[phatline]

Well, that was fast! We got a 2018 Volt in June and we already made use of the forward collision alert (and possibly automatic braking; that's my real question). Wife was driving > 37 mph when the car in front of her did a panic stop to avoid hitting the car in front of it. She got the FCA and hit the brakes. The car behind her then rear-ended her. Haven't taken the car in yet, but it appears the damage is limited to the bumper (scratches and backup camera is wonky). Let's hope that's it.

She says she absolutely would have hit the car in front of her without the alert, and she did put her foot on the brakes, but she's not sure if the car started braking first or not. Is there a way to determine after the fact if emergency braking engaged? We do have ACC.

 

[Caffeine1]

In your case I'm not sure.. In my case.. you could not miss it! a car was turning left the Volt made the mistake of thinking I was going to hit the other car and slammed the brakes on! scared the Hell out of me.. I was not impressed.. yes, I was close.. but not going to crash.. basically the system seen the car in front of me, as stopped. When it was 90° to me and moving out of the way.. The brakes held for a second before giving me control back again.. by that point I had the Gas peddle to the mat trying not to have the guy behind me crash into me.. in the end it was all good.. but I was pissed for a few minutes.

Sorry to hear about you Volt though that sucks.. Hope it's minor.

 

[sosmerc]

That is one situation with ACC that you must learn how to deal with.....when the car in front of you is slowing down and then making a turn.....ACC will slow you down and continue to slow you down further than you (or perhaps the driver behind you) would expect. So I have learned to begin to feather in the throttle when I think I have enough safe clearance from the vehicle in front. It is not a big deal in my opinion, you just learn how to deal with it to protect yourself from someone behind that may be getting to close.

 

[9G-man]

Good question. First make sure auto-braking is activated in your settings menu:
Settings>Vehicle>Collision>FwdCollision>Alert and Brake.

There is no indicator that system activated. If it activated you would know it. Its literally a last second to impact thing, and its very extreme braking. Nose dive, ABS, slam-on-the-brakes kinda thing. *Its functional at pretty low speeds. Anything highspeed it will NOT stop in time. Only reduce the impact. In conjunction with ACC, it's even better.

Ive experienced it once and was like 'wow, *^$!,that was extreme'. It did save me from a low speed rear-ender, I glanced down at the very moment the person in front of me was putting on the brakes.
Here's a video explaination.

 

[9G-man]

Also see:

 

[Don M]

There is no indicator that system activated. If it activated you would know it. Its literally a last second to impact thing, and its very extreme braking. Nose dive, ABS, slam-on-the-brakes kinda thing. *Its functional at pretty low speeds. Anything highspeed it will NOT stop in time. Only reduce the impact. In conjunction with ACC, it's even better.

Only ACC equipped cars have high speed emergency braking and at least in my first case, it DOES stop you before you have a crash. My experience happened at 65 mph when following a car in heavy traffic who decided to slam on his brakes to take an exit that he had overshot at the last second - It happened as I was checking my mirrors to see if I could change lanes to go around him. It was a pretty VIOLENT slowing from 65 down to about 30 and the guy following me changed lanes abruptly or he would have rear ended me, no question

I would not count on it keeping you off the car in front of you every time, but it's certainly a faster reaction than the human behind the wheel can do. Even if you're not a big fan of ACC (I am) it would still be worth the extra $600 just for the high speed emergency braking, IMO - This one instance was worth way more than $600 for me, as no doubt I would have been found at fault for hitting this idiot

Don