There’s been lots of debate about Tesla’s use of the term “autopilot” for its suite of advanced driver assistance features. Some have suggested that the term is misleading, as it drivers might assume the term automatically implies full autonomy, comparable to modern aviation autopilots, and lull themselves into a state of inattention that could be dangerous to themselves and others. Without going into a whole in-depth analysis of Tesla’s Autopilot, that’s clearly not how it is intended to be used in its current state of development, and updates have made that even harder to do. It will shut down if a driver shows signs of inattention.
Meanwhile, in 1958, Chrysler’s new Auto-Pilot was of course just a cruise control.
The term “autopilot” has been around a long time, and does not intrinsically imply full autonomy. Sperry offered the first aviation version back in 1912 by Sperry, a device that connected a gyroscopic heading indicator and attitude indicator to hydraulically operated elevators and rudder. It simply reduced a pilot’s workload, but was hardly all-encompassing. Its features were expanded over the decades to encompass wider aspects of piloting, to near autonomy today. But flying is very different than driving, and the tasks and the processing demands are not really comparable.
The last reference I can find to Chrysler using the Auto-Pilot term is in the 1965 brochure. By then, the novelty had worn off, and cruise control had become another commodity.
While I use Cruise Control all the time, even on boulevards, I doubt that they’re more economical in every circumstance.
“Same speed all levels” cannot be more economical than letting the car slow down naturally to crest a hill, then coast up to speed downhill. Of course no speed control, absent map data, can tell the difference between a hill and a long incline, except by inference “after the fact.”
Also, I’ve noticed that speed controls tend to “floor it,” kicking down 1 or 2 gears, if you Cancel then Resume after too much loss of speed, probably less economical than resuming gently by the accelerator. The Japanese cars I’ve owned particularly seem to have “aggressive” cruise controls which tolerate little loss in speed before the negative feedback kicks in, compared with that of the more easygoing ’80 Cadillac deVille my father had.
Well, Detroit to New York isn’t exactly mountainous terrain, either. I suspect that they are probably about right in relatively flat country. When I drive on the highway without using cruise, I have a tendency to look at the speedo and find 1) that I am going 5 mph too slow and hit the gas to get back to speed or 2) that I am going 5 mph too fast and thus wasting gas.
I agree that cruise doesn’t always work that well in really hilly country.
I worked for a few months at Mesa Verde living a 1.5 to 2 thousand feet below the top of the mesa where the cliff dwellings and museum are. So I was driving (V6, three speed automatic) uphill all the way to work and downhill all the way back. I consistently got 24 mpg, exactly normal. So, it seems that even without regenerative braking or anything the extra energy used going uphill is balanced by the energy saved going downhill.
Obviously if you cancel and resume from a much lower speed you might get more acceleration than ideal for maximum fuel economy. Although since we don’t have two more barrels of carburetor to open up these days it probably doesn’t make that much difference. Worse mpg accelerating, but for a much shorter time.
Of course without the cc on I think my driving style is probably pretty close to cc mpg. But then there are people like my one sister who drives like a thermostadt runs your furnace. Drop down a few mph, press on gas pedal to accelate to a few mph above the limit, take foot off the gas until the car slows down to a few mph below…….Probably cc would gain 25% mpg for her.
The fact that Chrysler called their early cruise control “auto pilot” just reminds me of the old urban legend about an ignorant driver who mistakes the cruise control for a literal auto pilot and leave the driver’s seat to get something from the back (the vehicle in the story is usually a van or RV), of course resulting in an accident.
Those numbers on the dial I assume represent the desired speed in 10 mph increments?
I find those early cruise controls interesting. The earliest one I experienced was in my 63 Cadillac. Both it and Chrysler’s Auto Pilot seemed to make a big deal out of the semi-automatic mode where it put back-pressure on the accelerator to keep you from speeding. I tried using it that way a time or two, but decided that the effort used in keeping the pedal “floored” against the back pressure was a waste of effort if the car would do it all by itself. It was probably a way to give wary first-time users some confidence that they were “still in control” of their speed.
It is also interesting that this was (to me, anyway) another of those innovations that Chrysler pioneered but lost leadership on. Chrysler buyers didn’t seem to be cruise control kind of people, for the most part. In my experience Ford seemed to get the deepest penetration among buyers for cruise control in the early 70s. But perhaps that is just my own experience from my father’s Lincolns being the first cars I saw it on.
This is on the list of features that I never thought twice about needing – until I had a car with it and was forced to do without on the next one. To paraphrase Scarlett O’Hara, “I will never work my own gas pedal on the highway again!”
I had two vehicles in a row without cruise control – 1997 Escort (that seemed to have every option except that one) and a 2004 F150 Heritage. Never again.
My wife on the other hand I have to remind her that it exists – too many years of her driving manual transmission vehicles.
I’ve gotten to the point that I’m spoiled having it on my 2016 Honda Gold Wing. You have no idea how nice it is to not have to tightly grip the throttle for 200 mile stretches.
Never knew you had a 2-wheeled S-Class
Awesome choice sir, does yours have the airbag?
When I rode up to Alaska 30 years ago I added a cheap “throttle lock”cruise control to my bike. I like that quite a lot, but I haven’t had a bike with cruise, or added an aftermarket unit, since I sold that bike in 1990. But since then I’ve gotten pretty used to it in my cars, so maybe I should look for that feature if/when I buy a new bike. But it probably won’t be a Gold Wing. Just too big for me ?
Speaking of spoiled…hell, I’ve got “throttle lock” cruise control on my John Deere riding mower!
Of the 15 or so vehicles I’ve owned in 38 years of driving, I can think of only three that didn’t have cruise…and two of those were older, stripper trucks that I bought solely for their utilitarian value.
Throttle lock on my last lawn mower was a Vise-Grip holding the handle and the safety shut-off handle together. I have carpal tunnel and the extra force I was using to hold the shut-off lever made it more painful than just the push bar. I’m sure slicing off my toes would have been more painful, but I wore my steel toes instead of sneakers.
Fun fact – when I ran out of gas one time, with just a little bit of yard left to mow and me too filthy to dare get into my newish car and run off to buy a mere gallon of fuel. I poured a quart bottle of rubbing alcohol into the fuel tank and gave the starter rope a yank. Started right up…then proceeded to overrev until it sounded like a radio control airplane – and then it buzzsawed right through my thick grass like it was clover. I normally had to half cut that section and go back over the other half. Gave me a smile for the day. I guess I made it a top fuel mower, didn’t I?
I laughed at your story. It sounds like something I would do, just so I don’t dirty my cars or my truck (all have leather, which can be wiped, but the huge mess of grass clippings on my floor which never seem to come up even with my 6 HP shop vac and a good brush attachment). Either that, or go strip down, shower and change into clean clothes just to get more gas.
A mower high-revving on alcohol, that would be a sight to see. Unfortunately I am kind of afraid to try it in my 1.5 year old $400 Craftsman mower. It’s Honda engine is probably too complex (short of having an ECU or VVT or something like that). When it wears out and comes time to replace it maybe I will. I love to experiment.
Surprised the 04 didn’t have cruise control – was this optional or just never available?
I assume optional (I bought it used in 2006) – it was a Heritage so it was the 1996-2003 style built in 2004 as the next generations production was ramping up. 4.6 V8, 4-speed auto, AM/FM cassette/CD, AC, bench seat, rubber floor, manual windows, not even a tilt feature on the steering column.
The Heritage models were mainly fleet specials w/o much in the way of options.
Oh, but having a manual transmission wouldn’t necessarily preclude her from having cruise control…I have it on my current vehicle (2000 VW Golf with 5 speed manual).
It of course disengages when I shift, but within the gear that I’m in it will maintain speed…otherwise works similar to what cruise control would do on automatic transmission.
Even my cousin, who’s a car guy, was amazed when I told him my manual transmission car has cruise control…he also drives manual but I guess it isn’t common, especially if you have an older vehicle.
I wonder if Ford had better success with converting buyers to cruise control because of the early use of a “Resume” setting with Ford’s version. BTW, I have owned a few cars with that “feature”, never could figure out how to use it correctly.
One of the cars I owned that had cruise control was a small Japanese sedan with a manual transmission. I wound up doing the downshifting when I approached inclines rather than wait for the car to react with huge amounts of throttle. After cresting a hill I usual was going a bit faster than I thought I should be going so I let the car coast until it hit the speed I wanted…then I re-activated the cruise control.
What bugs me are the folks who set their cruise control then run up the back of your car before deciding that maybe they need to tap the brakes and unfortunately drop out of cruise. Like deactivating and re-activating would be such a chore.
Actually I believe that Chrysler was the first to use the Resume feature. The early Ford system had the rocker buttons on the steering wheel hub. A look at a picture confirms that the left button was “of/on” and the right button was “set accel/coast”. The Chrysler system was on the turn signal stalk and built the Resume feature into the slide switch that also served for the off/on function. The set function on the Chrysler was a separate button on the end of the stalk.
Ford eliminated the resume button after 1969, replacing that position with an “Accel” function that sped up the car as you held the switch down.
It was reinstated as a separate button on the “new style” 1979-up Panther -Fox type wheels (the ones with the strange tilt angle).
Speaking of Ford and cruise control, one of my biggest pet peeves was when Ford eliminated the ‘cancel’ button for a long time (nineties?). The only way to cancel cruise without losing the speed setting was to tap the brakes. That, or completely turn it off, then turn it back on and reset. I could never figure out why Ford did this. The savings had to be miniscule. It was a positively GM-like cheapass move.
The ‘best’ cruise control to date is Toyota’s. The thing that sets it apart is the ergonomic location (4-5 o’clock on the column, directly behind the steering wheel). It falls readily to hand, intuitive, and all the functions (including ‘cancel’) can be accessed without removing hands from the steering wheel. Like the cancel button elimination on Fords, it’s hard for me to fathom the insistence of putting the cruise control buttons on the outer spokes of of the wheel. While aesthetically pleasing, access is not as good as the behind the wheel/column location.
Yes, it was in the 1990s for Ford — my first car with cruise control was a 1990 Sable, and there was no “cancel” switch, so you either had to tap the brakes or turn the system off.
I agree that the Toyota control stalk, once you get accustomed to it, is very easy to use and ergomomically quite sensible.
I was going to post the same thing about the lack of a cancel button.
Funny thing is, on my 2012 Mustang the resume button also serves as cancel. And on my 2014 Escape, pulling the control button/lever forward activates both cancel and resume.
Actually cruise control using mechanical governors have been around since the very early days of the automobile. I remember reading in Hemmings Classic Car about an early Packard (from the teens I think) that had this feature. The Wikipedia article on cruise control pegs it as having been used even earlier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_control
And in a manner of speaking, the Model T could be said to have had a cruise control of sorts, except it wasn’t governed. Simply shift into second gear, set the hand throttle, and cruise away…
I was going to post the same thing. And the Model T’s “auto pilot” was a simpler setup.
The how-to diagram in this post is much more helpful than the owner’s manual for my ’67 Imperial. I’ve never been able get the Auto Pilot to work–and just assumed it was broken–but I’ll try it again using these instructions.
It’s funny how sometimes, brochures and ads tell you more than the owner’s manual.
Logically, you could be called an Imperialist.
Well, I was just guessing.
The only domestic cars I have experience with that had cruise control are Fords and a 79 Pontiac Grand LeMans. The Pontiac had a VERY simple cruise control. When you got to the speed you wanted you pressed a button on the end of the shift lever….IIRC. Hitting the brake pedal disengaged the cruise control. That was it.
I tend to not use CruiseControl but the one car I had with Adaptive Cruise Control – Wow! That was impressive when I did use it and something I could see myself using regularly especially if it included in-town down to a stop capability. The same car also had brake warning technology that sounded a VERY loud tone and IIRC a light on the dash warning of an imminent collision – problem is it also went off when nearing one specific sign on a center island on one divided street near my house. The sign didn’t look mis-adjusted so not sure why it scared the car. It spooked me and my passengers regularly and caused me to have some small (probably healthy) level of doubt regarding all of its self-handling capabilities including the Adaptive CC.
Auto-Pilot as a term may not be misleading to those of us who have A) read up on the subject as regards Tesla and/or B) that tend not to be literalists anyway. However, looking at my fellow drivers (half are below average by definition, right?) and the woeful state that is driver education these days, I completely understand how MANY people might be fooled. How many people think the “emergency” brake is only for an emergency and never use it to secure the car in position when parked? There are videos showing people jamming an orange between the steering wheel rim and hub to defeat the “touch sensor” in Teslas. I’m not sure if the videos are completely real but one should never underestimate the ingenuity of humans to defeat safety features that protect them from themselves. The common perception in the airline world is that a pilot takes off and then engages AutoPilot and then takes a nap or does the crossword etc. I think the public isn’t really to blame when the term is used to market an automotive feature and then thinks they can do the same thing but ends up with harrowing consequences. Barely anyone reads the manual.
The last car I drove with lane-keep assist (2017 Chevy Tahoe rental) did great as long as it followed the lines on the road. When I tried it on a road I drive every day that has a gentle but very long curve it was great and steered around the turn…until it got to a side street intersection in the turn and the white line and sidewalk curbing stopped. Then it stopped turning. And I was back in control. It’s probably (obviously) more useful on the freeway but still would require lots of attention.
The Chrysler instructions do not seem to mention a feature that was on the cruise control on the 1963 Cadillac though I’m told Chrysler had it too: If you are in cruise and want to change speed, such as if the speed limit rises from 55 to 65, you could simply turn the speed dial, which on the Cadillac was a big thumbwheel.
It is really amazing how long it took the engineers to decide that they didn’t need numerals on the control. Like on the thumbwheel on my 63 Cadillac. Those numbers were never very well coordinated with real world speed anyhow. “Hey fellas, let’s just rely on the speedometer to tell us where the cruise is set!”
My ’69 Fleetwood Brougham had the numbers on the thumbwheel
11
I do use cruise control on the highway once out of town, and used it exclusively taking the I-275 loop around the west side of the Cincy area when I worked in NKY.
Glad I don’t have to anymore!
Nevertheless, you have to be careful regardless of how empty the road is while you travel.
I wonder how many of you remember the do-it-yourself cruise control kits sold in the 1970s? My buddy bought one for his CJ5, and it worked pretty well. The kit consisted of a sensor mounted on the front of the engine with two metal pieces mounted on the harmonic balancer 180 degrees apart and held on by filament tape! The inside control was mounted on the steering column and wired accordingly.
Eventually, the filament tape would deteriorate, and tape would break, sending the two metal slugs flying off, never to be seen again!
Of course, that’s what happened to my buddy because he never maintained anything! When that happened, he just took the rest of the apparatus off and tossed it.
A nice, but imperfect idea just the same.
I installed an after market cruise control on my 1984 Mustang GT after a vacation trip to Toronto and back where I did all of the driving (wife unable to drive a stick at that time). As I recall it took me, my brother and his brother in law several hours to install, of course much of that time was spent trying to decipher the instructions which apparently were written in some other language and translated to English by someone with only theoretical knowledge of the language. The setup worked well enough except that it would not disengage by tapping the brake pedal; one learned to turn the system off when wanting to slow down.
That was the last car that my wife and I have purchased that didn’t have cruise control installed as a factory item. Some of them worked better than others but all would hold a pre-set speed pretty closely. As has been commented upon before, the cruise in several different Toyotas will cause the transmission to abruptly downshift a couple of gears when starting up any noticeable grade. Disconcerting at first but it never seemed to hurt anything. The latest Toyota (2017 RAV4) has the adaptive cruise control and I don’t really care for it. Perhaps it is a matter of getting used to it but I’ve been driving for 50 years and haven’t run into the back of anything yet.
I installed an aftermarket cruise control on my 1976 Dodge Aspen. The sensor bracket was mounted on the floorpan and two magnets were adhered to the driveshaft with epoxy. They never let go as long as I had the car, which was until 1998. I replaced the turn signal stalk and clamped-on aftermarket cruise switches with a stalk that I got off a Chrysler at a wrecking yard; the function of the switches was identical, so all I had to do was swap the Molex connector on the end of the cable…so the installation looked factory stock.
My Charger has adaptive cruise control, and I have to admit I really like it on long trips. The accident avoidance warning and emergency braking sysyems are OK, but an aggressive driver (cough cough) will scare it on occasion, with surprising results. The lane keeping feature, though, is just flat annoying.
+1 for the convenient location of the CC controls on the Camry… although the wife never uses it.
I’m not sure who did the development work vs manufacturing vs marketing but the underhood actuators were labeled “Perfect Circle” prominently.
One weakness that about all cruise systems had was that if the transmission went into neutral, or otherwise slipped with Cruise engaged, then when the car slowed the Cruise would react by flooring the throttle and free revving the engine to the moon; ditto with a loss of traction.
Most of them now disengage, via the powertrain control computer, when the transmission is not in a forward drive mode.
I had cruise set on a mid-2000 Suburban while hauling down I-40 across AZ. It was raining and I hit some bad pavement where there was a large puddle and the vehicle pulled a bit to one side (mild hydroplaning, nothing I couldn’t handle) – the stability control kicked off the cruise as a precautionary measure.
The Ford Hybrids have an “Eco” mode that can only be used by the cruise control. I was regularly getting 50-53 mpg tanks on a Fusion hybrid at work and my sweetie’s C-max had an 80 mpg trip from the Point Loma lighthouse to Oceanside. Another longer trip I made 60 Mpg from Crestline to Escondido. Both are NOT the plug in energi models.
Interesting article.
Speaking of “auto pilot in the Tesla manner”, I saw this online article. I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen:
A Tesla owner’s excuse for his DUI: The car was driving.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2018/01/23/a-tesla-owners-excuse-for-his-dui-crash-the-car-was-driving/?utm_term=.75c8a6843626
Those early units were fun because they had aspects of an automaton. You could readily grasp the workings of the “6 Million Dollar Man” external controls that acted upon the carburetor linkage in the manner of a puppeteer.
Perhaps the numbered wheel was there more for marketing purposes than for real world effectiveness… a kind of Popeil, “set it and forget it “ deal.
I have often used the cruise control on my 11-year-old Outback as a way to stay engaged on long trips. I play the “adaptive” role myself. The game consists of using the accel and coast modes smoothly enough to avoid even the slightest use of the brake pedal or the resulting resume feature.
I suppose I can thank all the adaptive cruise, collision avoidance and lane keeping systems for making my radar detector useless. Even on a deserted stretch of Interstate, there’s usually some system nearby making it constantly ping. I’m about to toss it – and it’s a model which is supposed to analyze the signal and then display a notification that it’s a safety device.
Hmm. Anyone else notice that the early Chrysler system had a speed limiter function? That’s totally gone from American systems these days, but included in all the European cruise-control cars I’ve driven — with the exception that Chryslers let you override it with your foot pressure, and the modern ones in Europe DO NOT (!!!). That’s how I feel when I accidently engage the ‘limit’ function instead of the ‘maintain speed’ side.
I guess the last vehicle I owned (and drove regularly, DougD) without cruise control was my ’69 F-100. My last DD sans CC was my ’64 Beetle. Back in the day, I would cross my legs and use my left foot for throttle when my right got tired of being in the same position for a couple hours. I did a couple longer trips on my ’86 Suzuki GS550es, and agree with the commenter above that it’s a bear to have to grip the throttle for hours on end.
My 1950 Ford 8N has cruise control, though – just like the Model T. It was not unheard of for farmers back then to set the throttle to idle and walk beside the tractor as it propelled itself along while they picked up bales or whatever.
Am I now expected to harrass Ed at every turn 🙂
Many hours on various motorcycles taught me to ride on the highway using my left hand to hold the throttle on the right handgrip, to give my right hand an occasional break. The way to stay on the road while doing this is to weave the bike gently, and if you need to correct in one direction just prolong that part of the weave.
Chrysler’s auto pilot was quite the electro-mechanical device. Schematics and photos of the control module are located here:
http://www.forwardlook.net/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=25122
Cruise control is a great feature and I use it often despite the UKs busy roads
The main use for me is to stay within the speed limit on motorways and duel carriageways and I am sure it has saved a few speeding tickets.