the car centred on what it thinks to be the lane.

The two systems are different and there is clearly a lot of confusion in this thread about each. ELK is the issue here, rather than LKA, as it's ELK that applies the vigorous, and often disconcerting, steering intervention that requires some effort to override. This confusion is not helped by manufacturers choosing to use their own names and acronyms for these features!

 

The problem isn't the requirement to have such emergency safety systems it is the abject failure of the regulators to ensure that these systems are safe. This is not just a single manufacturer with a problem, either.

One reason I got rid of my Tesla was that emergency lane keeping was flawed. There were a couple of locations where I could pretty much guarantee that the car would try and swerve across the road. Neither the I Pace nor the Mercedes are falsely triggered at these locations, in fact the I Pace ELK never once activated in the three years I owned it. The Mercedes has a problem, not with ELK, but with the fact that you cannot permanently turn off LKA. LKA can be a nuisance, particularly on narrow lanes with passing places (lot of those around here) where it seemingly gets very confused and keeps wanting to nudge the car off the road. Turning it off every time I start the car is a PITA, but that's something that can be hacked, so it's going to be.

I think we need to distinguish between ELK (Emergency Lane Keeping) which must be always on, can be very vigorous and is intended as a "last ditch" safety measure to prevent an accident, and LKA, Lane Keeping Assist, which isn't required at all by any regulations and when it is provided can be turned on and off and only ever provides a bit of a nudge to keep the car centred on what it thinks to be the lane.

The two systems are different and there is clearly a lot of confusion in this thread about each. ELK is the issue here, rather than LKA, as it's ELK that applies the vigorous, and often disconcerting, steering intervention that requires some effort to override. This confusion is not helped by manufacturers choosing to use their own names and acronyms for these features!

I'm not sure our ID3 even has ELK? Does anyone know? I do turn off LKA every journey as I prefer to make the decision as to where to steer the car.

 

Yes, the LKA on my I-Pace is no more than a mild nudge and on occasion has been enough to make me focus where needed.

The LKA on the MG4 has been specifically called out for being far too aggressive.

ELK is a different beast and is essentially the car taking last resort action. This has triggered only once for me in a Volvo C40 but in its defence it was a poorly parked van that caused it to get confused and I was weaving between parked cars on either side of the road.

 

Yes with my Ioniq PHEV was more of a suggestion, felt like a helping hand on the wheel more as a reminder than an intervention. Whereas the MG4 can literally snatch the steering wheel out of your hands. It is all well and good on wide A roads but there are plenty of roads which have white lines but you need to straddle the centreline as the road is so narrow, only moving to the left if you see something coming.

 

A piece of tape over the front facing camera may be a temporary solution. I expect the car will moan about functions being unavailable though.

 

LEAF LKA is quite gentle and just gives a buzz on the steering wheel. Emergency braking has been triggered a couple of times on corners (going uphill usually) or in a traffic jam when catching up with the queue ahead too fast, but the stop wasn't violent or uncontrollable. That's a 2018 car.
If they can get it right about 7 years ago, why not now?