Collision Avoidance not working

I have a loaded i3 Tera with Tech/Park assist/Harmon. But I can't get the avoidance system to auto brake or even alert about the collision.

I’m having an issue with my new i3 I just bought last week. I can’t get the collision warning / braking to work. I’ve setup barriers of boxes with towels in them and I can run up to those towels at 1mph, 2mph, even 5mph and the car keeps going thru the boxes. I have the settings for frontal warning set to EARLY. If I enable Parking Assistant it does show on radar the boxes as I approach them so I know the system sees the boxes just fine.

Adaptive Cruise Control DOES work, it will come to a complete stop without issue. It’s the avoidance systems that aren’t working. Any ideas I should explore?

I can’t get the car to brake automatically and start beeping like they do in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq0Wg_h_XXQ

My car is loaded with the all the features:
Stock #: FV501567 VIN: WBY1Z4C59FV501567
Driving Assistant Plus
The optional Driving Assistant Plus includes a comprehensive package of innovative driving assistant systems that make driving in the BMW i3 especially safe and comfortable. The traffic jam assistant can control the BMW i3 autonomously up to a speed of 40 km/h during traffic jams. The camera-based Active Cruise Control with Stop & Go function maintains a constant speed and distance from 0 to 140 km/h without an intervention of the driver. The collision warning warns about imminent rear-end collisions in due time. And the city collision warning with braking function feature for pedestrians helps to prevent accidents from occurring with pedestrians and minimizes the risk of passenger injury in an emergency. The braking functions can help avoid or reduce the impact of accidents that occur when travelling at city speed limits. Speed Limit Info shows the respective permitted maximum speed and supports a predictive and efficient driving style.

One questions? What country are you living in?

The collision avoidance is NOT in full implementation in the USA. Multiple features noted in the video have are not in use in the USA. They are in use overseas.


I may be wrong, but I believe the avoidance features and lane maintenance features are only in Europe.

The video is from CES 2105 showing the next generation Active Assist with laser-based 360° collision avoidance. It's not in production or available in any market right now.

The current system warns about imminent rear end collisions with another vehicle by illuminating in red the vehicle detected symbol in the instrument cluster, then flashing the symbol, and finally by adding an audio warning beep. There's also a function to detect pedestrians with a different, person shaped warning symbol.

I've experienced both systems in action on the road. The car absolutely can distinguish and react differently to other vehicles vs. pedestrians so I feel certain test boxes won't be seen as either therefore the warnings won't engage.

stumbledotcom said:

The current system warns about imminent rear end collisions with another vehicle by illuminating in red the vehicle detected symbol in the instrument cluster, then flashing the symbol, and finally by adding an audio warning beep. There's also a function to detect pedestrians with a different, person shaped warning symbol.

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That's it? Mine applies the brakes if it thinks I have allowed it to get too close.

On the other hand, I have never seen a pedestrian warning, nor heard the audible tone...

I saw the symbol of a person for the first time a few days ago. It took me by surprise! I was actually driving next to a dumpster that had some colored plastic on it, which apparently made the car think it was a person.

I33t said:

That's it? Mine applies the brakes if it thinks I have allowed it to get too close.

Click to expand...

No, there are braking functions but they are nuanced. The system reacts to other vehicles and people but not barriers, as evidenced in prior threads where owners have recounted driving into garage walls. Anyone interested really should read the manual rather than rely on interpretations here. The manual states for example that automatic braking can be overridden by the driver pressing the accelerator pedal or turning the steering wheel. A determined driver can crash the front end of a current i3; the video above makes it appear the next-generation system won't allow even that.

I've had the car slow down a few times as a pedestrian turned to face across the road. It also has slowed as a car approached from a sideroad at a fairly high rate (it did stop, but fairly quickly). So, I think it's doing what it was designed to do. It is still the person driving that is responsible to be aware of the surrounding circumstances, but any safety system can help. Some have reported annoyance if they were operating on cruise control when it went into full regen/stop mode. At least the car turns on the brake lights when it does that on its own. Often, I can recognize when it is going to happen, and get to the pedal to modulate the speed myself, but the car is trying to keep you safer than without those systems working. IOW, you should not depend on them operating, but realize if they do, there is likely something that you missed and it's just playing safe.

The car in the vid is a concept car, not a production.
My collision warning works sometimes, not always. It works when I approach a car in front of me without touching the accelerator and when the car thinks that I will hit the other car. That happened at low speeds. I have never tested it at higher speeds because I am missing the guts for it. A car symbol appears in the dash when it sees another car. But it doesn't work always and I don't know why. Sometimes when I approach another car, there is no car symbol and also no warning

I was also under the impression that the car would actively mitigate/avoid an imminent collision so I set up a test using a large (approx. 5 foot by 3 foot) cardboard box and accelerated into it in my 2014 BEV. The car collided with the cardboard box without slowing down or giving any warning - repeated the test a couple more times with the same result. I called my BMW "Genius" but did not get a response. I'm not convinced this is functioning/available which seems odd as with adaptive cruise control and all the sensors noted in other posts it does not seem like it would be difficult to incorporate.

Overall I'm quite pleased with my vehicle but I think BMW should clarify this issue.

My car will stop itself when using the cruise control and I was under the impression that it would also do so in an emergency situation if the correct box was ticked in the iDrive menu. I am surprised to find that it might not! I have had the warning light flash once or twice and IIRC even a buzzer once, but I really thought the next level was intervention by braking.
I am sure that buried somewhere in the manual there is a paragraph that makes it as clear as mud........ One reason I made the assumption that the i3 had this capability was watching economy cars self-stop in front of piles of cardboard boxes on the TV show Motorweek. Since the car could self brake under cruise control I assumed it also could in an emergency, just like the econoboxes.

Running into cardboard boxes is not the same as the car recognising a vehicle in front and a possible impact.

Again, I have been on the road when the i3 has engaged the brakes heavily. It clearly thought we were in for a prang.

First, the user's manual says the car will NOT brake if DSC is turned off...check that. Then, it is looking for either a vehicle or a pedestrian...boxes may or may not trigger it. I have had it trigger on curbs, so that may be a bit undecided. Then, it is partly a function of closing velocity. Throw in that it is a two-stage thing where it warns first with audible alarms before it brakes. Also, it has a couple of speed limits where it will work and the highest is around 35mph, and the low range is 0-3mph. All in all, it's an aid, but the operator is still the main line of defense.

Well I will say, I have a fully loaded 2015 i3 and I backed into another car in my driveway.... So I will say the collision avoidance doesn't work. It was completely my fault and not blaming the car but I thought that the car had this feature to prevent this..... guess I was wrong

The ultrasonic sensors just alert you to the proximity of something...they do not trigger anything else. In the front, if you have the camera, that can detect a car, person, or object, but there's no camera in the back that performs that function. IOW, there's no object recognition logic in the rear facing camera, only the front facing one. Now, could they add it, probably, and that may happen, but as far as I know, it does not exist for the i3.

From the manual