Yes. I have done it both in LA/OC and the Bay Area, and it is miserable - autonomous helpers or not.
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Ugh. ATL and PDX are getting to be as bad if not worse than anywhere else.
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DFW is no treat either in rush hour.
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In my experience it’s pretty well hands off as long as you’re in the mapped area which has been expanded with the Highway Assistant up to 85mph.
Note: DA pro has traffic jam assist (good until 40mph) in the ID7/ID8 lite cars for now. Over 40 needs input but the attention nannies are notably less sensitive.
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How is super cruise? That is supposed to be hands off in mapped areas.
My buddy has this for his Bolt, loves it.
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Any chance your office is near a MARTA station?
Unfortunately not, it’s over by the Braves stadium.
None are faultless and will still require driver intervention. But you’ll get to know the shortcomings and when it’s most useful for reducing workload and fatigue.
BlueCruise 2.0 in the Mach-E works very well and is truly hands-free when you find a good predictable driver/vehicle to follow. None of these systems will do much good if you’re approaching standstill traffic at speed; you’ll want to intervene. Large speed differentials in general are scary.
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I implore you to please try the BMW Driver’s Assistant Professional. It’s completely changed my driving habits. I live in Los Angeles, traffic no longer bothers me at all. You can just relax and let the car do all the work and enjoy some music and podcasts. In day-to-day traffic it feels like a human is driving, it’s very smooth and doesn’t jerk or jar you like my Model X used to. And on long 4 hour trips between LA and Vegas, I don’t even have to touch the wheel, brakes, or accelerator, I can arrive totally refreshed and ready to gamble. In my old BMW X5, I’d be exhausted after a four hour drive, but with my iX for the past year I swear it’s been a life changer. And non-intuitively, it’s way less stressful for me than FSD/Autopilot, since it’s never makes mistakes!!
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BMW can do 85 mph hands free, only on highway though.
Sometimes car thinks I’m on frontage road and refuse to engage lol
bmw da pro really is great for this.
Amazing how RARE 330i are made with this option.
It should be standard by now even if a forced msrp increase
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This. Using this for last 10 months for LA office commute. One way in morning is 1 hour an evening worst has been 2 hour 15 min.
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Can’t negotiate an exception?
If this were me, depending on how long I’ve been at the company and what my “value” is, I would try to talk to the manager and explain the situation.
They tried to do this at our work but considering how many positions were remote, there was no leverage for them. Those were actually local to their office with no commute decided to take remote jobs than come in (this was when everyone was over-hiring) so that exodus also tempered their no-remote policy.
That 3-4 hours commute is going to cut into your productivity and morale and I would use that as a point of discussion.
Even with FSD… spending that much time on the road is crazy (at least to me).
Good luck.
I’m a bit confused - I see the Driving Assistant Pro on different models, some it seems to be up to 40 mph (extended traffic jam assist?), others 85 mph?
Is there an easy way to see what models offer the higher function feature?
Yes, this depends on your car. For 2022-2023 models Driving Assistant Professional allows hands free up to 40 mph. For 2024 models, there’s a mode called Highway Assistant which extends hands free self-driving up to 85 mph.
I have a 2023 BMW iX, and to be honest, I only keep two fingers or a knee against the wheel on the highway and the car drives itself. On long 3-4 hour trips between LA and Vegas it works amazingly, and I barely have to think about navigating!
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I’ve used BMW’s, Ford’s Blue Cruise and Hyundai’s systems. They are all pretty reliable.
For BMW, I had it on a loaner for a week, it was good but I had a hard time trusting it.
Ford’s system is officially hands off, but over 20k miles of highway driving, there were 4-5 instances where it lost the lane and I had to take over control. They recently had an update, which should include lane changing as well. But the system doesn’t let you take your eyes off the road, so if you want to work or something, you can’t.
Hyundai’s system officially is NOT hands off, but it works just as well. I don’t need to keep my hands on 90% of the time and I don’t need my eyes on the road. It drifted out of lanes on 2 occasions in the past 8k highway driving.
I beleive the Merc should have officially a more advanced system though?
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Mercedes EQS 2024 is L3 certified in couple of states such as california. With this you can legally not touch the wheels while autopiloting on highways.
Nice! Is the 85 mph variant available on all 2024 models? That’s what I’m having a hard time deciphering
I didnt think the i4 even 2024 had 85mph version of dap.
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