2017.44 - Whats in it?

[chillaban]

Im looking forward to trying it when Im in stop and go traffic. In the past, if a car in front changes lanes, auto pilot would shoot me at rocket speeds into the open space, then hit the brakes hard to stop as we approached the car in front of us. It was about the only down side of both Auto Pilot and Cruise Control when in rush hour traffic. Otherwise, uncork me and let me feel the wind in my face!!

I tried Chill Mode a bit and it's definitely chill. The analogy I'd draw is like driving a Lincoln Town Car or a S550 in the "comfort" mode. You can be pissed and slam the accelerator to the ground and the car's response is "shhhhh take a chill pill dude, I'll accelerate when I get around to it".

Every throttle increase is basically met with a 1-2 second long ramp. It is very calming, and great for driving with motion-sickness-sensitive passengers or with delicate cargo. Definitely not for everyone.


Also, I like the nice touch where it says "CHILL" above your speed.

 

[Ken7]

It’s interesting that further dissemination of 2017.44 seems to have stopped dead in its tracks.

 

[chillaban]

It’s interesting that further dissemination of 2017.44 seems to have stopped dead in its tracks.

Yeah, it's not too unusual but nontheless interesting. It usually means they have another build they're ready to test. For the odd-numbered weeks it'd show up as a 2017.44.xx point release, for even-numbered weeks it'll likely be the 2017.46 release.

Then they usually upgrade most of the 2017.44 fleet to the new version, but leave some stragglers on .44 and also volunteer some new 2017.42 people to get to the new release…

All of it just screams A/B testing.

 

[Lawsteve]

I don’t have the update yet, but I assume the slower acceleration with “chill” mode will also enable the automatic wiper sensors to detect rain more quickly.

Oops - wait a minute - we still don’t have operating automatic sensors for the wipers.............

Never mind.

 

[Joe F]

I was cool with chill testing until a BMW cut me off. I thought, chill, he’s entitled to feel like he owns the road. Then i caught up to him at a light. He looked over and snickered, as if to say, yeah right, a Tesla. Big deal.

Turned chill off as i knew what was next. I really need to grow up.

 

[ahkahn]

I mentioned this over on Tesla forums, but figured I'd mention it here too. Wondering if anyone else has experienced this. Since .44 (came from .42), auto lane change refuses to change lanes most of the time. The IC is showing adjacent lanes, as usual. Lane markings solid. I put on the blinker...lane marking goes dashed and then usually before the wheel starts to turn, the lane markings go solid and the lane change never happens. Clear weather, well marked lanes, light traffic. And yes, auto lane change is turned on I've used the feature a lot before, and this is definitely not normal and didn't happen with .42.

Yeah, I'm still on .42, but my lane change has been really sucking lately. I'll put the turn signal on and it just sits there... like it's too timid to change lanes. It waits.... a car will slow down to let me in... it still waits.... either I'll turn the turn signal OFF and then back ON and it will change lanes, or I'll jerk the wheel over and just do it. I've got the exact same behavior that you have.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

As I drive on more roads, I have noticed situations where the bias is still slightly there. It is usually when the road curves to the left, it will start turning a little earlier than I would and then keep that slight driver side bias until the turn is over.

But I think it's more regulated at 40-60 ish now, when before in 17.42 sometimes it was nearly 20-80 and dangerously close to the car on the inside. I'm still sensing a difference between 17.42 and 17.44 in terms of the biasing behavior, though it isn't completely gone. I have to wonder if Tesla did this to attempt to make EAP more "comforting" for the human driver. Most of the times, humans tends to bias towards their side too.

Yes, we both share the experience that the bias seems to appear mostly when the road curves to the left. Curiously for me the bias has always been more like 40-60 than 20-80. But then it may be that it has been 30-70 for both of us and our perceptions are just different.

Very hard to interpret these things while driving, let alone sharing on the Internet... we may well be talking of the same thing but just using different words...

But at any rate, as I've said a dozen times before, what EAP is really missing is defensive driving awareness -- it should really bias to the side without a car (that's what humans do), and/or try to stagger itself relative to neighboring cars, especially when entering a turn.

Agreed.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Also, I like the nice touch where it says "CHILL" above your speed.

It does? Hadn't noticed.

But that's nice. So you know to expect less performance... If you notice it.

That's the thing about Chill that troubles me, what if I suddenly need all it has got. It would be nice to have that kickdown reserve for emergencies. Maybe Tesla can figure out something - a kickdown simulator similar to creep. (I know there is know "step" there in the pedal, but maybe they could still recognize a rapid pedal to the metal...)

 

[mmmk]

I like a lot of things about the update but after having it for about a week now and driving with it a lot I've noticed some odd happenings. The most noticeable thing for me is the 1-7 following setting seems to be calculated differently/poorly. I can have it set on 1 and its following at a distance that reminds me of setting 2 and so on. When I feel I'm following too far and change it from say 3 to 1 it hardly takes any action to make up the difference.TACC is MUCH better about coming to a stop. I find myself manually juicing the accelerator when behind another car when the light turns green so a large gap doesn't develop between us (setting 1 not in chill mode).

Also tested the EAP on I75 at about 80 mph. I was in the left-most lane letting it make a turn to the left on the highway with a car in the lane to my right. EAP in the middle of the turn couldn't handle it and began to drift into the lane to my right during the turn. The guy was close to the edge of the lane but EAP almost sideswiped the guy on a turn, I had to take control. So I'm pretty certain there is no side-collision prevention or calculation of the left and right proximity to other vehicles. If there were any sort of side-proximity measurement it should have triggered but it seemed content to drift into the other car on my right. We got within a couple inches before I took control and corrected it.

I have used lane change around 3 times with this update and 1 of them was a bit gnarly. My car starts moving slowly into the left passing lane when I initiate the lane change. It's a slower lane change so before completing the lane change a car moves up behind me in my desired new lane. The car must have gotten close enough to trigger an abandon alert in my Tesla because it aggressively moved right back into my original lane while disabling auto-steering. I was not impressed. There are a lot of good things though aside from these things I've had happen.

 

[J1mbo]

Finally had a chance to play with .44. Noticed a few changes that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet (maybe these came in before .44 - my previous version was .34):

Steering weight. Very light at parking speeds and also when AP is active. I did a 2,000 mile road trip earlier in the year on .17 and after a few hours of driving my arms were aching from holding the steering wheel (to stop the nags). On .44 it seems to switch to a much lighter mode than "Standard", so hopefully will be a bit easier on the wrists.

Lane dimensions seem much more accurate now on the IC.

Lane holding is superb, very impressed with the handling of a couple of tricky roads that previous versions couldn't handle with any confidence, including one road which is too narrow to have a centre dividing line, and another where the edge of the road was obscured by fallen leaves.

Had the car slow down (but not stop) for a roundabout, even though the speed limit didn't change.

Interestingly, zig-zag lines at pedestrian crossings now cause the car to zig-zag:

Indicating to change lane on a normal road (not a highway) instantly deactivated AP but left TACC on. Need to try that again as not 100% sure that I didn't move the wheel.

TACC/AP has a massive issue with parked cars that stick out into the lane, even by a couple of inches, and also treats cyclists in a cycle lane next to the road as if they were in your lane.

Apart from this, really impressed.

 

[Chasedrgc1223]

I'm on .46 and I'm experiencing the same slowdown on curves as others, I'm very impressed. On this release, it is taking curves that even my AP1 car could not do.

 

[3 G's]

Anyone notice that DRIVER/DRIVING are incorrectly spelled after the .44 update?

My X got the .44 update a few weeks ago and my S's recent update is to a .42. Is that unusual? I'd like to have the CHILL mode in my S. Grandsons keep getting car sick no mater how careful I drive.