I am a big lover for ADAS and my previous experience with TSS is on my other car (2017 Prius Prime) which is running on TSS-P. I also have been using the aftermarket Comma 3 with FrogPilot branch for a few years
So far I have drive my 2024 LC for 4000 miles, trying to test the latest TSS 3.0 in various situations. I kept my TSS 3.0 setting mostly on the aggressive/sensitive side. This is my observations. Starting from the good but there aren't too many:
1. DRCC is working well
I found DRCC can actually covers vehicles switching into my lane from left/right lane quite well. Even after comparing to the Comma 3 on Prius Prime which is also using radar on the front this is still a huge improvement.
2. LTA Handles turning with strong torque than many other alternative
This is one feature I really love but don't have it on TSS-P. On Comma 3 it worked well on highway but that is the only scenario I would trust it. But on LC I find it can even handle the highway exit reasonable well, though I still don't yet fully trust it.
3. Road Sign Assist
It is alright, not specifically impressive comparing to a more capable system like Tesla FSD. But in one scenario where I drive my US model in Canada it seems to handle the country difference better than what I would expect, whenever it detects the road sign.
Now this is the list of "bad" things I really don't like/trust:
1. Awkward lane detection
I got that it sometimes can be hard with heavily worn asphalt and rain/snow/mud pavement. But still comparing to my Comma 3, which has been trained on a crowded model, from 2 years ago, it is inexplicably bad. You are Toyota, the biggest automaker of the world. If you can't get enough data to train than buy it. Even an open source ADAS solution performs better than you. This is a failure.
2. Flaky AHB
I am counting on this feature when driving in the less populated suburban area. I will have to say this is still quite flaky. It often stops working after a while that I have to re-enable it on the AHB button. I am not sure whether this is intentional or it is just buggy.
3. Noisy LTA
LTA works well with intruding vehicles, but also gets a bit noisy with many false alarm and completely out of order when it fails to detect the lane just because the ground marks gets faded or wet. They need to improve the algorithm not just to count on the marked line itself but also the entire scenario from the video. Many others can already do better than Toyota. I will describe this as not quite useful other than driving on boring highway when the weather is ideal
4. DRCC/PDA could be smarter
I remember driving ADAS on KIA EV6, it has a very adaptive DRCC/PDA. Depends on your speed the car will respond to surrounding event at different threshold. This is definitely the way this feature needs to go, instead of fixed sensitivity on the menu. I have it turned on but I don't have very high level of trust for it to do things right.
5. DRCC failed to work when driving in snow
Probably not their design issue (or is it?), but I found this issue with quite a bit surprised. Because they put the front radar as a flat plate on the grill, it actually is quite easy to trap snow and dirt. The radar wave length is not capable to penetrate through water so once you drive in snow for a while it will stop to work.
6. No user accessible DMC
They don't allow the drive to access DMC video footage when it can see your data by uploading them to the cloud secretly in the background. I really don't appreciate it. This feature is an additional charge on LC and FE trim but why can't I use it?
7. Gimmicky Dashcam
Not only the quality of the video is not good, but it has almost none of the integration with the car itself. (If they do a cloud integration similar to DMC and actually allow driver to download it, they could sell the cloud service with additional and recurring revenue) Come on Toyota it is 2024 now and why would you give me something that even a cheap Chinese knock-off can do better than you?
Overall, I will describe the TSS 3.0 on LC 5/10. I took three points off from the HW being less capable, and two points off from disappointing SW maturity.
So far I have drive my 2024 LC for 4000 miles, trying to test the latest TSS 3.0 in various situations. I kept my TSS 3.0 setting mostly on the aggressive/sensitive side. This is my observations. Starting from the good but there aren't too many:
1. DRCC is working well
I found DRCC can actually covers vehicles switching into my lane from left/right lane quite well. Even after comparing to the Comma 3 on Prius Prime which is also using radar on the front this is still a huge improvement.
2. LTA Handles turning with strong torque than many other alternative
This is one feature I really love but don't have it on TSS-P. On Comma 3 it worked well on highway but that is the only scenario I would trust it. But on LC I find it can even handle the highway exit reasonable well, though I still don't yet fully trust it.
3. Road Sign Assist
It is alright, not specifically impressive comparing to a more capable system like Tesla FSD. But in one scenario where I drive my US model in Canada it seems to handle the country difference better than what I would expect, whenever it detects the road sign.
Now this is the list of "bad" things I really don't like/trust:
1. Awkward lane detection
I got that it sometimes can be hard with heavily worn asphalt and rain/snow/mud pavement. But still comparing to my Comma 3, which has been trained on a crowded model, from 2 years ago, it is inexplicably bad. You are Toyota, the biggest automaker of the world. If you can't get enough data to train than buy it. Even an open source ADAS solution performs better than you. This is a failure.
2. Flaky AHB
I am counting on this feature when driving in the less populated suburban area. I will have to say this is still quite flaky. It often stops working after a while that I have to re-enable it on the AHB button. I am not sure whether this is intentional or it is just buggy.
3. Noisy LTA
LTA works well with intruding vehicles, but also gets a bit noisy with many false alarm and completely out of order when it fails to detect the lane just because the ground marks gets faded or wet. They need to improve the algorithm not just to count on the marked line itself but also the entire scenario from the video. Many others can already do better than Toyota. I will describe this as not quite useful other than driving on boring highway when the weather is ideal
4. DRCC/PDA could be smarter
I remember driving ADAS on KIA EV6, it has a very adaptive DRCC/PDA. Depends on your speed the car will respond to surrounding event at different threshold. This is definitely the way this feature needs to go, instead of fixed sensitivity on the menu. I have it turned on but I don't have very high level of trust for it to do things right.
5. DRCC failed to work when driving in snow
Probably not their design issue (or is it?), but I found this issue with quite a bit surprised. Because they put the front radar as a flat plate on the grill, it actually is quite easy to trap snow and dirt. The radar wave length is not capable to penetrate through water so once you drive in snow for a while it will stop to work.
6. No user accessible DMC
They don't allow the drive to access DMC video footage when it can see your data by uploading them to the cloud secretly in the background. I really don't appreciate it. This feature is an additional charge on LC and FE trim but why can't I use it?
7. Gimmicky Dashcam
Not only the quality of the video is not good, but it has almost none of the integration with the car itself. (If they do a cloud integration similar to DMC and actually allow driver to download it, they could sell the cloud service with additional and recurring revenue) Come on Toyota it is 2024 now and why would you give me something that even a cheap Chinese knock-off can do better than you?
Overall, I will describe the TSS 3.0 on LC 5/10. I took three points off from the HW being less capable, and two points off from disappointing SW maturity.
