2018.21 0fa48d9

[J1mbo]

I wonder to what extent they can use the ultrasonics to validate the camera based blind spot recognition. Can they use them to measure the false negatives from the cameras to gain confidence before deploying EAP auto lane change?

At highway speeds, the ultrasonics are pretty pointless for BSD. They are just too slow.

For example, in the FSD promo video, there is a shot where a motorbike overtakes the car. In that scenario, ultrasonic BSD would not show the bike until it was out of the blind spot and alongside the front wing...

IMO, use them for avoidance, which the seem very good at, and use the cams for BSD.

 

[milleron]

In my AP1 S85D, a car could move all the way up to the back of my driver's door before the blind spot detection came on. I don't know if it has been fixed on AP1 cars but that was a huge risk of running into a car during lane changes.

The AP2 cars are better but it would be even better if Tesla turned on the side cameras.

This should not require side cameras. There are dozens of models of many makes that have had very reliable, very useful blind-spot warning for YEARS using only the ultrasonic sensor array found on every Tesla. And they work perfectly at highway speeds.
If there's a feature that should keep Consumer Reports from recommending Teslas, it's not the braking distance they found on the Model 3, it's the pathetic absence of anything resembling useful, reliable blind-spot warning. This is an essential safety feature that was perfected widely in the automotive industry a full decade ago, and not having it on Teslas is inexcusable . . . nearly unforgivable. [Yeah, I feel sort of strongly about this one.]

 

[pkodali]

This should not require side cameras. There are dozens of models of many makes that have had very reliable, very useful blind-spot warning for YEARS using only the ultrasonic sensor array found on every Tesla. And they work perfectly at highway speeds.
If there's a feature that should keep Consumer Reports from recommending Teslas, it's not the braking distance they found on the Model 3, it's the pathetic absence of anything resembling useful, reliable blind-spot warning. This is an essential safety feature that was perfected widely in the automotive industry a full decade ago, and not having it on Teslas is inexcusable . . . nearly unforgivable. [Yeah, I feel sort of strongly about this one.]

I'm pretty sure most blind spot monitoring systems use rear facing radar

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I'm pretty sure most blind spot monitoring systems use rear facing radar

I thought that as well but the very first videos I found all mentioned ultrasonic sensors. As I clicked around, I did find some that mentioned radar. The videos mentioning ultrasonics were as 'recent' as 2016.

 

[chillaban]

I thought that as well but the very first videos I found all mentioned ultrasonic sensors. As I clicked around, I did find some that mentioned radar.

Radar isn’t visible outside the car unlike parking sensor nubs. Unless car owners are removing their bumpers or have certain kinds of radar detectors, it’s unlikely that they’d be aware that their car has radar blind spot sensors.

But if your car is detecting other cars from more than 10 feet away, it is almost certainly radar based.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Radar isn’t visible outside the car unlike parking sensor nubs. Unless car owners are removing their bumpers or have certain kinds of radar detectors, it’s unlikely that they’d be aware that their car has radar blind spot sensors.

But if your car is detecting other cars from more than 10 feet away, it is almost certainly radar based.

These were all videos produced by car equipment manufacturers such as Bosch. None of them were by car owners and they all mentioned ultrasonic sensors. The ones using radar either mentioned radar or "two sensors".

 

[arcus]

The radar in the rear is usually for cross-traffic detection only.

 

[chillaban]

The radar in the rear is usually for cross-traffic detection only.

That is absolutely not true. My previous Audi did not have cross traffic detection but had blind spot monitoring. It had a Bosch radar panel behind each rear bumper corner and the emitted signals at 24.070GHz.

 

[croman]

 

[chillaban]

These were all videos produced by car equipment manufacturers such as Bosch. None of them were by car owners and they all mentioned ultrasonic sensors. The ones using radar either mentioned radar or "two sensors".

Suppliers frequently overstate the abilities of their components. I worked for 2 years at a supplier doing basically that. Unfortunately that also involved coauthoring white papers that we submitted to SAE/IEEE with results that were highly exaggerated and sometimes bordered on fabrication.... because we knew our customers "researched" our technology by reading papers.

And then after that, I worked at a systems integrator and my sole job was to take random samples from suppliers and build proof-of-concept systems based off of them to see if they actually worked! Consumer Reports for automotive components, pretty much... (That was actually at a defense contractor in the same area that was trying to cut costs by using automotive suppliers in lieu of defense/aerospace suppliers where somehow a dual-processor Atom machine with an ethernet port and 8GB flash costs $40 million)

And then I decided I didn't want to work in the automotive-defense industry anymore, which honestly my best life decision yet

 

[BigD0g]

I have a discovery on .21, that I've been playing with for a few days trying to understand and I "think" I understand it now to speak about it. So when approaching curves on highways and exit ramps in AP, the car will adjust the Max speed for the curve corresponding to the tile for the curves Max speed designation from the ADAS tiles. And once within the curve, there's a waypoint where it will resume normal speeds based on geofencing. I'm going to try to get a decent video of it on my way home from work. However, the new nag system is super super annoying....

 

[Cirrus MS100D]

This OP on Reddit seems to have noticed the same thing:
"It's been reducing my speed by up to 30mph on the sharp highway merge ramp turns. Really comfortable and not stressful like it once was."
[Discussion] The last few Autopilot updates have been taking turns really well • r/teslamotors

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I have a discovery on .21, that I've been playing with for a few days trying to understand and I "think" I understand it now to speak about it. So when approaching curves on highways and exit ramps in AP, the car will adjust the Max speed for the curve corresponding to the tile for the curves Max speed designation from the ADAS tiles. And once within the curve, there's a waypoint where it will resume normal speeds based on geofencing. I'm going to try to get a decent video of it on my way home from work. However, the new nag system is super super annoying....

This OP on Reddit seems to have noticed the same thing:
"It's been reducing my speed by up to 30mph on the sharp highway merge ramp turns. Really comfortable and not stressful like it once was."
[Discussion] The last few Autopilot updates have been taking turns really well • r/teslamotors

My car has been slowing down for curves for probably at least a year. It happens on tighter curves and merge lanes where there are usually lower speed limits that the rest of the highway. It will then resume the higher speed once it's driven through the curve. We've made videos of it slowing from 40 mph down to 25 or 30 mph for at least 6 months.

 

[KArnold]

However, the new nag system is super super annoying

Just too frequent? What is it doing differently?

 

[Peteski]

My car has been slowing down for curves for probably at least a year. It happens on tighter curves and merge lanes where there are usually lower speed limits that the rest of the highway. It will then resume the higher speed once it's driven through the curve. We've made videos of it slowing from 40 mph down to 25 or 30 mph for at least 6 months.

Mine does that too, but only on specific roads that it knows to slow down. I presumed it was just where it had been mapped to do so. On our local UK B-roads it's totally oblivious to tighter curves - I've tested a few (safely) and it just barrelled in at the full cruise speed and understeered wide - no attempt whatsoever to slow down to a more sensible speed on entry. It did however slow down once it had wound on some steering lock, but way too late to stay in the lane. This is with 2018.18 I haven't had the latest update yet. I would have thought it would be relatively easy to implement speed limits based on corner radius from the GPS mapping. But I guess EAP is not really intended for serious use on those sort of roads, so maybe better to discourage its use there anyway.

 

[BigD0g]

Just too frequent? What is it doing differently?

Every 10 - 20s or so it nags now. Depending on speed / traffic conditions.

 

[Peteski]

Every 10 - 20s or so it nags now. Depending on speed / traffic conditions.

This doesn't surprise me at all given the bad press recently. I've learnt to just keep my hands on the wheel and apply a little torque all the time rather than wait for the nags. For the most part I rarely get nags now.

 

[d21mike]

This OP on Reddit seems to have noticed the same thing:
"It's been reducing my speed by up to 30mph on the sharp highway merge ramp turns. Really comfortable and not stressful like it once was."
[Discussion] The last few Autopilot updates have been taking turns really well • r/teslamotors

last few Autopilot updates
I do not believe this guy was talking about 2018.21. My car seems to have improved as well with recent updates. And I am on 2018.16.

 

[Asterix187]

You would think that it wouldn't be too hard to program it that when the car gets close to the line it slows down a bit if it doesn't turn sharp enough.

 

[Peteski]

You would think that it wouldn't be too hard to program it that when the car gets close to the line it slows down a bit if it doesn't turn sharp enough.

It does, but the problem is if the entry speed is way too high it all happens too slow and too late. I have a safe test corner where I can easily get it to cross over the centre line at the legal speed limit and then sometimes it actually snaps right over to the other side of the road! It would be massively dangerous if someone was dumb enough to trust it in that scenario. But I stress this is on a road beyond the scope of AP, yet I can still choose to activate the system which might give some people a false sense that it was appropriate.