I got my first new car in 12 years, a 2017 Audi A3. Happily I was able to find one of the few A3s that has Driver Assistance, the fancy adaptive cruise control and lane holding system. Love it, so glad I got it. The feature is more common on the high end Audis, but for the A3 you have to get the “Prestige” trim level which is not commonly stocked by California dealers.

The simple part of the system is adaptive cruise control. I set my speed to the nearest 2.5mph, then it paces the car in front of me using radar sensors. You can select how close it wants to follow. It will bring the car to a full stop if it has to. It’s great in heavy traffic on I-80, the only drawback is I’m now less aggressive about switching lanes to get around someone slow. If only every car had this feature, we could smooth out a lot of traffic jams as everyone drives a constant speed.

The other fancy feature is active lane assist. The car detects highway lanes with cameras. If I start to drift out of the lane it gives a bit of a nudge to the wheel. Ostensibly it’s to remind me to hold my lane, but the nudge is strong enough it actually sends the car back in the lane by itself. It’s very much not an autopilot though, the car complains after ~10 seconds of nudges. And the sensor isn’t reliable in the face of bad paint or unusually wide lanes, you really can’t rely on it all the time.

I like how both technologies are like little daemons helping me drive. I’ve written before about the dangers of full autopilots that expect a driver to take over if something fails. The A3 systems aren’t full autopilots, I’m still engaged in the task of driving at all times. Although it does require less attention. I’m still learning to trust the daemons, sometimes when the lane holding feature moves the wheel I instinctively try to countersteer away, the exact wrong thing.

All the other electronics in the A3 are very nice too. The virtual cockpit display is beautiful. The maps are good. The stereo plays plenty of audio formats, although the 10,000 file limit on SD cards is awfully dumb. I’m even liking Apple CarPlay.

I’m hoping the next car I buy will have a full autopilot. Although once that tech reaches mainstream it may no longer make sense to buy a car.