[lh7777]

> if the system fails to detect any other vehicles for a period of more than about 90 minutes, it assumes that there is a sensor fault, and refuses to operate

I have a current model Sprinter and this behavior is frustrating (thanks for the explanation, by the way, I thought it was a random bug). Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow, with the system saying the sensor is dirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if traditional cruise control would keep working without the active braking assist, etc. but unfortunately it’s all or nothing. I do like the system when it works, which is most of the time, and it’s never done something that felt unsafe.

I haven’t had any problems with the info system. This is my first vehicle with a touchscreen, and I was worried that it’d be a pain to use. But Mercedes provides real buttons for common actions, little trackpads on the steering wheel that can control the system without ever having to touch the screen, Car Play works great, and the built-in nav system is useful for those times I need directions and don’t have a cell signal.

My biggest worry is how these delicate parts will hold up over the years. My 10 year old car has a monochrome dot matrix display that loses a good number of pixels when it gets hot out. Will I really be able to get replacement parts for the Sprinter when the screen or computer start to die in 10-15 years?

[SoftTalker]

> Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow

That’s what it should do, honestly. It’s not safe to drive with cruise control in low traction conditions.

[xattt]

This is one unconscious bias from California-based self-driving companies: weather conditions worse than overcast skies exist in other parts of the world.

Recently, I drove in a whiteout blizzard with huge flakes without much accumulation on the road. Road was drivable, but I couldn’t see road markings. The experience would have been less scary with some sort of augmented display to show the road borders.

[mook]

Unfortunately the augmented displays don't have better input and are likely much worse than your eyes (their major advantage is never getting bored or sleepy). In your described conditions it would likely have been even more blind than you were, so if there had been displays they would have little bearing to reality.

[lightedman]

"This is one unconscious bias from California-based self-driving companies: weather conditions worse than overcast skies exist in other parts of the world."

Mount Baldy (right next to LA) is expected to see 7+ feet of snow over the next few days.

I'm fairly certain they're aware of the particular fact you mention. We do have (had thanks to this drought) multiple ski resorts across the state that do not rely upon artificially-made snow to operate.

[shagie]

https://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2007/0...

> Developed by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, the Advanced Rotary Plow (ARP) uses a network of magnets embedded along the roadway to guide the massive snow-spewing machine along the Interstate in zero-visibility conditions -- like a blinded pilot flying on instruments. Meanwhile, an onboard array of sensors sniffs out obstacles -- such as abandoned cars, hungry cows, napping yetis, or whatever -- that may lie hidden beneath the deep snows.

https://path.berkeley.edu/development-advanced-rotary-plow-a...

https://path.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/development_of... (pdf)

The PDF has a complete breakdown of how it works (and I mean really complete - like "here's all the gates in the magnetometers")

You can see some of the interface in https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/janfeb-2001/safe-plowi...

> This ASP Human-Machine Interface is mounted on the windshield. Some of the worst visibility conditions on the planet can be overcome with the aid of the ASP cab-mounted display, which receives its data from the plow's collision-warning system. Radar sensing assists human sight to find the road and obstacles that may be in the way of the plow.

---

Late addition...

https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/901/20031... has a better view of the interface in figure 2.2

The MN version is GPS based while the CA version was magnet based.

> California suffers from extremely wet and heavy snowfalls in their mountainous terrain. Snowfalls of 4 to 5 feet during a single storm are not uncommon. This wet, heavy snow forces snowplows to operate at relatively low speeds. Because of these conditions and the previous experience the California team (CalTrans, University of California at Davis, and the University of California at Berkeley’s PATH program) has with magnetic based vehicle guidance, the California team focused on the application of magnetic vehicle guidance to this snow removal problem. In addition to the application of the magnetic technology, the California team developed driver displays designed to convey information provided by the magnetic lane guidance system to the driver.

> In contrast to California, issues with snow removal in Minnesota arise because of high winds which can blow light, dry snow at high rates across vast stretches of prairie. This blown snow can create significant drifts which must be continuously cleared in order to keep roads open. Under these conditions, snowplow operations are required to run at relatively high speeds to avoid road closures because of drifting. Because of these weather and geographic conditions, the Minnesota team focused on DGPS based solutions to this particular snow removal problem. The Minnesota team also developed driver displays designed specifically to convey lane keeping and collision avoidance information provided by the on-board systems.

[jacquesm]

> Road was drivable, but I couldn’t see road markings.

That's a bit contradictory. If you can't see the road markings the road is not drivable.

[jobjobjobjob]

In Ontario and it's very common to be driving on packed snow for a few days after new snowfall. You get barely any road markings at all. You just use common sense and memory to try and act like the lane dividers, turning lanes, stop lines are still there. It must be the same in many parts of the US as well. With winter tires and the right attitude its perfectly fine!

But yeah if you can't see the road markings due to an active blizzard, flip the hazards on, follow the tail lights ahead of ya, and stay in the middle of were the road should be.

[jacquesm]

I've lived there. St. Josephs Island to be specific. I also went to the funeral of more than one person that 'didn't make it' through that kind of condition.

[xattt]

> You just use common sense and memory to try and act like the lane dividers, turning lanes, stop lines are still there.

You’re absolutely right. You just do what you need to do.

Having some form of inertial navigation supplemented by GPS and visual odometery from features that stick out from the side of the road (like a road sign; memorized by the vehicle on past drives) would help a lot. A HUD UI could show road markings on “slice” of the road.

Call it “low viz aid” or something catchy.

In my case, I was driving on a rural road just before dusk without street lighting where there is nearly no traffic on a good day. Low-beam headlights were reflecting off the flakes and high-beams were obviously out of the question.

Risk of a collision with another vehicle was low, but going into the ditch was possible if you didn’t know the bends of the road.

Yes, these are dangerous conditions, but I started off driving in rain and didn’t anticipate the switch to snow mid-drive.

[fennecfoxy]

But what about a curvy 2-lane road with oncoming traffic on the other side? How do you ensure you not hit kerb the car if you can't see the kerb due to snow?

[xattt]

You slow down enough that you can confidently maneuver by the curb and the other vehicle.

[throwaway290]

> You just use common sense and memory to try and act like the lane dividers, turning lanes, stop lines are still there

Isn't this what road signs are for?

[krig]

Here in Sweden, even the road signs are frequently covered by snow. I’m sure it’s a similar situation in Canada!

[rwky]

Try driving on non major roads (and some major) roads in the UK. They often have no markings because they've worn away!

[fennecfoxy]

As a Kiwi moved the the UK, I &%$ hate the roads here.

They're fun to drive on still, but there's an over-reliance on painted road markings, which are often not repainted, if they're even visible they disappear when it's raining, or just you know, when there's traffic and the car in front of me is covering it.

It's the absolute fucking worst on gyratorys and other complex roundabouts where I have no idea which fucking lane to be in because I can't see the road marking, covered by cars, positioned right at the entrance to the roundabout rather than before.

Would be completely solved by ensuring roundabout signs were so far in front of the roundabout depending on road speed, then on the roundabout sign indicating at each exit the # of which lanes you can take to get there, ie mark exits going around with 1 2,3 3,4 5. Then I know immediately that the left most lane is dedicated to the first exit, to take the 3rd exit I can be in the 3rd or 4th most lane. And "going around" has a dedicated lane, the 5th from the left.

So sick of being forced out the wrong exit because I've picked the wrong lane and there's too much traffic. So sick of locals in areas complaining on forums about the "idiot drivers" not magically knowing the road layout beforehand. So sick of having to change lanes and feeling like the asshole in the equation because I know it looks like I've done it to queue jump; I'm not trying to skip ahead, I just have no idea where the fuck I'm going.

Gyratory lane markings are shit, too. Proper lanes and then with each segment no marking at all before the lanes start again, it can often be difficult to tell which lane you need to funnel yourself into after the break because the road numbers on the lanes up ahead just aren't visible until you're right on top of them.

Then the driving test here. Oh, the driving test. The first time I tried it I failed for failing to indicate correctly at a mini roundabout. Okay, fine, fair dues. Pass second time. Been driving a while now & maybe like 30% of people actually indicate on a roundabout. Let alone all the other antics people pull while driving here; pass the strict test & then throw it all out the window.

[jacquesm]

Those mini roundabouts in the UK can be hilarious. A regular crossing with a black dot in the middle and suddenly it's a roundabout. A non local is utterly without a chance to navigate that in a non heart-stopping way.

[NikolaNovak]

Ontario has 10m people and most of us won't see the lane markings for the next few days in the middle of a 4 million metro area. Roads will be eminently driveable and some people will safely use a traditional cruise control.

[xxs]

Not all roads get properly cleaned (esp. non-major ones) in a lot of parts of the word, driving on snow is rather common in North Europe.

[nuccy]

Well... there is another problem obviously apart of low traction, which car cannot sense directly. Accumulation of water or snow obstruct the radar. Actually a car with no camera would report exactly that just from radar readout alone, since it can detect worse signal-to-noise due to too much reflection in its readings.

[ht85]

Yeah, the manual explicitly says that cruise control should only be used in clear weather conditions.

[lh7777]

Yes, the manual does say not to use adaptive cruise control (Distronic) on icy or slippery roads, if visibility is poor, or if the radar sensors are affected by a variety of weather conditions. Cruise will even automatically disengage if electronic stability intervenes.

I’m mostly annoyed that false positives such as the Nevada issue described above or a one-time splash of water on the sensor when it’s perfectly safe to use cruise control results in the whole system being unavailable for an extended period of time. To me, the right solution would be to disengage Distronic when the sensor can’t see well enough and then allow the driver to re-engage traditional cruise control if they deem it safe to do so. The system doesn’t have the sensors or the smarts to know if it’s actually safe to use cruise control, only the driver can make that judgement. From the manual: “Cruise control is only an aid. You are responsible for the distance to the vehicle in front, for vehicle speed, braking in good time and for staying in your lane.”

[dghughes]

There also should always be an option to turn off traction control on gravel roads too. You want the gravel to pile up in front of tires it slows you much faster.

And snow is a pain too. Ford Transit vans were terrible for no manual over ride maybe it's all Ford since I doubt Transit has its own unique system. I used to drive a Transit for work the little goofy looking vans. I couldn't make it through a 12 inch high pile of snow the van kept cutting the engine power. I had to back up hit the gas put it in neutral and coast though the tiny little snow pile. You could pull the fuse to disable the traction control but it also shuts off ABS and the airbag. Useless piece of crap van.

[bayindirh]

Our Ford cars have a little button which disables all stability program functions, except ABS.

Strange that the van doesn't have it.

[SkyPuncher]

Eh, the risk is really overblown in my opinion.

Hydroplaning/sliding is a real risk, but you can mitigate that by simply understanding how your vehicle behaves and paying attention. Sudden, unexpected change in engine RPM, you should probably cancel cruise control. Weird torquing on the steering wheel, disengage cruise and steer by hand.

[bootlooped]

> Cruise will also disengage in heavy rain or snow, with the system saying the sensor is dirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if traditional cruise control would keep working without the active braking assist, etc. but unfortunately it’s all or nothing.

A previous car I had, a 2019 CRV, did this too. I understand that it could be a very dangerous situation if the driver forgets or doesn't realize they're only using the dumb cruise control instead of the adaptive cruise control they're used to.

[BoorishBears]

> Will I really be able to get replacement parts for the Sprinter when the screen or computer start to die in 10-15 years?

Most likely, yes. Part of why most automotive tech lags behind the times on raw performance is guarantees around things like how long you can source a given SoC, for example. 10 years is not an uncommon manufacturing lifetime in the space, and a Sprinter is a relatively high volume car so I wouldn't be too concerned about MB producing/stocking spares

[bluGill]

I wouldn't count on it. I work for John Deere, and am often in discussions about some part going out of production. Sometimes we guess how many we need for the next X years and buy that many, othertimes we rewrite software for a new part. Care to guess how many boards can sit in a warehouse for many years and still have good capacitors.

I can't tell you how many years, but there is always someone in these discussions who points out with pride that we still tractors from the 1950 in use by customers who demand replacement parts for anything that breaks.

[cvccvroomvroom]

In case anyone here weren't a farmer, John Deer is the Apple Tesla of industrial equipment with not just built-in planned obsolescence but built-in inability to self-repair or self-diagnose without proprietary equipment. Much hay has been made in R2R about John Deer's customer-hostile practices.

The harvest time sensor reset tax is why some small-time farmers stick to old and overseas equipment they can repair without a tech visit. It's not about the customer being unreasonable about NLA parts, but the modern unreasonableness of how the manufacturer impedes the customer with artificial scarcity and artificial limitations on knowledge, diagrams, diagnostic equipment, diagnostic equipment manuals, and the nature of some repair parts.

[midoridensha]

Exactly: farm equipment is one place where you really do not want to Buy American.

[deaddodo]

> Care to guess how many boards can sit in a warehouse for many years and still have good capacitors.

If you guys are having trouble storing boards for 10+ years with caps regularly going bad, I would highly recommend you look into a new supplier. Well-built caps should have no problem going for 25+ years in storage (especially cold).

In addition, this is probably the easiest component on the board to replace. If you can’t find functional new stock and this is the only issue, just recap them.

[bluGill]

I have no insight into how we store things. I sometimes have input into the buy or port to a replacement decision, but if we decide to buy there is a completely different department that handles the details.

Caps are an issue that is easiest for people here to understand, but we have a long list of similar issues to watch for in storing parts

[cvccvroomvroom]

Or ditch electrolytic and tantalum caps wherever possible because they're crap. It's often possible to engineer a more expensive, reliable LR circuit for the impedance of a cheap RC one.

[jacquesm]

Tantalum have their own issues. Yes, they live longer. But they're nice little fire starters and are much more critical than electrolytic capacitors when it comes to voltage tolerance.

[dreamcompiler]

It's kind of amazing to me that we can build 3nm chips but we still haven't figured out how to build a uF-range cap that has long MTBF, good overvoltage tolerance, low series resistance, and doesn't blow up.

[BoorishBears]

I work on automotive HMI and don't have to guess how many can sit in a warehouse for many years and still have good caps.

They're subject to a lot worse than that for design verification. And I assure you John Deere has many _many_ PCBs that have sat for 10 years to enable service needs today, it's not like they just started using complex circuit boards yesterday...

[hackernewds]

> built-in nav system is useful for those times need directions and don't have a cell signal.

You know you can also download Offline maps. One of Google Maps best features.

[buffet_overflow]

This is one of those things that while true and useful, I personally don't realize or think of it until just after I need it. It's always frustrating to get to a destination without signal and need to plot the return trip, or try to make adjustment in the middle of a dead zone and realize you don't have maps.

I keep an atlas in my back seat just to be safe now.

[lh7777]

The nice thing about the built-in nav is that it always works everywhere in the U.S. Google Maps only lets you download an area about half the size of Washington State at a time and you have to manually select the area to download. Fine for local use, but too tedious (and too much disk space) for a long road trip.

[julianz]

?? The Google Maps I use offers to download the maps if I ask for directions on a long journey. It doesn't seem to have download limits and I never need to think about it again.

[bombolo]

Have you heard of Open Street Maps?

You can keep offline all the maps you want.