Adaptive Speed Limiters | 80mph on the Motorway!? 

I reckon its set to 80 so that if youre on the on ramp on a motorway you have a bit of flexibility if you needed to speed up for some reason, not that you should go over the speed limit to do that

We are breaking the law if we use a mobile phone whilst driving yet the law makes no mention of fiddling with all the distracting gizmos that are fitted as standard in most new cars these days. Many drivers are unable to concentrate on the basics of driving without all the distractions.

My wife had a car that use to read the road signs and it once read the km/h sign on back of a bus while on the motorway and put up 120 as the speed (which made us laugh)

Don't worry about committing any offences Ashley, the police in this country have said that they don't investigate retrospective crimes

The balls to say: “Have I committed an offence there? Yes, legally I have” Great video Ashley!

The case for buying a car without all these electronics and touchscreens, looking after it and keeping it for as long as possible gets greater by the day.

As all things government they’ve got it wrong. Anti tailgating devices with auto braking would be a far better approach to road safety. Travelling on the motor ways i see gaps of 1 or 2 car lengths in groups of 4 to 5 cars, by the time car 5 has noticed car one has stopped he is already in the boot of car 30/40. Driving at 80 in fog that’s clever.

Like you say, not a perfect system. I've noticed problems where lower speed limit roads, cross via bridge, a higher limit road. For a moment the system thinks the limit has vastly reduced and tries to slow down sharply. Can also happen where a lower limit road is parallel to a higher limit. Also, for myself, lane keep assist does not work on our local roads. Many potholes and poor drainage means you are constantly fighting the system to preserve your tires, wheels and suspension. We have it permanently switched off in the wife's new corsa.

I got a 17 year old car with no speed limit, no lane assist, no parking sensors, just the purest form of driving and I wouldnt want it any other way

Every car I’ve had with a limiter fitted (although none that have automatic speed adjustment) all have the ability to be overridden by a decisive prod of the throttle. The traffic sign recognition software, which the limiter would use, isn’t perfect though. I’ve had my car reading the signs from adjacent roads, missing signs entirely and even reading the signs of the back of lorry trailers. Nothing beats being observant and not relying on these flawed systems.

Fascinating film, Ashley. Good to see things working (or not working!) in practice. You asked about the setup on our cars. My car does have an optional speed limiter function and it separately also has a speed limit adviser function which shows a visual indication of what the GPS and/or sign reader thinks is the national speed limit. It is usually right, but sometimes gets it wrong. For example: (1) There is a school nearby on a main 40 mph road where there is a part time 20 mph speed limit but only when the lights flash. Without fail, the system read the sign and thinks the speed limit drops to 20 mph regardless of whether or not the lights are flashing. If I had an adaptive speed limiter linked to the car, it would slow down to 20 mph. I would be obstructing traffic and / or could have somebody crashing into the back of me. (2) A road near me is a 60 mph limit up a steep hill but the speed limit signs are posted right at the junction coming out of a 40 mph sign. As a result, the speed limit adviser thinks the limit is only 40 mph... then after a mile it gives up and displays dashes "- - -". If there was an adaptive speed limiter linked to the adviser, I have no idea how it would cope with that. (3) I have driven down a 40 mph speed limit where the adviser thought the limit was 60 mph. No idea why. You also asked about what use we make of speed limiters. I generally don't use the speed limiter. One problem is, if I want to override the speed limiter (for example, when joining a motorway with traffic behind where I need to push on to a gap in lane 1 and can't really slow down without making life very dangerous for the drivers behind me) then I would need to go "pedal to the metal". At that point, the gearbox drops two cogs and the supercharger kicks in, resulting in a sudden jerk of excessive acceleration that can even cause the back tyres to scrabble for grip. Not good. I prefer to use personal judgement for keeping to the speed limits and to use acceleration sense to make my throttle inputs smooth when needed. Also the speed limiter only works on the throttle, so if I am going downhill the car will actually exceed the speed limit unless I am watchful and drop a gear or use the brakes. On hybrid or electric cars, that's not such an issue: the car simply uses regenerative braking to keep the speed at the target and also charge up the battery pack. In conclusion: I have dabbled with the speed limiter, encountered the above problems and decided only to use it sparingly. YMMV.

Adding another level of complexity to the complex task of driving which is for some people is already beyond their ability! Excellent video, not scared of pointing out the limitations. Every man needs to know the limitations of his car (and himself!)

If we get the option to turn this system off, I will do it every single time I get in the car, the same way I always disable the "lane keeping assist" feature and the adaptive cruise control. - Lane keeping assist pushes you towards danger sometimes. If it doesn't like the line I'm taking through a turn, it will push me in the wrong direction and then I have to correct it. Unsettling the car like this on a rainy day is pretty scary. - Adaptive cruise control : Slams on the brakes when someone cuts in front of me to make a late exit. Also, if the car in front is constanly changing speeds, your car will do the same instead of keeping to an average speed... - Automatic speed limit : I cannot be bothered to deal with the system misreading a situation and wrongfullt slow the car down. My driving is all about planning, if the car starts throwing surprises at me, I'm going to get pretty annoyed. The only "new" feature I find usefull is the the emergency braking, I believe it can really make a difference, but it also has its limitation and I have ended up stopping in the middle of the road for no reason once or twice. I never had a speeding ticket and I never rear-ended anyone, all it takes is to pay attention. When you're driving, you're driving and that's it.

That's why I like adaptive cruise control more. As soon as you touch the accelerator or brake, you start overriding it.

It's nice to see that you are getting on board with EVs Ashley. I have been driving Kia e-Niros for 3 years now and they have kick down overrides over both the speed limiters and SCC (a variant of Adaptive Cruise Control). One thing you need to be aware of with some EVs which have recognition of speed signs is that sometimes if a vehicle has a speed limit sign on the back of it (eg HGVs and caravans), the onboard camera in the EV can pick up on these and reduce your speed if trying to overtake them. Another thing to mention (you mentioned that you are getting a Tesla) is that sometimes they exhibit 'Phantom braking' whereby the car will suddenly brake sharply for no apparent reason. This also occurs with my e-Niro as the front radar will pick up on a car coming round a corner towards you and breaks the beam of the radar.

80 mph / 130 kmh is the continental (France, Belgium, Netherlands, anyway) motorway speed limit. I'm guessing that the code for motorway entrances needs a little tweaking.

Counter point on the limiter detecting 80 on the slip-road... as we all know, lots of traffic on the motorway exceeds 70mph. I speculate that the manufacturers are aware of this, and designed the system to allow you to get going up the slip road & merge safely, then backing the limit down to 70 after you've merged. Rather than a fault, this is a system design choice - same as it making you slow down after the 50 sign... the car might not know that it's not safe to slow down before the sign (eg, someone close behind on the rear). The interesting question for me, is when it forces you to slow down, does it show brake lights?

What an interesting video - "we have to embrace technology but we can't rely on it" is a great line. What will motorways be like in future if most cars are limited to 70 - will it encourage a more relaxed style of driving?

Great video as always Ashley. The tech might not be perfect yet but it is probably 90% of the way there.

A very interesting Video! Thanks!

So this interuptive device that is not ready yet is going to become law before it works properly, this along with 'lane keep assist' are as safe as smart motorways!

While I don't have an electric car, my Astra J with a limiter has the "override if you mat it" functionality, which it accompanies with an audible warning that you're accelerating past the limiter. Handy bit of kit.

The MG ZS EV has a smart limiter (I use it in manual) which needs enabling every time you start the car in the infotainment. It also has a full throttle override (no kickdown detent so you have to be careful). In Sheffield a couple of side roads have 20mph signs badly pointed and when passing it warns me that I'm doing 30 in a 20 (when I'm not).

Where there is an urban road (30mph) parallel to a motorway I often find the GPS gets the wrong road. Currently, this only messes with the navigation but the speed limiter could also be set incorrectly, either high or low.

My A3 has what I believe is the same system as the Q4. When using the adaptive cruise control, if it knows from map data that I am approaching a lower speed limit, it will slow down so that once I reach the new speed limit, I am down to that speed. It works really well. On main roads and motorways it is great but most of the roads here in The New Forest, the map data is all over the place, jumping between 20, 30, 40 and 60 in an area that is all 40. So you can't really have the system on with the speed adaptation active. As you concluded, there is still work to do!

As a 28 year old with a modified car and a stereotypical heavy right foot, I love the idea of adaptive speed limiters, especially if they’re implemented like you said they should be, they’re on until you turn them off! More often than not I’m quite happy doing 30 but I know I’d do the limit a lot more frequently if I didn’t have to worry about how much I press the accelerator 😂

I have a 2021 Kia Sportage GT-Line S and it has speed limit warning and it's incredibly accurate and changes the dashboard speed limit within a few feet of passing a speed limit sign. I'm not sure if it's windscreen camera only or also GPS. Whatever it is, it's really good. The Sportage has the speed limit displayed on the instrument cluster and the infotainment map/sat nav screen.

I have the Golf Mk8 which seems to use a mix of GPS and road signs to decide on a limit when using this same feature, I have seen it read a junction number as a speed limit, not amazingly useful sometimes but when it happens right it's really a great assist when driving

I had a Satnav years ago which had a database of speed limits, they was one bit of motorway where if you were in lane 1 the GPS would drift and the satnav would plot you on a residential road which went parallel to the motorway and the speed would glow red saying 30mph. The driver assist element is useful but full control would be dangerous in some cases unless it had a time delay built-in.

Not a clue. However,am going to be getting a new car sonish so this was very helpful information. Thank you.

Could the adaptive limiter's top speed setting be influenced by setting a top limit that optimises acceleration up to the actual desired speed limit, and as we saw, then acceleration and limit are attenuated to maintain optimum acceleration/power input?

Driving yesterday the car set it to 90. I think it was when overtaking a lorry on a motorway and it picked up the km speed limit stickers from Europe. I test drove an Enyaq with the same system as the Audi, I felt on one bit of urban dual carriage way I was overriding the auto limiter every few hundred yards. On a country road with villages it was brilliant.

I think it's 80 for merging as it changed to 70 once you were in the lane of the motorway. Pretty good I think as when it's busy you sometimes need a little extra speed to merge.

First thing an Audi driver will do when they get in it. OFF, OFF, all safety features OFF! 😂

I drive a Renault Zoe with manual speed limiter - it's been a subconscious thing to pretty much always have it turned on; handy with so many 30/40/50 changes and average speed zones near where I live. It works really well with regenerative braking to actually slow you down on downhills to keep you at the limit, without applying friction breaks. Also can exceed via a kick down. Although it's great, it shows you how many drivers feel the need to intimidate you driving at the limit; the biggest issue I find is feeling like you're somehow in the wrong for driving the speed limit, even when I know via gps speed I really am driving the speed limit.

Another interesting video and highlights that the tech is good but not perfect and at the moment we’re a very long way from auto-pilot systems, especially in the UK that has so many signs and limit changes. I’m with you with LKA, and in my Hyundia Ioniq 38 kWh EV you have to switch it off every time I get in the car, and my learners really struggle with it on. I’ve also got Adaptive Cruise control, which I do use and get my learners to try it out, and the only issues they have is when the car increases the speed after following a slower than the limit vehicle who then turns off. This surge in power also happens exiting onto slip roads as well, so the systems need over riding by the driver to maintain safety. Only thing that seems to work really well is the standard speed limiter, you don’t have to worry about ‘speeding’ and you focus on other things.

10:26 “because they want to queue for longer”, hilarious!

I dont have adaptive speed limiter, but I do have speed limit recognition. And I've had to turn off the warnings or gives because it somes picks up road signs on side streets that are awkwardly angled.

The Jaguar I-pace has had this system since launch in 2018. It is rare for the speed limit to be wrong. Occasionally it will pick up lower speed limits on urban roads where parallel service roads exist. The minimum limit is 10 mph which is helpful in car parks etc. I personally use this facility all the while as it is do easy to exceed the speed limit is such a quiet car. I wish it would also use this system when using the adaptive cruise control. I find on motorways I have to flip between adaptive cruise control and adaptive speed limit in order to comply with the lower limits such as road works.

I have a Nissan Leaf n-connecta from 2019 which has a manual limiter (you have to engage and adjust the speed on it yourself, even though it can recognise speed limit signs) and it has the same kick-down override feature that you report. I find it very useful for keeping to the speed limit. It also has a lane keep assist feature that I never use. The car also has adaptive cruise control and that works fine, but I mostly don't use it - I will use it on motorways if the traffic is light. It's not a version of the car that has propilot (Nissan's autopilot technology). It has imminent collision detection and automatic braking that occasionally cuts in, sometimes for no apparent reason; not enough to be a worry.

I rented a Tesla Model 3 over the weekend and was surprised to see that it recognised speed limit signs and even traffic cones and displayed them on the screen. I'm not sure if the vehicle I had was fitted with an adaptive speed limiter but after passing a speed limit if you set cruise it defaulted to the new speed limit, this included temporary speed limits through road works which I found impressive.

I drive a 2013 leaf and mine had the detent /kickdown at the end if the accelerator that overrides the speed limiter and also disables eco mode so if you put the pedal all the way to the floor the car will accelerate at full whack despite whatever other settings there are. Great for pulling out onto busy roads but it did surprise the wife the first time she found it.

I've had speed limiters/cruise on my cars for the last 15 years at least. Cruise on the motorway/dual-carriageway, except in bad weather, heavy traffic, etc; limiter on other roads, particularly in city 30 zones in areas I'm not familiar with. No problems to report, but they're not adaptive or limit-recognising. That's still my job. I don't constantly fiddle with the limiter though. The two limits I tend to select for are 30 and 60, but occasionally where there's a reduced limit on a motorway. I match my limiter to what the GPS tells me is the actual speed, so 63 indicated is 60 mph true, etc.

I don't have a speed limiter but I find cruise control really good for keeping me honest on longer journeys, especially motorways. I do find myself using it quite a bit off motorways as well for the same reason, especially long straight low speed limit roads where it would be easy to creep over. I do think a limiter would be handy away from motorways and dual carriageways. The Audi system also manages the gap in front slowing the car down to maintain a fixed distance. I think it must be set to about 2 feet as standard from what I've seen on the roads lol

I use my speed limiter a lot in towns or stop start traffic, but it's sometimes a pain when I forget it's on and go into a higher speed limit, so the adaptive speed limiter may not be perfect, but it's certainly better than the one I have in my car as it wouldn't drive me crazy as mine sometimes does when I need to accelerate and can't until I realize it's still on and set for a lower speed.

12:45 The 'wind' sound was the Mk4 Golf's turbo on resurc. It'll be a 1.9 TDi engine.

Current model Honda Jazz. Had to turn the adaptive limiter off as it was picking up 20mph limits from side roads and braking unexpectedly. I now set the limiter manually.

I like the speed limiter on my work vehicle. Our driving is monitored so it gives some peace of mind that I won't accidentally go too fast and get a growling.

This was a good review , and very well thought about . Sorry to say will not change my mind about them though . The car we have now reads the speed signs and there has been a change of speed on a road which was a national and is now a 50 mph . The car still reads it as national . So unsure if car needs glasses . 😂 worthwhile review .👍

Good that it works off GPS. My last car had a speed sign recognition fitted and I hated on motorways when passing a slip road & it showed the lower speed on the slip road.

Impressive technology that will save lives in the future.

My 2021 Golf read a local 30 sign as 80. I’m glad it treats that as advisory only.

@11:42 it went from 40mph to 70mph and then back down to 40. But i like the adaptive feature compared to standard speed limiters.

Great feature.

3:44 map based changes are a mixed blessing. It's great from when the council forgot to post a sign, or where the local scales have stolen it. It is not so good where a new limit is introduced and the car has not yet been updated. By relying on the system you might get our of the habit of watching the signs, and then miss a new change is speed limit

Brilliant info……thanks! So my 2019 Honda has both manual speed limiter and ISL….speed sign recognition. But unlike the Audi, the 2019 Honda has the 1st gen system….it doesn’t double check a map in a database for speed limit….it’s only on speed signs. So reliability of the ISL is only about 50-60%….any mud on signs, overgrown trees, signs on a bend, all those get missed completely. Other differences: when entering a slower speed limit, the car takes away the power until I reach the lower limit + and sounds an alarm…I think with a graphic saying “apply brake”. And same going down hill…mine doesn’t apply the brakes to keep to the speed limit…just a warning. Btw, cruise, and speed limiter and completely separate on mine. I can’t have the speed limiter (manual or auto) on while on cruise control. Cruise, manual limiter, + auto limiter are all switched off by default on mine. I didn’t know wether the updated hondas have the updated system as on your Audi or not. I’m seeing on various news feeds that perm switched on auto speed limiters will be mandated for all new cars (regardless of petrol, diesel, electric or hybrid) in U.K. + EU in the very near future, as in later this year or 2023. Other… I have lane departure warning, but not assist….I don’t know what that feels like…maybe like offset tracking 😂 If we are to drive perm castrated cars, is there any point buying a more powerful model?

Whow, that's handy! On my Megane I can press Set again if the speedlimiter is on and the speed changes. But is does not work automatic. I only use the limiter in cities, else ACC, which sometimes I also use in cities.

Sign post recognition has it's issues, like people have said any markings on the rear of trucks can make it error, also picks up on 20 limit side streets as you pass them. I use the manual speed limiter often, when in slower areas it makes life easier if you don't have to check your speed every few seconds. I do find it quite humorous when set to 32/33 in a 30 zone you get a huge queue of traffic behind.

In London we have Electric buses with Adaptive Speed Limiters but they only get data from GPS. But it lags behind If your going from a 20mph to a 30mph you are stuck doing 20mph for about 25 seconds after you pass the sign which causes other road users to attempt potentially dangerous overtakes. We don’t have the option to disable it either as it is hidden in a menu somewhere which only the Engineers have access to.

I have a new BMW 330e which has a speed limiter system, that is not automatic as I have to press the SET button to set the current speed limit. Generally I really like it and use it most of the time. I have noticed that I am suddenly holding up traffic. Cars in front get away from me and people behind tailgate as they want me to go faster. This is particularly noticeable in 30MPH limits. There is a private road where my wife works, which has a non-standard speed limit sign of 6mph. My car always misreads it and I've seen it read 20, 60 and even 80MPH.

I remember being at a public consultation about a bus corridor in the city wherein the problem of buses breaking the (I think 20mph) speed limit was brought up. I asked if they could have adaptive limiters fitted and the guy obviously misunderstood and responded like I was an idiot, "No because the buses need to operate on higher speed limit roads too". I'm glad these are going to come standard in the future so we can stamp out the problem of speeding once and for all.

These are good systems but we need to be able to take control if needs be. An example would be you behind dawdling Derek on a 60mph country lane, Derek is doing his usual 40mph everywhere so you decide to overtake. At that moment Derek decides it's a good idea to speed up to 55mph (the fastest he's ever been) and you are stuck crawling past at 5mph more. In this situation it would be much safer to floor it, get up to 70mph get past and get back in. Yes technically you're breaking the speed limit of that road but it's the safest option. No matter how you plan an overtake things can, and do, go wrong sometimes because none of us are perfect.

I'd be interested to see what it does with variable and temporary speed limits on motorways. The Tesla system improved massively when they added in use of cameras to detect speed limits (their map data in general is awful and it didn't think that 20mph speed limits were a thing), but on motorways it doesn't react to variable or temporary changes. It also occasionally picks up the speed limit for a road the motorway crosses on a bridge - I've had it slam on the brakes on a motorway and realise it thinks the speed limit is 30mph.

My 3 series G20 has this and you can link it with cruise control. Once it picked up 90 from something it read on a motorway and began accelerating. As there were speed cameras on the gantry, I panicked but managed to prod the right button to stop it. I should have simply braked to cancel cruise, but it threw me at the time.

Great video Ash and great detail in the aspects you covered. One issue I see with this system: I understand that it uses GPS data to know what the speed limit is at any given time, which is great. However, I also understand the system uses the car's regular speedometer to base vehicle speed. As we all know, car speedo's are not as accurate as GPS based speed. So when the system limits you to say 50 mph for motorway roadworks, in reality it may actually be limiting you down to 45 mph. Similarly, in a 30 mph limit, you may actually be limited to 27 mph. Those subtle differences can be all it takes to have other traffic start building up behind you, more instances or tailgating, road rage etc versus doing the "true" speed limit. It's a shame therefore that these systems don't base and display vehicle speed via GPS speed reading, even though they base the speed limit itself as such. And yes, I know GPS speed is not always totally accurate either but it is more accurate than car speedometers. Bear in mind also as cars age, wear in tear on the drivetrain and especially the tyres will make speed readings even more inaccurate...and yet this is what the system will continue to base vehicle speed on.

I have only ever driven one vehicle with a speed limiter and that's was in the 1980s, a Bedford TK 5 tonner with an enclosed vehicle carrier body, ex Bedford R&D department. It was locked on and I don't know what type of system it was, but nothing in the cab to cancel it. The system was set at 50 mph and I was driving on the M5 out of London to Reading, any slight incline and the truck slowed so impossible to keep at 50 mph and I was only lightly loaded with a VW beach buggy en route to a Bond film. Luckily for me I went back to the Range Rover trailer set. still limited to 50 mph by law, but with oomph to keep it there. I wonder how the system will work with road works limits being set up overnight. The next preventer must be the motorway lane change from far right to exit over the chevrons. Thanks for the presentation and safe driving.

The lane assist on my new car (BMW) doesn't activate below about 40-45 mph, so the issue you mention about being able to move in/across lanes to avoid parked cars or cyclists is not a problem in town. Maybe different manufacturers are still working out the settings for these various aids? I hadn't thought about it as you described; that you need to choose to turn things off - I don't like the lane assist and mostly turn it off as I don't like getting surprised by the car fighting back if I do cross a line (safely, but without indicating) and had been getting frustrated with having to do it for each journey.

This just reminded me last month on the M8 glasgow to edinburgh our Sat Nav for a brief section had the max speed limit as 80mph, wonder who codes for our systems over here.

I had a VW Golf with adaptive cruise control and once, while on a dual carriageway, it was set. When it saw the brake lights of a car on an exit slip road, it decided to put my brakes on even though I was staying on the main carriageway and didn't need to slow down. That felt like a flaw in the system to be frank and probably a less safe response from the car. I can't remember exactly how I overrode it on that occasion but ever since, I've been sceptical of any adaptive systems.

I think when this is both mandatory and fitted to all cars it will really reduce accidents, but until then... Plus, is everyone would drive steadily, within the speed limits, we'd all get there quicker! I can remember a route I used to drive into West London from the West Country (Great West Road ~Chiswick, I think?) where the speed limit was 40 across 4-5 lanes of joining/exiting traffic, but if you were not at the general ambient speed of other traffic (like ~55) you would definitely, 100% be an unwitting cause of an accident. It was madness. Some years ago I remember the AA coming out with a statistic that the danger starts spiking when there is more than a 5mph difference between your speed and traffic in adjacent lanes. Plus, the number of times I've had to do a 'super-whizz' when joining a motorway, just to get up to speed with inside lane traffic (who are all driving too close together) so that I could more safely get into a slot... As I say, these gizmos will be great when all cars have them.

I know adaptive cruise on an automatic can work from zero mph only it sets at 20mph or 18 mph on my newish civic. It's the min speed you have to set 1st then you can move it up to desired speed and it will accelerate for you to that speed or to speed of car in front from a standstill.. cannot do it on a manual but seeing as all evs are auto. That's the best feature for me of acc.

Does this adaptive speed limiter work in conjunction with cruise/adaptive cruise? In my car its limiter or cruise. As these features become more commonplace will they be separated so you can use both simultaneously? Also, in my C4 Picasso, to override the limiter, you have to take your foot right off the gas before stamping on it to activate the kick down. Is that standard? Or do some work if you just floor it from your current pedal position?

I use speed limiter in town in my e208. I find it easy to creep over the speed limit in electric cars.

The best one is when you pass a European lorry with its speed limiter stickers on the back, and your car thinks the speed limit is now 100 MPH. I've driven a few cars with speed limiters (none electric). My current car is a bit of a compromise to this; whenever there's a speed change, you are prompted to press a button on the steering wheel to accept or ignore it - this way, if the system does incorrectly read a sign, you're not forced to travel at that speed. Also, if the speed limit decreases, it doesn't slow you down to match - that's up to the driver.

I was given an MG hire car, instructions from the hire company were not to disable any driver assist technologies. The adaptive speed limit read a 50 sign showing on the rear of a large restricted speed vehicle. The car slowed down in the outside lane of 70mph road, quite rapidly causing vehicle behind to break and beep. I moved in behind the HGV. I worked out how to disable it after that.

I hope, with this VW ID.4 that we are waiting on to be released here in the States has this ASL on its base model. From watching this *Honours List channel* I like what I see even if it does need some work.

When things like this ‘assist’ they are a great asset. When things like ‘take over and control’ then you are totally in the hands of technology. Unfortunately the people in the government who make the rules believe that technology is the answer to everything which is a problem when it doesn’t live up to expectations.

Looking forward to using mine when it arrives (another story). However also heard if you have it in “B mode” it auto regen’s on a new speed limit slows it down to the correct speed and roundabouts etc, Did you have it on this ? Example 40 to 30. Enjoyed the video though, saves a lot of manual reading!!👍

In my experience, map speed limits are advisorial only, Posted limits often vary from what my navvie tells me it is. A side note that I'm interested in is will it be true or indicated? I assume indicated, which as far as I can tell is typically 5mph below true, I assume for liability issues.

My experience with the limiter on my Focus is pretty much the same as yours. Mine will sometimes set to 5pmh from a side road or office entrance, it will also sometimes cancel for no apparent reason. On motorways or national speed limit roads it just cancels, which I guess is understandable as these can vary (I remember when the national speed limit was lowered to 60mph) I do think it is a very good tool but I have to keep an eye on it and for my regular journeys I generally know where it's going to hickup.

my Focus has speed limit sign recognition, and also an adaptive speed limiter. (can set to reduce speed or just annoy you) Never have it switched on, because it will pick up on signs in side streets in error.

Hey Ashley, I was wondering if you could do a video on adapting to driving a new car. I recently got a new car and immediately had to drive a 6 hour journey home in it and found it difficult to get used to the car immediately and had a few issues on journey. Have you got any methods for what to do before setting off in a car you are not used to, and any methods for transferring driving styles across different types of engines. Your experience in your new car would be helpful, thanks.

My ID.3 does the same as the Audi, unsurprisingly, when in speed limit mode and changes the speed limit at or very near the sign. However when in Travel Assist mode (effectively an advanced form of dynamic cruise control with steering assist) it slows down in advance of a lower speed limit so when you cross the threshold you are travelling at the legal speed. Where the speed limit is increased it doesn't speed up until shortly after the new speed limit is operational. I use Travel Assist probably 75% of the time and very rarely use the speed limiter. Even when not using either it will intelligently slow you down, if you let it by taking your foot of the accelerator, for speed limit reductions, junctions, roundabouts and tight bends. However in all respects it is certainly not infallible! As the driver you have to be alert and ready to take over control which I frequently do.

What would it do on things like the east lancs? When approaching Windle island from Carr mill dam google thinks the 40mph is set way before the 40 sign so I assume the car would just slow down to 40 early?

The motors pulse on the e-tron which gives the rear passengers travel sickness, driver doesn’t get the sensation but rear seats feel it, great car other than that

Got a kia niro that just displays the speed limit, but doesn't limit. It regularly gets the limit wrong presumably by seeing signs on side roads and getting confused. I hope all implementations are better going forward or we'll see plenty of cars doing much lower speeds until their car sees the next sign

On sat nav’s the maps inbuilt in car, unless they are updated can miss change to speed limit and one way street change, new roads. If the information is same in reading signs and these change does the information update automatically ?

How is this going to work with variable speed limits? would there be a transponder in the gantry for the car to access the current limit or will it link into the Highways Agency computers via the database it accesses?

The cut off curve (the smooth way it reaches the limit you comment on) is probably the reason for the 80 mph on the sliproad that others are suggesting is a deliberate choice, if that's the case, showing a flaw in the system if they have to implement that. With a 70 limit recognised by the system, that 'electric acceleration' you say is so great wouldn't be available at the point you need to merge. You'd be used to it accelerating immediately, so once you see your gap you choose your acceleration point relative to the that performance, but once you match yourself to the gap then accelerate to fit in before the next vehicle comes, that acceleration isn't available, and then you're either pulling in forcing the vehicle behind to brake, or need to stop before reaching the end of the sliproad, great options to have to choose from! When a car has a standard performance from factory, you only have to learn 1 level, but with this stuff you'll have to learn for every speed limit as well, and with electric that's also on top of how much it fades when the battery is running low, drivers will be forever getting caught out by not having enough power when the car should be capable of but isn't because of 'safety' tech limiting it. Having the override is all well and good, but would you advise anyone floor it in a car without this stuff when on a sliproad? You wouldn't, because that asks for all the car's power and puts your right foot as far as possible away from the brake pedal is circumstances change and you need to slow, great when the most time consuming part of the reaction time is the physical movement from accelerator to brake.

'because they want to queue for longer' gave me a chuckle

Although not electric, the Astra K has the kickdown feature on the limiter and on the cruise control.

I have a C5 aircross Hybrid which has adaptive speed, I will give it a try.

I'd love to see how it behaves on smart motorways, like whether it is a mandatory or an advisory speed limit. Because obv they're not in a typical speed sign spot, and I don't think google maps adapts to them. And for the car reading the side roads speed limit, if i was writing the system I would limit it to a specific peripheral vision style of image processing, unless an indicator is turned on.

I generally use my adaptive cruise control rather than the speed limiter, I set the cruise to 4kmph above the posted speed limit, because even digital speedos read faster than what the car is travelling and 4kmph is the tolerance that the police give on speeding. Being adaptive the car judges the distance to the vehicle in front and maintains a safe gap for the speed we are travelling. The time where I set the speed limiter is where I have an extended distance between chargers and I want to limit my energy usage to maximise range. I would see it as advantageous if when the vehicle reached the speed limit change it adjusted automatically and if it recognised red lights and stop signs and other junctions and reacted accordingly. As was said further refinement is required before drivers can rely solely on autonomous driving.

Mine is obviously not electric but i use the auto cruise control and speed limiter the same way this works, its just manual which is easy on the steering wheel.

My Mercedes has speedtronic (not adaptive) which I use all the time. However if I set it to 30mph (and the speedo says 30mph) the flashing roadside speed signs shoe 28mph. How can I check my car's speed reading?

My 3 year old Mazda has both adaptive cruise control and a speed limiter that reads road signs and uses gps data. The speed limiter always offers you the new limit as you pass a sign. You have to click a button to confirm. This is good because it often picks up signs on side roads when on a faster road. I’ve had times when to car in front has slowed dramatically for no reason and I assume it’s a speed limiter getting it wrong It does mean that there is a delay of a few seconds after passing a sign before the change is enabled. Ok (ish) if you are going up but poor if you are going down. There is a section of road near me where they have recently moved where the zone starts and lowered the limit. The gps data doesn’t match the signs. Sometimes it reads the sign and lowers the limit. But then about a minute later the gps kicks in and offers the old higher limit. Other times it ignores the sign and offers the change where the signs used to be. So, not perfect. I’d say it’s semi-automatic. Don’t get me started on the mess it makes of overhead gantries when they keep changing every few seconds and don’t show when the reduced speed limit has ended and just switch them back to blank. I could be stuck at 40 for miles !

I've never seen 80 on my adaptive cruise control on my eTron and to be honest, the lane keep assist has never been a problem. My car also slows to hit the right speed at the sign.

I almost exclusively drive with limiter, so relaxing. Would have liked it to be adaptive, though, including adjusting to the speed of the car in front, it it is lower than my own speed, like ACC does. I drive a Hyundai Kona electric.

13:08 that sound a few seconds earlier that you comment does seem to be the parking brake. It happened right after you popped the transmission into park, as indicated on your dashboard. My car, whilst not electric, is exactly the same: it has auto brake hold when you're in D but puts the electric handbrake on when you put it into P (the noise is less distinct than that one but you can hear it if you listen). Oddly though, I didn't notice it at other points such as at 15:22. On an unrelated note, I'd be interested to hear your views on auto brake hold systems vs manually applying the parking brake and/or putting the transmission into P.