17.17.4

[Sawyer8888]

Unfortunately auto-steer is just a gimmick. It doesn't work well enough to be useful. I'm OK running it in traffic jams, since worst case I need some sheetmetal.

C'mon Tesla, fix the quality of this thing. These updates are getting old. It's easier to just steer myself, as someone else put it, I can steer half asleep much better than the Tesla and with less stress for me and my passengers. Right now it drives about as well as a 7 year old child.

Auto-steer is definitely a work in progress and it does act like a child driver from time to time. However it is far from a gimmick.

I ruled out gimmick when AP2 could handle 90% of my daily 80-mile roundtrip. Granted, most of that is highway.

I ruled out gimmick when AP1 could handle 95% of the trip across FL, from Ft. Lauderdale to Ocala and back. One way is over 4 hours of driving.

 

[oktane]

not a gimmick for me or plenty of other Tesla drivers on this forum.

You find it to work well enough to steer on your behalf? Do you think it is equally adept or less adept at staying in the lane as yourself? Do your passengers find it comfortable? Do you think it is safe? Would you let a 70 year old woman operate it on the highway?

Just curious, not sure how anyone can find it truly useful. Interesting yes, useful not so much. I have to think when it's on vs. let my mind go blank if I'm holding the wheel.

For it to be useful, it's got to steer at least as well as the average driver. I consider myself an above-average driver and have a lot of high-adrenaline hobbies. This thing scares me when I use it. I understand (and am glad) it is slowly improving.

 

[oktane]

Auto-steer is definitely a work in progress and it does act like a child driver from time to time. However it is far from a gimmick.

I ruled out gimmick when AP2 could handle 90% of my daily 80-mile roundtrip. Granted, most of that is highway.

I ruled out gimmick when AP1 could handle 95% of the trip across FL, from Ft. Lauderdale to Ocala and back. One way is over 4 hours of driving.

View attachment 226597

Fair enough, that's not my experience but if it can drive 70 miles without interruption I would agree it's not a gimmick. I find myself intervening much more often than that.

 

[Sawyer8888]

You find it to work well enough to steer on your behalf? Do you think it is equally adept or less adept at staying in the lane as yourself? Do your passengers find it comfortable? Do you think it is safe? Would you let a 70 year old woman operate it on the highway?

Just curious, not sure how anyone can find it truly useful. Interesting yes, useful not so much. I have to think when it's on vs. let my mind go blank if I'm holding the wheel.

For it to be useful, it's got to steer at least as well as the average driver. I consider myself an above-average driver and have a lot of high-adrenaline hobbies. This thing scares me when I use it. I understand (and am glad) it is slowly improving.

• You find it to work well enough to steer on your behalf? - Yes
• Do you think it is equally adept or less adept at staying in the lane as yourself? - Less adept
• Do your passengers find it comfortable? - Sometimes yes, but usually no
• Do you think it is safe? - Safe enough? Yes. But far from 100% safe.
• Would you let a 70 year old woman operate it on the highway? - No; not a 70-year-old woman or man. Not without plenty of practice. Even then I have my doubts.
• Just curious, not sure how anyone can find it truly useful. - I do because it drives for me with just a little bit of my input. It's that simple. But I'm not 70-years-old.
• For it to be useful, it's got to steer at least as well as the average driver. - I disagree. I too drive better in most instances compared to AP. However AP is light years ahead of many drivers here in FL. See some of my previously posted videos in this thread. Many have one hand on their wheel and the other is holding their cell phone, eyes bouncing between the road and their text. It's bad down here.

AP has a long way to go, however IMO it works well enough for me to be worth going with a Tesla over an Audi, Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, etc... if AP wasn't an option, I would have more seriously considered those ICE alternatives.

 

[cruiserlarry]

I got 17.17.4 last night, and drove about 80 freeway miles today for my normal daily commute (fro over 25 years - I know every bump in the road both ways). While AP@ feels slightly better when used in middle lanes, it still has a very difficult time when using the HOV lane, with its cement divider in close proximity - it constantly tries to veer me into that wall, despite the ultrasonic sensors showing the car is close. I still get phantom braking on occasion from overhead signs, and signs on the raised cement median, and the throttle sometimes "shutters" even on an open road. I don't understand why Tesla hasn't integrated the other sensors they have in the logic for the autopilot, along with a "follow" mode to help it track the vehicles in front for lane centering or when lane lines are marginal - seems a given to me.
It also has a problem when there are cement cracks / construction gaps that parallel the lane markers - it tries to center the car using those lines in some situations, forcing the vehicle closer to the center divider as well. It also still cannot negotiate many simple curves when there is a center divider on its side - it gives up right away.

I keep hoping for much larger leaps in the improvement of AP2, but each update seems to have 2 steps forward and 1-3/4 steps backward, leaving very little net gain...so, the wait continues...

 

[Tangible]

Would you let a 70 year old woman operate it on the highway?

Embodied in that question are several interesting assumptions:

- Women are less competent than men to drive semi-autonomous cars.

- 70-year-olds are mentally and/or physically no longer able to drive such cars.

- 70-year-old women are incompetent to decide these matters for themselves; one of *us* must "let" them operate these vehicles.

I don't know if there are any women on this forum. If so, I will leave it to them to rebut the gender assumption. As an actual rather than hypothetical 70 year old man I do want to comment on the age question.

There is certainly an age-correlated arc of driving competency. Young drivers have the best reflexes and the worst judgement. As we age our reflexes slow and our judgement gets better. Eventually we are afflicted with diminished peripheral vision, slow reaction times, and difficulty concentrating. And finally that hard-won judgement gives way to dementia.

That said, while we can generalize about drivers at 20 and at 90, it's hard to do so at 70. People are living longer, and staying fit longer, than ever before. I have peers with whom I'm very comfortable being a passenger, and others who are as erratic as —what's a good simile?— a Tesla on Autopilot.

For myself, I love technology and I love driving, so the Tesla is the perfect big-boy toy. As I said when I started this part of the conversation I enjoy AP for its novelty, but because it requires constant vigilance that's currently its only benefit. If there's any age-related aspect to this, my guess would be that older drivers will be less likely to relax that vigilance by attempting to multitask.

My generation is a huge population bubble, and as we age we're going to need to remain mobile without endangering ourselves and others. The situation in South Florida that we joke about today is the future of the whole country. Self-driving vehicles are coming, but much more slowly that Elon Musk is telling us. In the meantime, good driver assistance features can make drivers of any age or gender safer. My disappointment is that I don't think Tesla's AP is a step in that direction. At least not yet.

 

[bob_p]

Tried 17.17.4 last night on surface streets and highway.

Expanding use to more roads doesn't indicate the software is able to drive safer than a human driver on those roads.

On surface streets, even with clear lane markings, the software still does too many side-to-side corrections while driving, and has challenges on curves or when crossing intersections without lane markings.

The 5+ MPH restriction doesn't work where new roads have been added. Drove on a new toll road extension last night - and when autosteer hit that section, it automatically reduced the speed to 50 MPH down from 70 - when the cars around me were still driving 70+.

Concur with the perception the software tends to ride the right lane line too closely - which can be especially harrowing when passing a car on the right side that is hugging their left lane line - resulting in very little spacing between the cars.

At least in typical driving conditions, so far, I haven't been able to operate long under autosteer before re-taking control.

While the software is getting better, it's not as safe as a human driver. Though we're willing to be patient and continue to give Tesla time to get this right.

 

[croman]

@bob_p -- does the car in the IC appear centered when it "hugs the right"? When I have the stones to look at the IC the car tells me it is slightly to the right, so it seems intentional and not like the software doesn't know what it is doing. As a human, I usually drive in the fast lane (far left) and so I like to hug to the left of center a bit (gives me space away from other cars who also tend to drift left within their lane and trucks which drift generally). Did AP1 stay in the center without drift or did it mimic human tendency to drift away from nearby cars?

 

[alapd]

That's where I don't understand the hugging right thing. I don't understand the logic behind it, and what really gets me is when passing a car hugging to the left like Bob said, why does the car not adjust? It has all the sensors in the world and even shows the car being too close, so why not keep a set distance from the other car and adjust to left accordingly instead of just sticking to the right side of the lane and praying you get past without kissing mirrors.

 

[alcibiades]

Though we're willing to be patient and continue to give Tesla time to get this right.

It's been 5 months since I picked up my AP2 car in December 2016 (roughly 10% of the time I plan to own the car). I'm getting tired of being patient driving a car that is less reliable on the highway than the car I test drove.

YWMV

 

[Alan Sherman]

Is anyone here aware if the 4 side video cameras were enabled with the 8.1 17.17.4 update ? Yes, we are still waiting for rain sensing windshield wipers and auto perpendicular parking to bring AP2 to parity with AP1. I concur with RobWoodruff:

Does not display cars in the next lane
Does not show a picture of trucks or motorcycles, only picture of a car.

And until AP2 keeps the car in the lane as well as my manual driving does, AP2 is just a novelty to show your friends.

One issue: you are driving in the lane and a large tractor trailer starts to pass you. When I am driving manually, I naturally move slightly away from it in my lane. AP2 doesn't do that, but it does wander slightly in the lane, sometimes bringing my car uncomfortably and dangerously close to the tractor trailer. This needs to be worked on.

 

[Sawyer8888]

@bob_p -- does the car in the IC appear centered when it "hugs the right"? When I have the stones to look at the IC the car tells me it is slightly to the right, so it seems intentional and not like the software doesn't know what it is doing. As a human, I usually drive in the fast lane (far left) and so I like to hug to the left of center a bit (gives me space away from other cars who also tend to drift left within their lane and trucks which drift generally). Did AP1 stay in the center without drift or did it mimic human tendency to drift away from nearby cars?

• Does the car in the IC appear centered when it "hugs the right"?
  • No. When switching lanes (right to left) the lane line that separates the two lanes remains dashed as opposed to solid for far too long and the car on the road and in the display stay right for too long as well - not always, usually only when more cars are around. When I enable AP in the left lane, my car immediately pulls to the inside of that lane, like it needs to get a better look at that right lane marker on the road.
• When I have the stones to look at the IC the car tells me it is slightly to the right, so it seems intentional and not like the software doesn't know what it is doing.
  • Intentional? Yes. Reasonable? No.
• As a human, I usually drive in the fast lane (far left) and so I like to hug to the left of center a bit (gives me space away from other cars who also tend to drift left within their lane and trucks which drift generally).
  • I trust that you do move right to allow faster cars to pass on your left instead of forcing others to pass on your right. Camping out in the left lane and center lanes is dangerous, creates traffic and causes accidents. In the U.K. even center-lane driving (lane hogs) are frowned upon and are often ticketed.
• Did AP1 stay in the center without drift or did it mimic human tendency to drift away from nearby cars?
  • In my limited experience with AP1, it did stay centered much more often compared to AP2. Both AP1 and 2 drift away from nearby cars, but it seems to take AP2 more time to make that decision.

 

[Tangible]

Yes, we are still waiting for rain sensing windshield wipers and auto perpendicular parking to bring AP2 to parity with AP1.

And remember, we weren't promised mere parity. We paid for a system that would utilize four cameras and drive vastly better that AP1, achieving such feats as transitioning from one road to another with no driver input. All "expected" to be deliverable last December, although we now know the new software, which Musk told investors would take six months to write, didn't exist when he told prospective buyers to expect it in a few weeks.

 

[alcibiades]

Does AP1 (I don't recall unfortunately) do the hunt-and-seek maneuvering on long curves? Or does it actually follow a curve without "straight-then-turn, straight-then-turn" that AP2 does?

 

[oktane]

Embodied in that question are several interesting assumptions:

- Women are less competent than men to drive semi-autonomous cars.

- 70-year-olds are mentally and/or physically no longer able to drive such cars.

- 70-year-old women are incompetent to decide these matters for themselves; one of *us* must "let" them operate these vehicles.

I don't know if there are any women on this forum. If so, I will leave it to them to rebut the gender assumption. As an actual rather than hypothetical 70 year old man I do want to comment on the age question.

There is certainly an age-correlated arc of driving competency. Young drivers have the best reflexes and the worst judgement. As we age our reflexes slow and our judgement gets better. Eventually we are afflicted with diminished peripheral vision, slow reaction times, and difficulty concentrating. And finally that hard-won judgement gives way to dementia.

That said, while we can generalize about drivers at 20 and at 90, it's hard to do so at 70. People are living longer, and staying fit longer, than ever before. I have peers with whom I'm very comfortable being a passenger, and others who are as erratic as —what's a good simile?— a Tesla on Autopilot.

For myself, I love technology and I love driving, so the Tesla is the perfect big-boy toy. As I said when I started this part of the conversation I enjoy AP for its novelty, but because it requires constant vigilance that's currently its only benefit. If there's any age-related aspect to this, my guess would be that older drivers will be less likely to relax that vigilance by attempting to multitask.

My generation is a huge population bubble, and as we age we're going to need to remain mobile without endangering ourselves and others. The situation in South Florida that we joke about today is the future of the whole country. Self-driving vehicles are coming, but much more slowly that Elon Musk is telling us. In the meantime, good driver assistance features can make drivers of any age or gender safer. My disappointment is that I don't think Tesla's AP is a step in that direction. At least not yet.

Excellent points you make. My goal is not to offend, and I know not all 70 year old females are bad drivers, but all of the ones I know are far inferior to most "young" drivers, either male and female. I do know a few 70 year old men that remain solid drivers. I'll leave the "why" to scientists, and of course there are exceptions to this. I expect to be a bad driver by the time I'm 70 (decades away). My apologies in advance if any 70+ women on this forum are offended by this.

I was hoping Tesla AP2 would be something useable for my parents in their 70's who are now terrible drivers, when once they were quite good. I know it would be very dangerous in their hands and for that reason I had aborted my plans to buy them a Model X 90D this year. Yet another sale lost due to the AP2 scandal.

 

[croman]

• As a human, I usually drive in the fast lane (far left) and so I like to hug to the left of center a bit (gives me space away from other cars who also tend to drift left within their lane and trucks which drift generally).
  • I trust that you do move right to allow faster cars to pass on your left instead of forcing others to pass on your right. Camping out in the left lane and center lanes is dangerous, creates traffic and causes accidents. In the U.K. even center-lane driving (lane hogs) are frowned upon and are often ticketed

If someone comes like bat out of hell behind me, yes, I move out of their way (to the right) but usually I'm the fastest moving car or at least moving close enough that no one cares. I'm not the guy going the same speed as the center lanes while in the fast lane. If I'm in the fast lane, its with a purpose and my 75D is more than capable.

That being said, I don't detect the car deviating too much from the center except on curves where it bounces back and forth between the edges of the lane. On Local AS I have crossed double yellows in different spots than with 17.11.3. It seems both better and worse in that regard.

 

[croman]

Excellent points you make. My goal is not to offend, and I know not all 70 year old females are bad drivers, but all of the ones I know are far inferior to most "young" drivers, either male and female. I do know a few 70 year old men that remain solid drivers. I'll leave the "why" to scientists, and of course there are exceptions to this. I expect to be a bad driver by the time I'm 70 (decades away). My apologies in advance if any 70+ women on this forum are offended by this.

I was hoping Tesla AP2 would be something useable for my parents in their 70's who are now terrible drivers, when once they were quite good. I know it would be very dangerous in their hands and for that reason I had aborted my plans to buy them a Model X 90D this year. Yet another sale lost due to the AP2 scandal.

I believe the goal is to allow people like your parents to be able to have the freedom to drive again without endangering themselves or others. Clearly a while to go before that is reality but I believe progress is being made. Whether that is sufficient to achieve such lofty goals, well...there are plenty of threads debating that right now.

 

[Tangible]

If I'm in the fast lane, its with a purpose and my 75D is more than capable.

That may be, but in many states, including your own, it isn't legal unless you're in the actual act of passing. Here's the citation from Illinois law:

(625 ILCS 5/11-701) (from Ch. 95 1/2, par. 11-701)
Sec. 11-701. Drive on right side of roadway - exceptions.
(a) Upon all roadways of sufficient width a vehicle shall be driven upon the right half of the roadway, except as follows:
1. When overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction under the rules governing such movements;

 

[croman]

That may be, but in many states, including your own, it isn't legal unless you're in the actual act of passing. Here's the citation from Illinois law:

(625 ILCS 5/11-701) (from Ch. 95 1/2, par. 11-701)
Sec. 11-701. Drive on right side of roadway - exceptions.
(a) Upon all roadways of sufficient width a vehicle shall be driven upon the right half of the roadway, except as follows:
1. When overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction under the rules governing such movements;

Uh, I'm passing like hundreds of cars on the highway in the left lane. I'm just continuously passing cars. So I think I'm OK. 20+ years of driving and no tickets no accidents, nothing. I think I'll keep doing what I do until my car is ready to let me sleep and still get there in one piece.

Also the speed limit is 55mph. If they enforced that there'd be 1 car out of 10000 that doesn't get a ticket. Clearly some laws aren't worth the paper they are written on.

 

[Sawyer8888]

Excellent points you make. My goal is not to offend, and I know not all 70 year old females are bad drivers, but all of the ones I know are far inferior to most "young" drivers, either male and female. I do know a few 70 year old men that remain solid drivers. I'll leave the "why" to scientists, and of course there are exceptions to this. I expect to be a bad driver by the time I'm 70 (decades away). My apologies in advance if any 70+ women on this forum are offended by this.

I was hoping Tesla AP2 would be something useable for my parents in their 70's who are now terrible drivers, when once they were quite good. I know it would be very dangerous in their hands and for that reason I had aborted my plans to buy them a Model X 90D this year. Yet another sale lost due to the AP2 scandal.

@oktane, I believe most of us understand what you were attempting to say when you mentioned a 70-year-old woman being less capable as a driver with AP, however choosing words carefully is usually a good approach.

Older generations will have a more difficult time adjusting to this technology than younger generations. No one is taking a leap in saying so.

I too would not feel at all comfortable with any of my family members who are in their golden years having a go with Tesla's AP at its current state with 17.17.4. That situation would be way too dangerous.

Friends who are in their mid-to-late 30's like me and others that are pushing 50 seem to adjust very quickly to AP - a few instructions and off they go.

For those in advanced age who have difficulty playing a DVD and switching the TV input mode (aunt and grand parents) or others like my dad who has difficulty understanding how to connect his phone's Bluetooth to his truck, AP will take a longer period to learn and understand. These older family members held prestigious positions and also ran their own success businesses; some still do. So they are smart and capable albeit with a little less peripheral vision. It's just that new technology and older generations are usually like oil and water.