Question:
When you are coming up to.a vehicle that is slowed or stopped, and when the advanced cruise control stops you bc you are getting close to a slowed vehicle the vehicle automatically slows down. Is the vehicle stopped by the electric motors or the brakes? Also, if by the electric motors, do the brake lights come on?

 

Car comes to complete stop and rear brake lights are used. As the car gets close to stopping, around 5 mph, it will switch and begin to use the actual brake pads as electric motors are unable to provide a braking force down to zero rotation. Even Tesla's have brake pads for this same reason. If car waits at a complete stop for a couple of seconds you will need to step on gas peddle momentarily to re instate your cruise control setting again. It will pick up from there and maintain safe distance behind traffic in front of you. This is how to utilize the smart cruise control in traffic.

 

So, the braking is done using the electric motors and the brakes lights are operated just like when using the regular brakes? That would save a lot on brake pads if you counted on that most of the time.

 

YES You are absolutely right! A huge bonus of an owner of a hybrid! Some owners don't need to replace their brakes for over 100,000 miles. We don't have starter motor either or an alternator or any drive belts under the hood.

 

In my '26 NX 350h that wait period is only 3-5 seconds. I haven't checked whether the duration is a modifiable setting. The RESUME button will also restart cruise mode, though using either method often doesn't work for me on the first press. Particularly with the RESUME button, I have not figured out how to consistently restart cruise with a single press, whether it's from a dead stop or while moving. Sometimes a short press works, other times it requires a longer press before cruise kicks back in. With a longer press it sometimes also increases the set speed which I did not intend. Often a second press is required. I thought it might depend on whether I'm pressing on the accelerator at the same time, but I can't find any consistency there either.

That said, I do most of my driving using cruise control. If I'm driving in town I usually turn off the lane tracing feature as lane markings are often inconsistent and curved lanes combined with suddenly appearing turn lanes can confuse the hell out of the system.

Another thing: when not in cruise mode the car will slow automatically when approaching a more slowly moving or stopped vehicle, though it won't bring itself to a complete stop. I have to remember what mode I'm in or I could possibly rear end the car in front of me before realizing cruise control is not on.

 

Your feeling the effects of PDA, Proactive Driving Assist. This is a feature that must be activated and an icon in your display shows when it's on. It can be deactivated. This works to slow you down when approaching vehicles in front of you, like at a stop light, but deactivates at 15KM/hr. It assumes you're taking over. When the cruise control is on, PDA is off. PDA also watches for pedestrians in intersections and a host of other things. It shows the figure of a person when the car senses someone crossing the street in front of you. Some fool was J-walking across a major thoroughfare in front of me one day and the car spotted them before I did.

 

You need to have this checked. My car comes to a complete stop using Advanced CC. Maybe you are not in that mode.

 

Have a friend with a Lexus RX hybrid. Has 150,000 miles on it and the last time he had it in for service mechanic told him his brakes pads were half worn. With hybrids the only time you're using your brake pads is when you jam your brakes on.

 

Gives a name to the feature but it can still be confused with CC if you're not watchful.

 

I think you misread the post. I 1st described resuming cc after a complete stop.

 

My apologies I made a mistake, you're right the car waits while stopped with cruise control active for only a couple of seconds, not minutes. I've edited my post to reflect this.

 

As you're describing of driving in the city, I find PDA very distracting and usually keep it off. I would probably use it if I'm in an unfamiliar area and know I'll get distracted with my driving probably so with it on it serves as a safety net for me. I also find PDA and ACC has troubles with lane keep and lane trace when it really can't decide even if there's a lane or a painted line. It's too simple a technology, if there's no painted line it will struggle to 'see' the edge of the paved roadway or 'see' a curb.

I'm guessing you may not have a heads up display, I have it and when ACC is active and car's come to complete stop in traffic the HUD will turn from a coloured icon to a grey one to indicate it has paused and I'll need to step on gas momentarily to re activate it. I find mine responds to the first push on the gas peddle to get going again. This would be a scenario for me where I would have PDA turned off when in traffic and ACC is on.

 

No, don’t think so. Be sure you are in ADVANCED CC and not standard CC. PDA refers to your last paragraph in your comment to the thread. You can stop CC by either hitting the brake or using the CANCEL button. If you do neither, the car will fully stop by itself before hitting the car ahead. When stopped, it will auto start within a few seconds by messaging “waiting”. After that, you need to press the accelerator to get it moving again and it will auto go to the previous resume speed while following the car ahead. If you hit the brakes or the CANCEL button, then you will have to reingage CC by hitting the top left button on the right side. CC will then engage at the speed you are at. Once you are in CC again, and at a different speed than the one where you entered CC, if you double hit the + button, you will assign your present speed to the resume speed.

 

All this pretty much as I described.

 

if thats true, no problem.