CITROEN C5 AIRCROSS
Car makers need to learn when to offer help and when to stay in their lane
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
To find out if a big Citroën can make you feel relaxed about a charging network with so few places for a PHEV to plug in
Automated convenience features have become hard to avoid on so many cars. In terms of efficacy, they’re a very mixed bag, as often as not annoying and frustrating rather than making your life easier.
Those on our C5 Aircross are a fine example. Some I’m coming to like, some I can’t turn off quickly enough, if at all – and a few cause such alarm as to threaten mishap.
Highway Driver Assist, a £550 option, combines lane keeping assistance with adaptive cruise control, helping you keep the car within its lane and regulating your speed. The thing is, I can’t stand it.
Citroën says it’s best activated on dual carriageways, but even there the steering follows phantom white lines much too often, steering you out of your lane as often as keeping you within it and fighting your inputs much too belligerently. On single-lane roads with inconsistent markings, it’s borderline dangerous.
Thankfully, Citroën allows you to use the active speed regulation independently, having turned off the steering regulation.
The standard keyless locking and unlocking works better – perhaps because it’s a simpler system. Unlike in my last long-termer, a Dacia Jogger, not once have I needed to grope for my keys because the car wouldn’t open when I wanted it to or wouldn’t lock. There’s a capacitive button on the door handle that you can press if the car hasn’t unlocked as you approach, but it rarely seems to forget.
And once you’re inside, you can leave your keys in your coat pocket, because the ignition is controlled by a button. But you don’t just jab at it: a long press will activate the ignition and start the engine at the same time; when the engine is running, a short one will simply stop it; while a long one will also put the gearbox into park and engage the electric handbrake for you, if you’re feeling particularly lazy. Much of the time, I am that lazy.
The thing is, it’s a little too easy to just press the button when you’re parking, rather than remembering to press and hold. So if you’re not careful, you can leave the car in neutral with the handbrake disengaged while running into a garage for a comfort stop – and then only remember and turn around after 10 paces or so, occasionally to see your car slowly rolling towards an obstacle.
A feature that’s intended to make my life easier but almost makes it much harder: this is the kind of thing that especially makes me wish for simpler times.