2024 Freightliner Cascadia Forward collision avoidance Problems

“When driving in highway traffic at moderate to high speeds (as well as low speeds), the truck will often accelerate with (and towards) a vehicle that is less than 1 second ahead of the truck. Certainly this often happens when there is not a safe distance between the truck and the next vehicle. The trucks systems in no way seem to expect that the next vehicle could slam on brakes at any moment. I have had this happen many times when a vehicle merges too close in front of me and then accelerates. …”

“When a vehicle is merging into my lane, the truck will often not detect or react to the encroaching vehicle; this happens even when there is plenty of space, and the encroaching vehicle is halfway into my lane. I have had to intervene several times, since the truck was accelerating toward the previous vehicle in my headway, and ingoring the intervening merging vehicle. In contrast, the sensors in the truck apparently can see when a vehicle is near to the front, and mostly out of the headway of the truck (only part of the front vehicle in my lane, like when exiting). …”

“The cruise control has been programmed to stay engaged, in many instances, after the driver has used the foot brake. In some situations, like approaching a traffic circle, I have slowed down with the foot brake, then had the truck unexpectedly start to accelerate after I released the brake. This apparently has to do with a vehicle in my headway allowing the cruise to remain engaged, and then after the vehicle leaves my headway the truck thinks it can accelerate again. There is never a good reason for the cruise control in any vehicle to remain engaged after using the brakes. …”

“When approaching stopped traffic, sometimes the truck will respond and begin to slow down. At other times, the truck will continue at set speed toward a detected stopped vehicle, and in situations where the time and distance are way too short to justify no reaction by the system. The truck at sometimes acts like it is auto-driving; at others it acts as if it is only in crash-mitigation mode, and will wait for the driver until the last possible second and then slam on brakes. …”

“The forward collision avoidance system fails to distinguish stationary objects from animate objects resulting in immediate engagement of the braking system.”