In July this year, we released 42Mark ADAS test system. In the V1.0 version of the system, we have tested the usability of ADAS in 8 items, including congestion, corner cases, night condition, rainy condition, lane change assist, curve test, human-machine interaction and automatic parking.
These 8 items and 51 sub-items cover the scenes that affect the experience of ADAS, which come from the long-term use of those models with ADAS systems by the 42HOW team.
So far, we have tested the ADAS usability of 11 models. You can find the version number of the tested vehicle below. The scores of these 11 models in 42Mark ADAS test system are as follows.
The Tesla Model 3 equipped with HW 3.0 hardware and FSD software scored the highest, and the BMW X5 with the Driving Assistant Pro package ranked second, but its score is 75 points lower than that of the Model 3.
Ranked third, fourth, and fifth are NEV startups from China, NIO, Li Auto and Xpeng. Legacy automakers Volvo XC60 and Cadillac CT6 ranked sixth and seventh, and the rest were models from Chinese self-owned brands.
Model 3, which is the best performer in the test, won 6 championships in 8 sub-scenes. The only two scenes in which it failed to get the first place are the congestion and automatic parking.
- Congestion Test
In terms of congestion, the shortest stopping and following distance of Tesla Model 3 reached 5m. With frequent cut-ins under the road conditions in China, the experience of Model 3 in congestion is not good enough.
The top 1 in this part is the Cadillac CT6. After the Super Cruise function is turned on, the CT6 can be hands-free, with the shortest following and stopping distance of only 2.2 meters, which is not easy to be cut in line. The acceleration and deceleration of the car are very linear and comfortable.
Therefore in the congestion, the experience of Cadillac CT6 and the efficiency of its ADAS system are better than Tesla Model 3.
The BMW X5 can enable the hands-free, low-speed following function when the speed is lower than 60 km/h. With this function on, it still can be hands-free. The experience is very close to that of Cadillac’s Super Cruise.
However, due to district restrictions, this function of the BMW X5 cannot be turned on in our test section.
On the roads where the function cannot be turned on, the X5 can only achieve basic driver assistance functions. If the car is parked for over 5 seconds in a traffic jam, the driver needs to intervene to reactivate the system. The experience in congestion is not good enough. Tesla Model 3, Cadillac XT6, Li One and Xpeng G3 all exceeded 60 seconds. Therefore, the score of the X5 is not high in the congestion scene.
- Automatic Parking
Automatic parking is also a scene with Chinese features. In first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, parking spaces are very limited and narrow, so a useful driver assistance can help rookie drivers save a lot of trouble.
For the parking with Chinese features, we set test indicators such as the feasible types of parking space, minimum parking space required, and the parking time.
For the type of available parking spaces, both the Xpeng G3 and the NIO ES6 adopt a visual fusion parking system, which can detect not only the parking spaces with cars on both sides, but also those with only parking lines.
However, in the actual test, we found out that the "detection speed" and "detection accuracy" of the Xpeng G3 are much higher than those of NIO ES6, and the Xpeng G3 does not need to specifically turn on this function before automatic parking and drive the car to the proper place. It is very convenient, all you need to do is switch to the reverse gear to choose the parking slot directly.
Although the size of X5 is very large, automatic parking can be used as long as the parking slot is 87cm larger than the body. 42 seconds for parallel parking and 38 seconds for vertical parking, which are also very fast, not only far exceeding other test models, but also faster than many skilled drivers.
Tesla Model 3 and Cadillac CT6 are not very good at automatic parking.
Tesla Model 3 not only needs a large space to detect the parking slot, but also not as standard as BMW in terms of parking posture.
With the rear-wheel steering technology, the automatic parking of the Cadillac CT6 can be adopted if the parking slot is 100cm longer than the body. However, the CT6 parking is not very automated. You need to manually turn on the automatic parking function for it to detect the slot. It is very troublesome for the driver to switch gears back and forth during the parking process.
- Corner Cases
Corner cases include unconventional road conditions that may occur when using ADAS, such as unclear lanes, tunnels, backlighting, traffic light intersections, etc.
The higher the model scored in the corner case, the better the continuity of the ADAS.
Tesla Model 3 has successfully passed most of the scenes set in our special road conditions thanks to its strong perception and lane prediction capabilities. It only failed in the extremely difficult lane change guided by the traffic cone. But the Model 3 is also the only one that can detect the traffic cone among all the models we have tested.
We also believe that if the FSD Beta is released in China, Tesla can easily pass all our tests.
Cadillac CT6’s Super Cruise can only be used on the sections covered by high-precision maps. Unfortunately, most of the test sections in our special scenes are on urban ground roads and are not covered by the high-precision maps, so we can’t test the Super Cruise.
This also reflects the limited availability of the Cadillac Super Cruise.
- Curve Test
Curve test is also a very important item for ADAS. The better it is driving on the curve, the stronger the vehicle's lateral control is.
Although the Model 3 we tested is not equipped with the FSD Beta, it still passed the most difficult curve A stably.
When I saw that the model with FSD Beta is launched in the US, and it is able to pass the U-shaped curve, I wondered whether we should make the test more difficult?
The BMW X5 and NIO ES6, which use the Mobileye EyeQ4 chip and the front trinocular camera, also perform well on the curve.
The NIO ES6 also passed the most difficult one, the Curve A. But the whole process was not very smooth, and the steering control was not as delicate as Tesla.
The BMW X5 did not pass the Curve A test. However, during the test, we also found out that the BMW X5 has a very strong ability to follow the car at low speeds. It can pass the curve with high curvature following the car in front, but cannot pass without the front car.
What's more regrettable is that, the Cadillac CT6 is equipped with a high-precision map that predicts the curvature of the road. In theory, it can pass curves with large curvatures smoothly. However, due to the relatively conservative strategy of GM, Super Cruise will remind the driver in advance to take over the car when it’s close to curves with large curvatures.
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Night and Rainy Condition
Rain and night are two extreme conditions that ADAS must face. In these two conditions, Tesla's strong perception also brings a very stable experience. -
Lane Change Assist
With the improvement of ADAS, we hope that the degree of automation of vehicles will become higher. Therefore, the lane change assist is also an indispensable part of it.
Tesla Model 3, which is the first to launch the automatic lane change with indicator, provided the best experience. Not only is the available speed very low, but also with acceleration and deceleration during the lane change process. The experience is very similar to the driving of a skilled driver.
Although BMW X5 also carries the function of lane change with indicator, it can only be used when the speed is higher than 70 km/h. This means that we cannot use this function on most urban ring roads.
Cadillac CT6 does not carry this function, but GM also said that the enhanced Super Cruise, which will be released in the second half of 2021, will have the automatic lane change with indicator.
The NEV startups from China, NIO, Li Auto, and Xpeng, also released the automatic lane change function with indicator for the first time, but still not as good as Tesla in terms of user experience.
- Human-Machine Interaction
In our opinion, interaction is of crucial importance. It is the only way of communication between people and cars. An excellent interaction allows the driver and the car to work together in a better way.
A good interaction requires the car to tell the driver what it sees on the road. The more detailed, the better. It should be able to offer clear feedback in the case of road conditions that it cannot handle.
From these two perspectives, Tesla's visualization is the best. It not only displays a rich amount of information, but is also very good in terms of fluency.
NIO, Li Auto, and Xpeng from China also provide visualization, but the effect is still slightly inferior to Tesla.
BMW X5 and Cadillac CT6 have no visual display at all. Fortunately, these two cars have clear light strip displays under working conditions. This is also the difference in the practices of the two automakers.
42HOW’s Take
After testing these 11 models, we have good reasons to believe that the Tesla Model 3 is definitely the best. The experience in most road sections is very good. More importantly, Tesla’s Autopilot is very reliable under working conditions. It helps to make driving easy.
Of course the BMW X5 is not a weak one. The control of the car shows BMW's rich experience as a legacy automaker. However, there is still a gap compared to the Tesla Model 3.
Among the NEV startups from China, NIO ES6 and Li One are also very good. These two basically carry the same functions as Tesla. However, there is still room for improvement in terms of functional stability and tuning.
The experience of Cadillac CT6 with Super Cruise is comparable to that of Tesla Model 3. In some road conditions, it even exceeds Model 3. But due to the limited coverage of high-precision map, we cannot test it under most of the road conditions. The scenes are also limited in daily life, and can only be used under high-speed road conditions, which is the main reason for its low score.
