alert sounding to touch the steering wheel

[Dan Utah]

Moderator note (bmah): Fixed bewildering autocorrect typo in thread title.

I have had my x for 4 weeks and am half way through my first road trip from ca to ut.

my wife drives with her hands at 10 and 2. the system does not recognize her hands about 20% of the time.

I put my hands on the bottom of the wheel. if I drive with my hand at the bottom right of the wheel I can drive for hours. if I move to the bottom left it will not recognize my hand at all and it will immediately tell me to hold on.

this can be terribly annoying during a 14 hour road trip. I am hoping you guys can help the rookie out. how do I help it recognize my hands that are on the wheel?

 

[sidmini]

I think the wheel responds to the resistance and holding on the bottom of the wheel provides a good weight so the alarm won't go off so often

 

[mongo]

I have had my x for 4 weeks and am half way through my first road trip from ca to ut.

my wife drives with her hands at 10 and 2. the system does not recognize her hands about 20% of the time.

I put my hands on the bottom of the wheel. if I drive with my hand at the bottom right of the wheel I can drive for hours. if I move to the bottom left it will not recognize my hand at all and it will immediately tell me to hold on.

this can be terribly annoying during a 14 hour road trip. I am hoping you guys can help the rookie out. how do I help it recognize my hands that are on the wheel?

The car senses torque (rotational force), NOT grip or weight. Your wife has a balanced grip (10 and 2 cancel), so no torque. When you hold at the bottom there is no torque. When you hold offset and let the weight of your hand/arm rest on the wheel you create torque.

Options are to wiggle the wheel a little (not so much that is disengages), one hand drive with some weight on the wheel, or two hand drive with one hand (at a time) less supported by your arm.

 

[Dan Utah]

are there videos on YouTube that show how to do this? this sounds like it would be tiring for a 13 hour road trip.

 

[Rockster]

For long road trips I cram a small pillow (actually a Pillow Pet) between my side and the door to provide a soft and comfortable ledge for my left forearm to rest upon. Then, I hold the wheel at the 9 o'clock position with my left hand. That's enough torque to satisfy the wheel most of the time. If I enter an area where I feel more comfortable holding the steering wheel with both hands, at a more traditional 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock position, then it becomes problematic because, as pointed out by others, the more balanced weight causes the torque to cancel out and the car begins nagging more.

It's unfortunate that the current iteration results in less nagging when a less effective one handed grip is employed and more nagging with a safer two handed grip, but that's where we are. The pillow/9 o'clock one hand hold solution seems to be the best thing I've found for trips.

 

[ecarfan]

are there videos on YouTube that show how to do this? this sounds like it would be tiring for a 13 hour road trip.

In my experience driving over 10K miles on Auto Pilot, it is not tiring.

You do not have to constantly exert torque on the wheel to avoid the alerts, only very briefly every few minutes, and only a very slight amount of torque, about the same as you would do when steering the car yourself and staying centered in a lane on a straight road.

 

[CyVolt]

In my experience driving over 10K miles on Auto Pilot, it is not tiring.

You do not have to constantly exert torque on the wheel to avoid the alerts, only very briefly every few minutes, and only a very slight amount of torque, about the same as you would do when steering the car yourself and staying centered in a lane on a straight road.

Telsa has set the alarm at a 45 second interval on my X. You cannot be absent for "a few minutes" anymore.

 

[Yinn]

You do not have to constantly exert torque on the wheel to avoid the alerts, only very briefly every few minutes, and only a very slight amount of torque, about the same as you would do when steering the car yourself and staying centered in a lane on a straight road.

What’s frustrating is when your hands are actually on the wheel and it doesn’t detect it. Happened to me twice this weekend alone, both hands on the wheel. Eyes on the road at traffic. BEEP BEEP. AP disabled for the rest of the drive.

When I first read about GMs autocruise I thought it was silly. I preferred Tesla’s system with more tolerance. But if it’s not going to detect my hands, then yea I wish it had eye detection so it at least knows I’m paying attention.

 

[ecarfan]

Telsa has set the alarm at a 45 second interval on my X. You cannot be absent for "a few minutes" anymore.

Since getting V2018.26 I am having the same experience. The alerts have changed dramatically. In fact now when on Auto Pilot I can get an alert in as little as 30 seconds if I haven’t exerted some force on the steering wheel.

 

[ecarfan]

What’s frustrating is when your hands are actually on the wheel and it doesn’t detect it

As I and many others on TMC have noted, you need to do more than simply touch the wheel, you have to apply torque to the wheel. The wheel has never been touch (capacitive) sensitive.

 

[Yinn]

As I and many others on TMC have noted, you need to do more than simply touch the wheel, you have to apply torque to the wheel. The wheel has never been touch (capacitive) sensitive.

Oh I’m well aware. On a straight highway in traffic, needing to torque the wheel for the sake of torquing the wheel is just silly.

With both hands on the wheel, eyes forward and paying attention and Tesla expects me to develop seizure like symptoms to operate my car.

 

[SpudLime]

The other thread said it is not time based. It is miles based. Which is why when in slow stop and go traffic, its longer between nag intervals.

 

[ecarfan]

With both hands on the wheel, eyes forward and paying attention...

Keep in mind that there is no hardware in the car that can detect your hands are just touching the wheel, your gaze direction, or read your mind. The only method Tesla has implemented to determine if you are paying attention is steering wheel movement detection.

In my opinion, with almost four years of Auto Pilot data now available to Tesla, the method Tesla has chosen to detect if the driver is paying attention has proven to be inadequate. Too many people fail to pay adequate attention to the road while on Auto Pilot and Tesla has had to steadily increase the alert frequency to a point far above what it was when Auto Pilot debuted in October 2014. With the latest firmware release the percentage of driving time that the driver has to spend applying a slight degree of torque to the wheel has increased to a level that I personally consider annoying, and I think a lot of owners would agree. I find myself consciously trying to maintain constant pressure on the wheel while on Auto Pilot but even then I can get multiple alerts during a short drive of around 15 to 20 minutes.

As @SpudLime points out, the alerts are more manageable in heavy traffic at slow speeds, and that situation is where TACC and AP really shine. But at freeway cruising speeds the alerts have become irritating.

Tesla is at a critical juncture with Auto Pilot. It works well in many situations and has improved significantly over the past several years. But the current alert level may discourage many owners from using it. Given the hardware that Tesla currently incorporates into the S/X I don’t see any other way to analyze driver alertness than the method now in use (the Model 3 does have a rear facing camera next to the rear view mirror inside the car; could that be used for gaze tracking? I don’t know). I am hoping that the coming major firmware release later this year will improve Auto Pilot to such a degree that the driver alert system can be revised.

 

[Krazaak]

The only way people are going to be satisfied with AP in the current state is to find a way to hold the wheel so that you provide passive torque. I hold the wheel with my left hand, near the side bottom and provide just a little bit of resting torque. It's comfortable and I never get an alert unless I'm in a long sweeping left hand turn (thus eliminating the little bit of torque I'm normally applying.

Trying to actively wiggle the wheel periodically or in response to each visual alert, or any other active means is going to be tiring and frustrating. I too like to hold the wheel at 9 and 3 (10 and 2 is not the best way to hold an airbag equipped steering wheel), but the reality is you have to adapt a little if you want to enjoy autopilot rather than be frustrated by it.

If people want to just keep complaining about AP nags, then keep doing what you've always done; but if you really want to make things work, experiment with different comfortable holds on the wheel that satisfy the torque requirements and allow you to safely take control when needed.

 

[Need]

my wife drives with her hands at 10 and 2. the system does not recognize her hands about 20% of the time.

Normally I also drive with 10 and 2 with both hands, but autopilot had trained me to drive only with one hand at a time.

 

[Yinn]

The only way people are going to be satisfied with AP in the current state is to find a way to hold the wheel so that you provide passive torque. I hold the wheel with my left hand, near the side bottom and provide just a little bit of resting torque. It's comfortable and I never get an alert unless I'm in a long sweeping left hand turn (thus eliminating the little bit of torque I'm normally applying.

Trying to actively wiggle the wheel periodically or in response to each visual alert, or any other active means is going to be tiring and frustrating. I too like to hold the wheel at 9 and 3 (10 and 2 is not the best way to hold an airbag equipped steering wheel), but the reality is you have to adapt a little if you want to enjoy autopilot rather than be frustrated by it.

If people want to just keep complaining about AP nags, then keep doing what you've always done; but if you really want to make things work, experiment with different comfortable holds on the wheel that satisfy the torque requirements and allow you to safely take control when needed.

That’s kind of the point. The system was designed based off of trust, and as an owner group combined with media coverage, we’ve eroded that to the point where we’re dealing with the nag in a manner that wasn’t originally designed. I don’t have a problem with the pressure; I have a problem at the laziness in which they’ve chosen to address the issue about attentive drivers.

Given the current nag, GMs supercruise system is much better (speaking for attention detection only) than the basis of torque or pressure on the wheel at set intervals. At least it detects eye movement. I’d prefer that over relearning a driving style or taking my eyes off the road and glancing down every 30 seconds to look for the nag in case I didn’t put enough pressure.

Tesla is working on deployed hardware so I understand the limitations, but there’s better way to detect attentiveness. And there’s better algorithms to determine appropriate intervals - Ie, do you really need steering input at a stop or near stop?!

 

[Krazaak]

That’s kind of the point. The system was designed based off of trust, and as an owner group combined with media coverage, we’ve eroded that to the point where we’re dealing with the nag in a manner that wasn’t originally designed. I don’t have a problem with the pressure; I have a problem at the laziness in which they’ve chosen to address the issue about attentive drivers.

Given the current nag, GMs supercruise system is much better (speaking for attention detection only) than the basis of torque or pressure on the wheel at set intervals. Tesla is working on deployed hardware so I understand the limitations, but there’s better way to detect attentiveness. And there’s better algorithms to determine appropriate intervals - Ie, do you really need steering input at a stop or near stop?!

I agree, but the reality is that there's between zero and pretty much zero chance of Tesla deploying a vision based attention detection system in the cars on the road today. At best we could hope that when/if FSD is available for AP2(.5) vehicles that Tesla relaxes the nag on EAP only vehicles. After all, once the car is capable of driving itself it's less of a safety issue and more feature differentiation at that point.

I agree that eye tracking is far superior to steering input for driver detection. In a perfect world, people using AP would have their eyes forward and hands on the wheel, but the reality is that even people without AP can't be trusted to be doing both of those. There is simply no question that awareness of what's in front of you is infinitely more valuable than the reaction time benefit of having hands on the wheel and if you're going to monitor only one, it should be the eyes.

I especially dislike the fact that in order to satisfy the nags, I have to hold the wheel in a manner that I feel decreases my reaction time. Holding the wheel with one hand at the bottom isn't optimal for making an emergency maneuver.

 

[jelloslug]

are there videos on YouTube that show how to do this? this sounds like it would be tiring for a 13 hour road trip.

Step 1: Put one hand on the wheel.
Step 2: Leave it there.

 

[ecarfan]

The only way people are going to be satisfied with AP in the current state is to find a way to hold the wheel so that you provide passive torque. I hold the wheel with my left hand, near the side bottom and provide just a little bit of resting torque

Agreed, that’s what I’ve been doing the past few days. It does work, you just have to find the right point and get used to the amount of force needed.

I still think that is not the optimal approach.