[Eli5] min speed for cruise control

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Every car I’ve driven with cruise control it won’t engage below ~30km/h. Is there a reason or is it just arbitrary?

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Cruse control gained popularity in the 1970s. The devices at this time were mechanical systems. Maintaining a constant speed without “hunting”*, is a little tricky with a mechanical system. It was easier to make a mechanical cruse control if the speeds it needed to operate at were limited. The lower limit (around 20 to 25 mph in the USA) would have been selected to avoid problems like hunting.

With modern electronic speed controls, this is not an issue. The lower limit on cruise control speed is probably mostly just following the tradition from the 1970s. Also, I think most adaptive cruise controls (ones that adjust the speed based on the care ahead) do operate at speed well below 30 km/h, some down to zero.

* Hunting is the speed continuously cycling above and below the set speed and not settling down to the set speed.

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