Modern cars learn your driving style and then it's fixed!

[Ooopnorth]

Is this true?  Collecting my car last week from the dealership with delivery miles on it, the branch manager, who handed it over to me, explained that the car would learn (onboard computer, etc.)  my particular driving style in the first 500 to 1000 miles and then it would be fixed (albeit that it could be reset by servicing IT gismos if urgently needed).  Consequently, his advice was that if i wanted the vehicle to be 'brisker' later in it's life I should drive accordingly during this mileage range with the proviso that during the running-in period (also 1000 miles) I didn't go over 4000 rpm, or brake overly hard (unless in an emergency).  Indeed, he suggested that doing some towing during this period could be beneficial. I haven't and won't be towing.

 

I'd gleaned enough generally to know that running-in involving lots of steady revs such as long motorway driving wasn't ideal, and that a wider rev range was apparently best practice (hence the drive home down the twisty A7 through the Scottish borders), but having a fixed, 'forever' driving style! Maybe that has it's benefits? What are the implications if you buy a used car with higher mileage, if that's true?

Edited 7 May, 2021 by Ooopnorth

[J.R.]

If his lips were moving then anything you heard was bull****!

 

If they weren't then you imagined it, in which case there is a far greater chance (albeit very remote) of it being true

[Ooopnorth]

Ere' ...It's hard to know what to believe these new-fangled, phishing, taking-the-'michael' days.  But, why would he be telling porkies? As it happens, I can only, quite self-evidently,  drive like I do anyway

Edited 7 May, 2021 by Ooopnorth

[KenONeill]

Quote

Modern cars learn your driving style and then it's fixed!

If that's what you got out of what he said/meant then he's very bad at explaining stuff, talking male bovine faeces, or both.

 

It's more like if you do "driving Miss Daisy" or "Carlos Fandango" techniques, then they exaggerate how you already drive.

[PetrolDave]

41 minutes ago, Ooopnorth said:

But, why would he be telling porkies?

Ignorance - the product knowledge of most car sales people is verging on zero.

 

Modern cars DO learn your driving style, BUT they keep learning it because we don't always drive like a Granny or always drive like Ayrton Senna so they keep adapting to how you've been driving recently it's not 'set in stone' over the first 500-1000 miles.

[edbostan]

I had to disconnect the battery for some remedial work and reconnected. Apart from having to reset the clock the car performed as before with no difference and fuel consumption shown on the display showed no change. 

[J.R.]

19 hours ago, PetrolDave said:

 

Modern cars DO learn your driving style, BUT they keep learning it because we don't always drive like a Granny or always drive like Ayrton Senna so they keep adapting to how you've been driving recently it's not 'set in stone' over the first 500-1000 miles.

 

Do you really believe that?

 

If we accept that your car does learn your driving style what do you consider it does about it?

[PetrolDave]

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

 

Do you really believe that?

 

If we accept that your car does learn your driving style what do you consider it does about it?

Yes, when I worked for an automotive consultancy the guys who did the engine management mapping gave a talk on the subject.

 

Basically if you drive gently it will soften the rate of change of fuelling/timing, and vice versa, so the vehicle will 'feel' more like how you are driving it.

But it's not set in stone it's all based on a walking window so if you change from one style to another it will gradually 'catch up' with you, but not be affected by brief changes of driver (e.g. when taken to a garage).

[J.R.]

Rate of change I could buy into, but not the optimal mapping for lambda 1 closed loop control.

 

But then the ECU is already programmed to react to the rate of change of the control inputs from the vehicle controls.

 

Emissions control will always over-ride fast control inputs.

 

We can agree that the assertion "Modern cars learn your driving style and then it's fixed!" is bull****

Edited 8 May, 2021 by J.R.

[NJRJ]

9 hours ago, edbostan said:

I had to disconnect the battery for some remedial work and reconnected. Apart from having to reset the clock the car performed as before with no difference and fuel consumption shown on the display showed no change. 

So the car being programmed for a driving god/ average/aggressive/slow/suicidal driver suited you as delivered (delete as appropriate )

[Ooopnorth]

14 minutes ago, NJRJ said:

So the car being programmed for a driving god/ average/aggressive/slow/suicidal driver suited you as delivered (delete as appropriate )

I most definitely put myself in that class (ahem..)

[stever750]

There is no AI/machine learning code of any sort in any car sold in the UK today. We're only at level 2 autonomy with Lane departure warning, we're a long way off L4 or 5 that would make use of that kind of AI. Every sensor on a car today is a fixed calibration / response, and the control units issue instructions against a fixed set of conditions, the only "learning" it does is respond instantly to changes on the sensor inputs, eg fuel RON antiknock. We are a number of years away yet before any form of machine learning code will be certified for pass car use, we've not even managed to get the fixed state sensor networks accurate enough yet, witness the occasional accidents that teslas have had. 

[Ootohere]

Owners Manuals might tell you about 'Dynamic Mode' with DQ200 DSG's.

There certainly is a behaviour that you can get from a DQ200 dsg when giving it spirited driving.

You can let someone else drive your car and when you get it back you can 'get it' back to your way of driving.

You can pick up a 'Demonstrator' / Hire car or one you borrow and then Give it some Dynamic driving and have it as you want.

You can 'Reset the DSG' as well.

 

There are more to DSG's than is obvious, like VW used Defeat Devices with the gearboxes and not just engines and they went into different settings under testing and VW were caught out with this with various combinations of engines and DSG's with implausible C02 g/km results.

http://hypermiler.co.uk/gearbox/how-to-fix-those-clunky-gear-changes-with-a-dsg-reset-vw-skoda-audi-seat-gearbox-auto

 

http://motorauthority.com/news/1107126_report-new-defet-device-discovered-in-audi-transmission

 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/99634/audi-recalls-127000-cars-over-emissions-device-discovery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 25 May, 2021 by e-Roottoot

[Phil-E]

So they don't really learn your driving style. More that they react to your driving style.

 

There are certain values on the ECU that are fixed that the car references the sensor values to. And there are other values that it learns and adapts the fueling etc to.

 

But these values aren't really anything to do with driving style.

 

And as for the DSG, that is just a feature of the gearbox. You can reset it but this just resets the learned values. It's not your driving style it's learned. It learns the clutch biting points, clutch pressures, oil pressures etc.

[Ootohere]

It can learn another drivers though, and you have to get it back learning your style. 

It is just a mechanical thing and software, not human or magic. but VW have in them something of a bit of smoke and mirrors, but then they were caught.

[Breezy_Pete]

@stever750 you sound like you know what you're on about in this field so I'll ask you: For there to be any real 'learning' there would need to be a way of telling the systems whether any changes that they were making were in the right (or wrong) direction, a 'training' phase, no?

[xman]

The word everyone should be using is adaptive.

 

Not intelligent, not learning.

 

Its easy enough to write adaptive code, whether it acheives what you or someone else expects is a matter of opinion. 

 

[stever750]

56 minutes ago, Phil-E said:

So they don't really learn your driving style. More that they react to your driving style.

 

There are certain values on the ECU that are fixed that the car references the sensor values to. And there are other values that it learns and adapts the fueling etc to.

 

But these values aren't really anything to do with driving style.

 

And as for the DSG, that is just a feature of the gearbox. You can reset it but this just resets the learned values. It's not your driving style it's learned. It learns the clutch biting points, clutch pressures, oil pressures etc.

See xman comment below, adaptive is absolutely the right description. Adaptive though in current architecture from a performance and safety POV is usually measured in ms, and ideally even quicker. 

 

50 minutes ago, Wino said:

@stever750 you sound like you know what you're on about in this field so I'll ask you: For there to be any real 'learning' there would need to be a way of telling the systems whether any changes that they were making were in the right (or wrong) direction, a 'training' phase, no?

Yes, just like humans. Machine learning as a basic principle requires the process to run many many times, with the inherent variations to be registered and accounted within the model. The issue is whether we're prepared to treat a car as a child for example, with all of the issues and compromises that that brings. That's massively oversimplifying it, but it gives a good idea of just how complex autonomous vehicle design is / will be. Arguably the sensational media question about who does an autonomous car kill first in a crash, answer is like the aero sector we design out errors, as the contract with the user psychologically changes significantly. We all get into our cars every day, and knowingly take risks, sometimes ones that we know are potentially lethal. no one ever got onto a commercial airline flight ever expecting to die. 

 

 

21 minutes ago, xman said:

The word everyone should be using is adaptive.

 

Not intelligent, not learning.

 

Its easy enough to write adaptive code, whether it acheives what you or someone else expects is a matter of opinion. 

 

Absolutely. My day job involves confirming that the input data, and the output instruction is what you expected, so trying to remove the subjective interpretation. 

[Ootohere]

@stever750

The guys that were in the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers expected to die, as did the Pilot that crashed into a mountain, but i get the general point.

 

[stever750]

1 hour ago, e-Roottoot said:

Owners Manuals might tell you about 'Dynamic Mode' with DQ200 DSG's.

There certainly is a behaviour that you can get from a DQ200 dsg when giving it spirited driving.

You can let someone else drive your car and when you get it back you can 'get it' back to your way of driving.

You can pick up a 'Demonstrator' / Hire car or one you borrow and then Give it some Dynamic driving and have it as you want.

You can 'Reset the DSG' as well.

 

There are more to DSG's than is obvious, like VW used Defeat Devices with the gearboxes and not just engines and they went into different settings under testing and VW were caught out with this with various combinations of engines and DSG's with implausible C02 g/km results.

http://hypermiler.co.uk/gearbox/how-to-fix-those-clunky-gear-changes-with-a-dsg-reset-vw-skoda-audi-seat-gearbox-auto

 

http://motorauthority.com/news/1107126_report-new-defet-device-discovered-in-audi-transmission

 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/99634/audi-recalls-127000-cars-over-emissions-device-discovery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are still adaptive / passive systems though. None of them will assume any form of direct control over the vehicle, you operate the device in 2 dimensions as we always have done, velocity and direction. They merely change the efficiency of the device. I think the confusion with "learning" is the inherent concept of time. The engine will "learn" that is has a new fuel rating within milliseconds of it appearing in the cylinders, so the myth of needing a tank or two of 99 RON for the car to become faster is nonsense.

[stever750]

Adaptive cruise control is a good example of the limitations of the technology. It cannot learn to spot new hazards over time, it either works, or it doesn't. That's where transport is right now wrt to adaptation, it doesn't. The legal and social implications of permitting it are not to be under estimated.

Edited 25 May, 2021 by stever750

[Breezy_Pete]

Thanks for your postings Steve. Fascinating business. 

[stever750]

It is! Like many things in life the devil is in the details. The auto industry learnt a big lesson from the Boeing 737 max disasters. No longer can they be allowed to self regulate, which is where autonomy was headed!