What Is Smart Cruise Control? (Hyundai and Kia)

Question: I really like having all the modern features in my cars and I am looking at a Hyundai or a Kia. I came across a feature called Smart Cruise Control. I’m wondering what it is?

Answer: Hyundai and Kia are closely related companies from South Korea, and therefore a lot of features are present in both brands. One feature that they share is Smart Cruise Control, which is the name of their adaptive cruise control.

According to Hyundai, cars that could have this feature equipped are:

With regular cruise control, you set the speed limit and the vehicle keeps that speed, but you have to adjust for braking in traffic. Smart Cruise Control uses cameras and lasers to regulate your speed and ensures your Hyundai or Kia keeps a specific distance from the car in front of you. It will accelerate and decelerate based on the speed and distance between cars you set it, while adapting in different traffic patterns.

What is Smart Cruise Control with Stop and Go?

Some Hyundai and Kia cars have Stop and Go functionality which recognizes when the vehicle ahead is stopping and moving forward, like in a traffic jam. Once it is safe to proceed, your vehicle will accelerate back to the speed and following distance.

What is Navigation-based Smart Cruise Control (NSCC)?

Some Hyundai and Kia cars come with NSCC which modulates your speed when driving on highways. For example, when it sees a lower-speed section than the speed you have programmed into your cruise control, it will lower your speed temporarily until it exits the lower-speed section. It will also reduce speeds on highway ramps and curved sections of highways.

How to activate Smart Cruise Control

Smart Cruise Control may not fully function in certain bad road conditions or weather conditions. It also will not detect vehicles in front that are already at a stop.

There are fundamental aspects to Smart Cruise Control the first is how to set your desired speed:

• Get up to your desired speed
• Turn it on by briefly pressing the Drive Assist button on the steering wheel.
• After you’ve set your desired speed, you can release the accelerator pedal and your desired speed and following distance will be automatically maintained.
• If there’s no vehicle in front of you, your car will maintain the speed that you have set. However if there’s a vehicle ahead then it will try to keep the distance between you and the car ahead based on what you have set.

Here’s how you can set your desired following distance:

• Look for a button with a car and a few rectangles behind the car. That is the button to set vehicle distance.
• Press it to cycle through four different following distances. Your car will automatically maintain that distance by slowing down or speeding up.

If you want to make small adjustments to the cruise control speed, you can use the switch with “+” or “-” characters on your steering wheel to increase or decrease the speed by 1 mph per click. If you hold down the switch in the “+” or “-” position, it will change in 5 mph intervals.

The speed control switch can be used to increase or decrease vehicle speed in 1 mph increments with quick taps or 5 mph increments with long holds.

MEET OUR EXPERTS

Xuyun Zeng

Xuyun Zeng is a content strategist with a wide-ranging content background including tech, journalism, cars and health care. After graduating with highest honors in journalism, Xuyun led a newspaper to win eight awards, helped start an award-winning film industry podcast and has written over a hundred articles about cars repair, state laws and insurance. Prior to joining Jerry, Xuyun worked as a freelance SEO consultant with a mission to create the best content that will help readers and grow organic traffic.

Ashley Eneriz

Ashley Eneriz is an editor and finance writer with over 15 years of experience in a wide range of financial topics, including car loans and insurance. In editing for Jerry, Ashley aims to make all car material reader-friendly for both the new driver and car enthusiast alike. Prior to joining Jerry, Ashley was the financial deputy editor for ConsumerAffairs. Her work is featured on Forbes, Yahoo, MSN, The Hartford and more.