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Rental car automatic speed limit detection

I'm currently on vacation in Germany with my parents, mainly traveling by rental car (a BYD), and I am here to report that its automatic speed detection system is very often wrong. In towns, it picks up the red speed limit of side roads (30) when the main road you're driving on remains 50, and on the Autobahn, it will often miss transitions between fixed speed limit and no speed limit areas.

I just wanted everyone to be aware! I live in Germany and have a German driver's license, so I know the way things are generally supposed to be, but my parents were getting rather confused.

Posted by
317 posts

I've got an Opel/Vauxhall Astra in the UK full of german tech - and it does exactly the same, even worse, it once confused hi-viz stripes on the back of a works truck with the german start of autobahn sign!!! The morale of this is simple, you watch what you are doing and don't worry about what the little icons on the dash are showing. But feel free to worry about what will happen when self driving cars and their barely specifed software come along, I foresee a lot of lawsuits and Youtube videos!

Posted by
8632 posts

Yep. The Renault’s camera we just had in Span would pick up the exit ramp speed or road intersection speed and unless there was an end speed limit sign or a new speed limit sign, the vehicle would says the limit was 30 rather than the 90 or whatever the speed actually was.

What I did like with the vehicle was the audio notification when approaching a speed camera.

Posted by
317 posts

in the olden days people could turn right (in GB) without blocking the road, or pull onto a roundabout when it wasn't completely empty...

Posted by
2000 posts

I hope that's not a yardstick for all Chinese technology. I just bought a Hisense TV.

Posted by
8632 posts

@Gundersen - no, it will use the camera and microphone to watch what you’re doing and send everything back to China.

Posted by
2000 posts

I guess I'll have to brush up on my Mandarin (only my Hakka's up to scratch), and it gives the missus a good excuse to splash out on a few racy, red outfits.

Posted by
136 posts

We just returned our rental car after driving it in Germany for the month of May and have had the same problem.