NHTSA Complaint #11605004 — 2023 NISSAN ARIYA

My Ariya lane assist almost crashed me outside Philadelphia on I-76 (a notoriously congested and hazardous road). My hands got sweaty (I have sweaty palms, it's a medical condition) and it suddenly couldn't detect my hands. It quickly went into the "retake control" alert and I tried tapping the break to disengage it but that didn't do anything because it thought I wasn't driving the car so it kept the locked up lane assist on. I had to take my hands off the wheel, dry them, and then grab the wheel over and over until I found a dry enough spot for it to detect my hands. I figured out the fault, and why different people have different experiences. It's based on how moist your skin is and how sweaty your hands are. It took a couple trials to figure it out. I think it also uses back-force on the wheel to some extent, but mostly it's the capacitative sensor. I also tested if it would detect at different pressure levels when your hands are sweaty but that doesn't seem to matter. In addition turning the wheel ALSO doesn't help so you can be fighting for control of it when the system refuses to de-activate and is steering you into a bad place due to a left exit or something with traffic bearing down on you from 3 sides. This is extremely dangerous and using a system that fails IF YOUR HANDS AREN'T EXACTLY THE RIGHT LEVEL OF DRY/WET is absolutely something that needs to be recalled and replaced.