[GregBrew]

I've learned to use it a "Gawking Maximizer". If I spend a little too much time looking at the scenery, it gives a little reminder wiggle of the wheel that I should be paying attention to the road, not the views.

 

[TotaledJetta]

I have to say it...The Bolt's Lane Keeping is pretty underwhelming. I'm no engineer, and am in no way qualified to to offer much more than an end user's opinion, but given the various sensors, cameras and other tech, it seems like there's some un-tapped potential. If it can generally detect lane markings and departures, and provide some steering correction, why can it attempt to stay more centered in the lane? For that matter, if following distance time can be displayed down to the 1/10 of a second, why can't that info be use for basic adaptive cruise control? It would seem to be a great opportunity to show that its not just Tesla who can add neat features via an OTA update...

Only tried it once, that was enough.

 

[Pvillerob]

I believe that the behaviour is a deliberate design choice because the engineers didn't want people to become dependent on the feature's imperfect ability to detect the lane it's in. The last thing GM wants is for people to end up crashing because they weren't paying attention when LKA looses track of where the car is. This has been a well-reported "flaw" with Tesla's autopilot - some people place way too much trust in it. By keeping the Bolt LKA's reactions very crude, they completely avoid that problem.

So why even include it then?
Oh, I know, to be able to claim it as a feature! Even if it does suck. Here's a theory: they initially designed it as a smart cruise control, but failed, or ran out of time/money, but decided to keep it in the guise of a LKA, as a sales feature. Despite knowing it didn't work very well. This was known in the microelectronics industry as turning a bug into a feature.

 

[sly]

I think it works as designed. It is not "lane centering." It is not a substitute for your own steering. It is an assist if it senses that you are clearly going off track, and that is it. On a few occasions this has worked very well for me when I was temporarily distracted. But it isn't a feature that allows you to sit back and let the car do the driving. I think that was a conscious choice. YOU are the driver, not the car. The car can help when needed, but it is up to you to maintain control.

 

[Sean Nelson]

So why even include it then?

Because it's better than nothing. Just don't expect it to drive like a human - it's job is to keep you in the lane when it's able to detect the lane markings. It isn't supposed to replace your own driving.

 

[Netmammal]

This is one the many reasons why I think GM has the same business model as Microsoft: make sure a feature works just good enough to get the checkoff in that column of the features appendix of the marketing brochure. And customers have got rocks in their heads if they think difficult features will have implemented it well enough to make us want to use them.

From my testing, if you put the vehicle in cruise control. and then take your hands off the wheel, that car is going to keep going until it runs out of juice, or runs off the road. It reminds me of the horrible event where a pro golfer's Learjet had explosive decompression and everybody died onboard with automatic pilot on. They scrambled USAF fighters up to 50,000 feet, and looked in, seeing the slumped pilot. Nothing could be done but follow it until it ran out of fuel and crashed in a wheat field in Canada somewhere.

If this were a useful safety feature, when I take my hands off the wheel (say when I've had a heart attack), the car will put on the four-ways and gradually slow down to 0 MPH fairly soon after it warned me to start driving again. At least then I've got a fighting chance that if I do not get rear-ended and somebody calls the cops, that I will live. As it stands, the car will keep driving at 65mph until it looses track of the road, and it runs me into a bridge abutment, probably killing me before the heart attack would! I not for a moment think it can drive 200+ miles without going off-road, even in a state where they paint the lines better and have long straightaways on their highways.

 

[sly]

In GM surveys, when asked what new features I would like, I have always listed "lane centering" as a desirable feature. Cruise controls in general, not just the Bolt or GM, all suffer from situations that you have noted. Only Tesla is different. Hopefully, some of the Tesla tech features will show up in other cars soon. But, lane keep assist is a useful feature and has already helped me out a couple of times. Clearly, it isn't an intelligent auto-pilot and wasn't meant to be, which seems to be what you are expecting. There is uncertainty about whether these assistive technologies actually help reduce accidents, though. If I had a known heart condition that could render me unable to control the vehicle, I would have bought a Tesla.

 

[madmike]

I like it, it is a gentle reminder and in my opinion materially better than nothing