Sport Mode: Artificial Intelligence?

5582 Views 35 Replies 12 Participants Last post by JazzCatGab, Oct 15, 2019

Skyrider

Discussion Starter · Aug 31, 2019

Hi,

I have recently returned from a 'Porsche Experience' day at Silverstone, which was thoroughly enjoyable & educational. One of the discussion items got me scratching my head, though:

Apparently, the 'Normal' & 'Sport' modes have artificial intelligence & will modify their behaviour according to your driving habits. It was recommended that I use 'Normal' mode in town, rather than my preference for 'Sport' mode at all times, as the result could eventually be some reduction in response in 'Sport' mode. I have never heard of this before & wonder if anyone has any further information about this, please?

21 - 36 of 36 Posts

nineball

· #21 · Sep 3, 2019

jimmuller said:
What nobody ever said was how long it remembers anything from previous drives.

my guess is 30 mins or so. similar things happened to me at daytona (computer issue) and the fix was to roll up the windows, lock the door and wait 30 mins. the computer reset itself.

JazzCatGab said:
I'm thinking it does, however, PASM would have a greater range of options for it, and the same for SC.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter how you have PSM set (on, sport, or off) that the car will let you drift if all its prior inputs indicate you are driving in an extremely high performance way, as you would on a track. That said, would it react quicker in some way if it were already set to Sport PSM (or off)? I don't know.

i can confirm some of this, i think. my last track weekend my tires were on their way out and in sport+, the only way i drive on the track, i was drifting all over the place towards the end. not sure if my reflexes were that amazing or the computer was that slow (or allowing it though it never had before on any track so i honestly beleive it was the tires), but i caught it before the computer (nanny systems) every kicked on.

duegatti

· #22 · Sep 4, 2019

I find it hard to believe that a manufacturer would provide a mechanism by which safety features would be switched off without the knowledge and consent of the driver.

So we think that if we are driving hard, but keeping the car on the road or track, the PSM will reward us by turning itself down until we're able to spin off the track and into the grass?

I've gone through Deal's Gap, back and forth, pretty **** hard with PSM full on, and I never felt that the car was becoming looser. The back end moved - but does that mean the PSM turned itself down? Are we saying that it is impossible to lose traction with PSM full on?

JazzCatGab

· #23 · Sep 4, 2019

duegatti said:
I find it hard to believe that a manufacturer would provide a mechanism by which safety features would be switched off without the knowledge and consent of the driver.

So we think that if we are driving hard, but keeping the car on the road or track, the PSM will reward us by turning itself down until we're able to spin off the track and into the grass?

I've gone through Deal's Gap, back and forth, pretty **** hard with PSM full on, and I never felt that the car was becoming looser. The back end moved - but does that mean the PSM turned itself down? Are we saying that it is impossible to lose traction with PSM full on?

What I'm saying, from observation and a Porsche-trained mechanic, is that the car recognizes sustained high-performance use as on a track, and will let you drift if you maintain the drift. As soon as you change a single parameter such as steering, acceleration, or brake, it will attempt to correct the issue. I was in a Cayman S with a professional Porsche driver with PSM full on, and he was able to drift the entire second half of a 300-foot wide sweeper until he was perfectly aligned with the following straight, changed some condition to the drift, and shot off down the straight with significant control and acceleration. Earlier that morning, with PSM on, I missed my brake point on a hairpin and tried to maintain 50 mph around a 35 mph turn lacking the skills to do so, and slid off sideways at and beyond the corner's apex. By the time I was in the grass, I had slowed significantly and just straightened the wheels and drove along the track until several cars passed and I was able to return to the track and continue to the pits.

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nineball

· #24 · Sep 4, 2019

duegatti said:
I find it hard to believe that a manufacturer would provide a mechanism by which safety features would be switched off without the knowledge and consent of the driver.

believe it....

www.718forum.com

i made the computer mad...

this past weekend i was at daytona for a DE event. was cruising around 155-160 (gps, not speedo) on the banking/straights and suddenly started getting all kinds of warnings popping up on the screen. the auto-aim headlights failed, the lane change assist failed and i had a PSM failure. kinda...

www.718forum.com

www.718forum.com

Reactions: 1

duegatti

· #25 · Sep 4, 2019

JazzCatGab said:
What I'm saying, from observation and a Porsche-trained mechanic, is that the car recognizes sustained high-performance use as on a track, and will let you drift if you maintain the drift. As soon as you change a single parameter such as steering, acceleration, or brake, it will attempt to correct the issue. I was in a Cayman S with a professional Porsche driver with PSM full on, and he was able to drift the entire second half of a 300-foot wide sweeper until he was perfectly aligned with the following straight, changed some condition to the drift, and shot off down the straight with significant control and acceleration. Earlier that morning, with PSM on, I missed my brake point on a hairpin and tried to maintain 50 mph around a 35 mph turn lacking the skills to do so, and slid off sideways at and beyond the corner's apex. By the time I was in the grass, I had slowed significantly and just straightened the wheels and drove along the track until several cars passed and I was able to return to the track and continue to the pits.

Well maybe that's just how the car behaves, with PSM full on. Did anyone try it again with PSM Sport, or PSM off? How would you expect the car to behave if PSM were full on? Would it be impossible to lose traction in a curve (like you and the other driver did)? Would there be no limit to corner speed? If you could go around the curve faster, without breaking loose, with PSM full on, why would it dial itself down, when all you have to do is push a button, and know that you've dialed it down? Was your lap time any better when you drove off the course? Is drifting the fastest way around a race track? I just don't get the inference from your data that PSM is secretly dialing itself down, so that we are able to lose control of our cars more easily.

duegatti

· #26 · Sep 4, 2019

nineball said:
believe it....

i made the computer mad...

this past weekend i was at daytona for a DE event. was cruising around 155-160 (gps, not speedo) on the banking/straights and suddenly started getting all kinds of warnings popping up on the screen. the auto-aim headlights failed, the lane change assist failed and i had a PSM failure. kinda...

www.718forum.com

I see no connection here at all. Are you intimating that Artificial Intelligence in our Porsches was responsible for auto aim headlight failure, LCA failure, and PSM failure, because the driver in that example was going fast around a track? It's a feature?

nineball

· #27 · Sep 4, 2019

duegatti said:
I see no connection here at all. Are you intimating that Artificial Intelligence in our Porsches was responsible for auto aim headlight failure, LCA failure, and PSM failure, because the driver in that example was going fast around a track? It's a feature?

nope. but it is exactly what you had previously posted:

duegatti said:
I find it hard to believe that a manufacturer would provide a mechanism by which safety features would be switched off without the knowledge and consent of the driver.

safety features were switched off and it was done without my knowledge or consent.

duegatti

· #28 · Sep 5, 2019

Yes; but that was a malfunction, was it not? Porsche did not intend those things to happen.

Reactions: 1

JazzCatGab

· #29 · Sep 5, 2019

What I was trying to say was that in normal enthusiastic driving on the street, with excessive speed in a tight 90 degree corner where I had to attempt to stay in my lane because it was a blind corner with a negative camber, the PSM functioned as it should and the car turned effectively with computer assistance (cancelling my lack of foresight). However, on a track where speed ranged, for me, from 50 mph and over 100 mph during a minute of aggressive turns and a straight, the computer allowed a drift sideways after the apex of a hairpin turn where my speed was too high and my skill lacking. For a professional driver hotdogging it (because I can't believe a 150-foot drift would be the fastest way around any turn) with PSM active, he was able to use the computer to induce and allow a drift and then cancel that drift at will. A lesson would be, driving very aggressively on a track, PSM will NOT save your butt if you do something outrageously physically egregious. Don't expect a Porsche to save your butt if you pretend to know what you are doing on a track, but in reality, you haven't a clue.

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nineball

· #30 · Sep 5, 2019

duegatti said:
Yes; but that was a malfunction, was it not? Porsche did not intend those things to happen.

no, i believe they did intend it to happen. someone had to program the computer to recognize certain things happening, and one of those things was being at a certain angle and speed. if it happened one time then i could call it a computer error, but as it consistently happened multiple times a day, 3 days in a row, for 6 days total over 2 years i don't think it was.

JazzCatGab said:
For a professional driver hotdogging it (because I can't believe a 150-foot drift would be the fastest way around any turn) with PSM active, he was able to use the computer to induce and allow a drift and then cancel that drift at will.

you are correct, drifting a corner is definitely not the fastest way around. drifting is the opposite of speed on a track - the more you slide the slower overall you will be.

Reactions: 1

Cinnamon

· #31 · Sep 6, 2019

I suspect it's a mythical thing, no machine learning involved. There were the same suggestions on the Smart Car forum about how one needed to "teach-in" the pdk-like transmission so it would work better for one's style of driving. I've had two smarts and the transmission is nowhere as awful as the gripers say. But I don't think that's any reflection on how I have driven. Same with my Cayman with pdk, which incidentally shifts smarter than the smart!

BLKGTS

· #32 · Oct 5, 2019

Skyrider said:
Apparently, the 'Normal' & 'Sport' modes have artificial intelligence & will modify their behaviour according to your driving habits. It was recommended that I use 'Normal' mode in town, rather than my preference for 'Sport' mode at all times, as the result could eventually be some reduction in response in 'Sport' mode. I have never heard of this before & wonder if anyone has any further information about this, please?

AFAIK most automatic cars (from low-end to high-end) have been adapting to owner's driving habits since more than 20 years ago but it would be wrong to label it "artificial intelligence."

Example: If you drive in a hilly area for a while and then start driving on a flat road, the transmission will initially opt for a lower gear (thinking you need to climb a hill again soon) until the car deems it's no longer necessary and then start opting for higher gears for fuel economy reasons.

cipher

· #33 · Oct 5, 2019

DriveInHouston said:
I wouldn’t go as far as calling it AI, but definitely an adaptive algorithm which takes into account how you have been driving recently to adapt more aggressive behavior.

As far as Normal mode is concerned, I wouldn’t know, I only use it on the freeways on long trips, in conjunction with normal cruise control...

Agreed. Compute power is much better now so Porsche can track lots of variables beyond just accelerator inputs to give the car a different demeanor now. So they may have 10-20 modes they put you in based on how you drive vs 2-3 from older cars.

Reactions: 1

vhs

· #34 · Oct 15, 2019

JazzCatGab said:
What I was trying to say was that in normal enthusiastic driving on the street, with excessive speed in a tight 90 degree corner where I had to attempt to stay in my lane because it was a blind corner with a negative camber, the PSM functioned as it should and the car turned effectively with computer assistance (cancelling my lack of foresight). However, on a track where speed ranged, for me, from 50 mph and over 100 mph during a minute of aggressive turns and a straight, the computer allowed a drift sideways after the apex of a hairpin turn where my speed was too high and my skill lacking. For a professional driver hotdogging it (because I can't believe a 150-foot drift would be the fastest way around any turn) with PSM active, he was able to use the computer to induce and allow a drift and then cancel that drift at will. A lesson would be, driving very aggressively on a track, PSM will NOT save your butt if you do something outrageously physically egregious. Don't expect a Porsche to save your butt if you pretend to know what you are doing on a track, but in reality, you haven't a clue.

One can get into a power slide with PSM on. It's harder to do and less smooth, but it can be done

If you push the car beyond traction limits and induce oversteer, it'll do it. Make sure you're looking where you want the car to go. Personally, I prefer to be in PSM Sport for this, because it's more predictable and easier to control for a slide. The car "feels faster" too.

Reactions: 1

DriveInHouston

· #35 · Oct 15, 2019

vhs said:
One can get into a power slide with PSM on...

Oh yes! The freeway entrance near my house knows things!... No cameras there... Not yet anyway...

JazzCatGab

· #36 · Oct 15, 2019

vhs said:
One can get into a power slide with PSM on. It's harder to do and less smooth, but it can be done If you push the car beyond traction limits and induce oversteer, it'll do it. Make sure you're looking where you want the car to go. Personally, I prefer to be in PSM Sport for this, because it's more predictable and easier to control for a slide. The car "feels faster" too.

Glad to hear your experience in the PSM Sport! Makes sense. When I get better and more confident at going faster, being more consistent, and stop ejecting myself and car into the grass, I will certainly try it out. In a way, doing so would tend to enforce the "Do it right or pay the price" incentive that was part of learning to race in past times and help inspire keeping your concentration sharp.

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