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Ford Adaptive Cruise Control Explained


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I find the acceleration portion of Ford's ACC too aggressive, and it wastes a lot of fuel compared to regular CC, which in turn wastes more fuel than just driving it with my foot.

 

I still use ACC though, however when I come up on a slow car and the ACC slows the vehicle down to match, I then re-set it at the now lower speed after dropping back a little bit.

 

Basically I try to avoid having the system "keep up" with a slower vehicle ahead since it is always on and off the gas trying to match the speed and it is really inefficient compared to a steady light cruising load that typical cruise control system provides. You can watch the instant MPG meter and see ACC tipping way too far into the throttle when it accelerates to match the car ahead. I have a hard time giving up 3~4 MPG because the software cannot drive as efficiently as me yet.

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Yea you can turn it off. I don't wan't to turn it off, I want it to be able to maintain a gap at highway speeds without it quickly stabbing the gas every 6-10 seconds to adjust the gap.

 

It is quite inefficient- it costs me at least 3 MPG if I use it all the time in my commute. As always your mileage may vary.

 

I'm not talking out of my ass here- I'm very good at maximizing fuel efficiency. For example, Ford has us in two rentals since our Edge and Fusion are Takata air bag cars with no parts available. I averaged 54 MPG in a 2018 Hyundai Elantra rental last night driving home 25 miles from work. It's rated at 37 on the highway and my drive consists of about 75% highway. I'm averaging 47 MPG overall on this tank so far, 170 miles into it. I'm very good at maintaining momentum, rarely using the brakes, timing lights, etc.

 

Bottom line- compared to an intelligent human paying attention to the road who knows how to wring the best possible fuel mileage from a car, Ford's ACC is a total fuel hog.

Edited by IWRBB
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I understand how ACC could help, but the test in the video is not really good. First, now we how with no ACC the cars are following with very small gaps. Second, even with the "phantom" traffic (no ACC) the last car still cleared the way before the other test with ACC. So ACC came out as a convenient feature rather than traffic reducer, which it is.

Edited by omar302
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Yea you can turn it off. I don't wan't to turn it off, I want it to be able to maintain a gap at highway speeds without it quickly stabbing the gas every 6-10 seconds to adjust the gap.

 

It is quite inefficient- it costs me at least 3 MPG if I use it all the time in my commute. As always your mileage may vary.

 

I'm not talking out of my ass here- I'm very good at maximizing fuel efficiency. For example, Ford has us in two rentals since our Edge and Fusion are Takata air bag cars with no parts available. I averaged 54 MPG in a 2018 Hyundai Elantra rental last night driving home 25 miles from work. It's rated at 37 on the highway and my drive consists of about 75% highway. I'm averaging 47 MPG overall on this tank so far, 170 miles into it. I'm very good at maintaining momentum, rarely using the brakes, timing lights, etc.

 

Bottom line- compared to an intelligent human paying attention to the road who knows how to wring the best possible fuel mileage from a car, Ford's ACC is a total fuel hog.

 

There is no way you're ever going to hypermile on factory cruise control. As I get older I've found it's better to enjoy things than to worry and fuss and try to eke out an extra mpg or 2 or 3. If you're already getting that kind of mileage 3 mpg is barely noticeable.

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Let me make this clear- my issue with ACC is it operates like a 16 year old boy is controlling the throttle when it needs to accelerate. It's really unnecessarily aggressive on the throttle inputs.

 

I feel that being able to maximize fuel mileage is one of the things that makes a good driver a good driver. Ford's ACC programming does just the opposite- it uses significantly more fuel than necessary to make minor speeds adjustments on the highway..

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No argument there. I also found that it didn't start accelerating soon enough when you pull out to pass. If they made it more gentle you could always override it with the accelerator if necessary. Our current vehicles don't have it so I don't have to worry about it any more. Don't really miss it either.

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