[sycohen]

I purchased my 2016 CAMRY XLE in November 2015. Overall the overall handling, ride and feel of the car are much better than my 2012 XLE.

Being a Career nerd, I got the car with the Technology Package. Some of the features work well: Auto headlights, lane departure warnings, backup warning. However the radar speed control is a disappointment. My impression has been that the follow distance to the car in front was far too long, even at the shortest of the 3 available settings. The speed resume (when someone in front of you slows down and then speeds up again) is positively sluggish, taking about 10 - 15 seconds before it starts to rematch speed with the front car.

I thought that this was the current state of the art and, although I a great believer in speed control, I was resigned to keeping a light touch on the accelerator to help the system along.

We just came back from a trip down to Knoxville, TN and I had an opportunity to drive a 2010 Mercedes E550 down there. It had all of the technology package feature that the Camary has. But what a difference!
The Radar speed control maintained a comfortable distance to the car ahead, and the speed resume was so smooth that it felt exactly as if another person not a computer was operating the car.

6 years in technology is like 20 years in any other field. Why does Toyota have such a flawed system? Admittedly, the Merc was ~3X the MSRP of the Camry. But the difference in sensor cost couldn't be that much, especially 6 years later. Or, on a cynical note, is it just Toyota just saying "If you want a really good system, buy a Lexus!"

 

[xpeed]

That's the thing. M-Benz, BMW, AUDI and all other European MFG put in a lot of R&D in technologies like the radar distance and sensors. It really comes down to, "You get what you pay for."

Lexus might even use a higher quality radar technology than regular Toyotas and can be starkly different from what Lexus uses.

It's more of a gimmick option for a mainstream brand that will work 50/50 of the time or what you expect compared to a higher marquee.

You can't really compare a technology found in luxury cars compared to mainstream car.

Take Tesla for example. Motortrend did a radar test with Infiniti Q50S, M-Benz E Class, and some other brands I forget which ones, but Tesla came out on top, Infiniti was at the bottom level.

Price difference between the two is more than $40k. M-Benz was almost up there with the Tesla.

These are my opinions on this topic.

 

[steptide]

Suburu has great radar system too. But you will pay for it in the overall cost.

I feel like Toyota is a bit behind on alot of technology these days.

 

[xpeed]

Suburu has great radar system too. But you will pay for it in the overall cost.

I feel like Toyota is a bit behind on alot of technology these days.

The thing with Subaru, you can see the difference on how much R&D they put into their EYESIGHT radar systems. It's a pretty neat feature they have it's unique to only Subaru.

They even came up with a special name for it showing how much they put effort into it, and I've read good ratings from journalists on how good the system is based on price point.

I agree with you that Toyota needs to up their game in the radar technology as a lot of companies are aiming for autonomous cars for the future.

If UBER can come up with a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, I'm sure Toyota can do better.

 

[AML]

The Advanced Technology package in the Camry is like a generation old by now in terms of hardware capabilities. The new Toyota Safety Sense system on the newest Toyota models are much improved in terms of integration and function.

You can see the difference in the capabilities of the old Advanced Technology package in the 2015 Avalon vs the Toyota Safety Sense in the 2016 Avalon. Same car, new hardware/software and the differences are like night and day.

Check out the IIHS Front Crash Prevention evaluations between the two model years.
2016 Avalon
2015 Avalon

The thing with Subaru, you can see the difference on how much R&D they put into their EYESIGHT radar systems. It's a pretty neat feature they have it's unique to only Subaru.

They even came up with a special name for it showing how much they put effort into it, and I've read good ratings from journalists on how good the system is based on price point.

I agree with you that Toyota needs to up their game in the radar technology as a lot of companies are aiming for autonomous cars for the future.

If UBER can come up with a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, I'm sure Toyota can do better.

Toyota has developed their own system called Toyota Safety Sense. At this point in time, I find TSS to perform much better than EyeSight. EyeSight is a little old by now, so I expect Subaru to come up with updates and improve its performance soon.

Toyota Safety Sense is going to be made standard on the 2017 Highlander, RAV4, Corolla, Yaris, Corolla iM, and a couple other models. VERY impressive technology.
http://www.toyota.com/safety-sense/

 

[xpeed]

Talking about auto high beams, have you guys checked out Audi's Matrix LED headlights?

It's ridiculous how complex and cool the whole system is and this was introduced 3 years ago. US DOT obviously does not like the technology and didn't approve it to be made available here.