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-   -   Cruise Control in India - Useful or Useless? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/223136-cruise-control-india-useful-useless-5.html)

Votes Useful

My innova doesnt have one but i have drive a scross for 75kms

I do 1000km round trips twice a year and apart from that do smaller trips on my 2012 innova. I badly found the need for CC when i cannot drive beyond 100km.hr with empty roads ahead.(obviously because Innova roars beyond 80km/hr and you dont get mileage beyond 10 if driven past 100)

I have driven 40k km in the last 24 months and close to 20k of it on highway

My next car should have CC, and if you think its waste please drive from Chennai to Kanyakumari or Coimbatore or pondicherry and you will love those Tamailnadu roads

Voted Useful.

Although I do agree with GTO that the cruise control is quite useless for the most part in India, it is not entirely obsolete. Yes, I this feature was way more useful during all those drives in US and Europe as these countrymen have one thing that may probably never come in India, DISCIPLINE. :D

I have to admit that I was a bit unsure off this feature in my GT, but really started loving it during some good long drives. For Bangalore folks, the Bangalore-Hassan, Bangalore-Pune, and Bangalore-Salem are some of those stretches where I have used cruise control quite often. clap:

Voted useful.

I believe most people driving on TN highways would tend to agree with me. My vehicle doesn't have one, but I believe this is a pretty useful feature to have during long distance trips. I had ankle pain on my right foot due to continuous driving when I drove from Chennai to Kerala the last time. The route from Ulundurpet to Salem (~120 kms) has sparse traffic. Salem to Mannuthy also provides ample opportunities to use cruise control. I believe it can give much needed rest to your right foot. The left foot doesn't have much work to do on highway runs even in a manual transmission vehicle anyways.

Voted for YES.
Our current car doesn't have CC. However, I frequently travel on Pune-Solapur road, Mumbai-Pune and Pune- Bangalore highways. There are many instances on these multi laned highways on which one encounters arrow straight roads. I have always thought it would have been really nice to have a CC on these kind of roads, when I am in mood for a calm mile munching.

I have found it pretty useful. I drive a 2017 Hyundai Verna top end. My running is almost 75% highway, 25% city and hence I find it useful. The tricky thing though is in deciding at which speed one needs to cruise. My experience of last 5 years tells me that on Indian highways one can maintain an average speed of 60 kmph (which was 50 kmph and lower a few years ago, thanks to bad roads) and to be able to maintain that average one needs to cruise at 80 kmph which not only feels safe but also returns good mileage (approx. 22km/l on my car).
In Verna I find it a bit difficult to set cruise speeds below 80 kmph because you can hit sixth gear comfortably only above 60-65 kmph. If you set cruise speeds below 80 kmph, engine seems to struggle a bit at low rpm.

Voted useful. I find the CC useful during my night drives from TN to KL and vice versa.
Especially the Walayar to Vadakkancherry / Mannuthy to Vytilla night drives I have used it 80% of the time.

Voted for useful. Though it has zero use in city, however I travel very frequently between Mumbai & Pune (4-5 times a month) and use the Mumbai Pune expressway. I am able to cover more than 75% of the expressway i.e. ~ 60-70 kms one way on cruise control set at ~90-100 KMPH.

It has helped me not only in relaxed driving on the expressway but also I don't feel the need to over speed. I see many vehicles overtaking me at insane speeds from my left and right.

Voted Useful.

I don't have it in my car, but there have been numerous times when I was travelling in early mornings and really wished for cruise control to be present.
I had been maintaining steady speeds for very long stretches and after a long drive, my right foot started paining.

Would loved to have cruise control. Would definitely be seeking one in my next purchase.

Very useful. I drive on Hyd ORR where the speed guns are a norm these days. I generally set the cruise control at 90 KMPH and it takes care of the speed, so that I do not overshoot the speed limit of 100KMPH. I am also a regular on Hyd-Blr highway, and generally after crossing Anantapur, I drive using the cruise mode at around 90-100KMPH which relieves me of my leg pains (i drive Vento Auto). I would say this is a necessary feature for me especially on the desolate stretches its pretty damn useful.

Voted Useless. This is mainly from the perspective of fuel efficiency.

Contrary to experience of others I am getting very less efficiency on my Verna petrol AT when Cruise control is set.

The reason could be RPM is fixed to 2500 when cruise control is set. Where as average speeds of 80kmph can be achieved at 1500 RPM itself which returns better efficiency.
This setting might be different in other cars but on Verna AT this is how it is.

Voted: Useful
I've been using cruise control since 8 years now and find it a blessing on the highway. Points about traffic causing frequent disengagement of cruise function are true to some extent but the resume cruise button is very helpful here. On curvy road, i wouldn't engage the cruise to simply enjoy the drive.
The opening post mentions comething like people on cruise likely to have an accident as a curve appears and the speed being too high. I don't agree with this at all having used it so often. Being on cruise does not absolve you from other driving responsibilites. It just gives rest to the right foot. When i see a curve approaching, I tap the brake to disengage the cruise control, reduce speed, manage the curve and press the resume button as the road straightens.
I believe it's about getting used to it to appreciate the benefits.
PS: I use the increase/decrease speed function buttons a lot as per the traffic conditions

Voted Useful

For me this is a must have feature in my car. I feel it brings better control on speed for me as I rarely over speed in this mode. I demoed it to my younger brother just few days back who finds is useless as he was not able to keep it on for a long period of time due to indiscipline traffic on our roads. I showed him how we can maintain the same speed for longer distances if we plan our moves in advance and anticipate other drivers moves to a certain extent. I understand that its a boring way of driving but it brings discipline and that is required on our roads.

Voted useful. As rightly mentioned by many, our Indian highway+traffic conditions do not provide a conducive driving environment to engage cruise control mode. But at the same time, I find engaging cruise control even in little bursts allows you to relax/stretch your knees and feet which is very relieving on long highway drives. This is super useful in cars that allow you to keep cruise control in standby mode and resume whenever you dis-engage it. Whenever I drive my Alturas G4 to work and return(a round trip of 240kms) on NH4 from Bangalore, I would have probably driven with cruise control ON for about 30% of the trip.

My Vote is for "YES".

Have driven extensively in TN Highways and its pretty useful in any major stretch in TN. It's a bliss to drive in TN Highways at any part of the day. I generally set the CC anywhere between 90-110 kmph and in Corolla Altis (Petrol) the RPM hovers around 2100-2300.

The other factor I consciously noted is that while using CC, the fuel efficiency has improved by atleast 0.5 / 0.75 KMPL in Altis.

I voted Useless - under Indian driving conditions of course.
In the US or Europe , though, it's a must have feature. Driving in such countries is a walk in the park - where everyone follows regulations, so it's much less dangerous to turn CC on and let the car do the job.

India on the other hand represents a different driving situation altogether.
It's extremely rare to come across flat out straight roads , with next to no sudden obstructions by other motorists or pedestrians.
The only such road I have encountered so far is the YEW - where it's possible to switch on cruise, and then steer clear of other motorists in your line of drive - and that's only possible because congestion is minimal to start with. That's because it's an expensive stretch of road to drive on.
This is definitely not possible on other major Indian highways - the tolls are relatively less expensive, local (and slow moving ) traffic have right of entry, and there's largely zero awareness of lane discipline.
The construction quality of the highways is suspect too. Even if you don't have broken patches and potholes to contend with, you will still need to brake and safely navigate sudden troughs and misaligned culverts.