AP2 Autosteer: What's your feedback?

[Lou gagna]

Curious about other owners' opinion for Autosteer in City environment.

What do you think is the widest gap between now and autonomous driving?
How does AP1 vehicles handle city surroundings in Autosteer?

I have a Model X with AP and 17.9.3 firmware.

IMHO, Autosteer is far from ready in AP2 for city driving with very limited traffic (no pedestrians, only few cars, no lights/stop)

Street at 25 mph, with or without a lead vehicle, scared the *sugar* out of me.

System unable to handle cyclists, empty parking spots followed by parked cars, divided lanes, curved intersections.

In 500 yards, I had four close calls (where I needed to regain control).

 

[runis]

Dangerous and unusable is my feedback. Even when it "works" on a well marked and straight road, the steering is highly skittish and cannot stay centered in lane. Hope future updates make a dramatic improvement but as AP2 was a big selling point for me.

 

[disagree]

On my local roads: it is awful and unsafe.

On highway: sometimes it is pretty ok; sometimes it is not.

 

[Jeff-6293]

I just installed 17.9.3 yesterday on my HW2 S90D. Although the increase in speeds is minimal (50 on interstates and 35 on surface streets), it appears to be driving much better! (Although still with improvements needed, of course.)

Like many here I've tried to use the pre-17.9.3 auto-steer on surface streets with wildly variable results, and I too had considered it far too dangerous to use there (other than for experimenting) unless I was not in the right lane and on well marked pavement. On poorly marked 2-lane roads it was just plain dangerous. And on interstates, stuck in the right lane because of the speed restriction, it would always try to take any exit it approached (again with some occasional wild gyrations.)

Since I installed 17.9.3 yesterday, it's a much tamer beast. On surface streets, its now much better about not noticing something out of the corner of its electronic eye and heading towards it. Still too variable to trust, but much better. Well marked surface streets seemed OK. And on the interstate, it no longer wanted to leave at every exit!

So -- rather understated release notes for what I believe was a significant under-the-hood improvement in the firmware. I remain really excited to see what shows up next.

I'll be interested in others' reaction to this update.

 

[PedanticOne]

I tried AS for the first time on a non-highway road (El Camino Real, for those in Bay Area). Was surprised to see it was even available on that road. First attempt it seemed to drive erratically. Second attempt was nice and smooth... up until it crossed an intersection then got a bit confused again. I was holding the wheel so I didn't let it go where it wanted to so it gave up. So a little bit of good and a little bit of bad. I was running 17.7.2 at the time. I updated to 17.9.3 last night. I sure hope they are getting some useful data. Certainly not ready for prime time yet.

 

[bushburner]

I just installed 17.9.3 yesterday on my HW2 S90D. Although the increase in speeds is minimal (50 on interstates and 35 on surface streets), it appears to be driving much better! (Although still with improvements needed, of course.)

Like many here I've tried to use the pre-17.9.3 auto-steer on surface streets with wildly variable results, and I too had considered it far too dangerous to use there (other than for experimenting) unless I was not in the right lane and on well marked pavement. On poorly marked 2-lane roads it was just plain dangerous. And on interstates, stuck in the right lane because of the speed restriction, it would always try to take any exit it approached (again with some occasional wild gyrations.)

Since I installed 17.9.3 yesterday, it's a much tamer beast. On surface streets, its now much better about not noticing something out of the corner of its electronic eye and heading towards it. Still too variable to trust, but much better. Well marked surface streets seemed OK. And on the interstate, it no longer wanted to leave at every exit!

So -- rather understated release notes for what I believe was a significant under-the-hood improvement in the firmware. I remain really excited to see what shows up next.

I'll be interested in others' reaction to this update.

I share the same exact sentiments. Before the last update, it felt like a 13 yr old driving a car for the first time. With the new update, it's like a 17 yr old with a few weeks of driving time.

 

[PedanticOne]

I share the same exact sentiments. Before the last update, it felt like a 13 yr old driving a car for the first time. With the new update, it's like a 17 yr old with a few weeks of driving time.

Yes, so far 17.9.3 feels a bit more settled. I guess our little one is growing up!

 

[Driver Dave]

It's beta. But every update gets a little better. I expect that to continue throughout the year.

With AP1, there was a fixed limit to what it could do.

With AP2, there is no limit.

Should be exciting to watch each update as it develops.

But.... remember. It's beta. Keep eyes on road, hands on wheel, and wife at home.

 

[LasVegasXMan]

Curious about other owners' opinion for Autosteer in City environment.

What do you think is the widest gap between now and autonomous driving?
How does AP1 vehicles handle city surroundings in Autosteer?

I have a Model X with AP and 17.9.3 firmware.

IMHO, Autosteer is far from ready in AP2 for city driving with very limited traffic (no pedestrians, only few cars, no lights/stop)

Street at 25 mph, with or without a lead vehicle, scared the *sugar* out of me.

System unable to handle cyclists, empty parking spots followed by parked cars, divided lanes, curved intersections.

In 500 yards, I had four close calls (where I needed to regain control).

 

[LasVegasXMan]

Dealer installed 17.9.3 on X yesterday.
So far, I have almost crashed the car 4 times at 35 mph. Terrible and far worse than previous version. I won't use it again on city/suburban streets until next update. If you use, DO NOT TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF THE WHEEL!!!

 

[Uncle Paul]

For lower speed, rush hour traffic on the freeways, both the steering assist and speed control has worked pretty well. It is welcome in that situation and provides a much more relaxed ride to and from work.

On secondary streets it is like a drunk driver. Without a car in front, and well marked lanes, it turns into the curbs, and fails everytime the white line is not defining a single, definite standard lane.

Understanding these limitations, I have great faith that the new system will figure itself out, thanks to all the efforts at Tesla.

 

[AMN]

I tried it on our 3 days old MX and it's not even close to beta. The improvement over 14months old Sig is noticeable all around but the Autopilot part they are starting from scratch and it shows. They had 0 software written when they started shipping HW2 last year.

 

[Jeff-6293]

I'm going to complement the current implementation of auto steer, even though I suspect it is not warranted.

To whit, in the couple of weeks since I have had the latest firmware upgrade, the auto steer has gotten better – or at least so it seems to me. Initially, using it on a poorly marked road was always a game of "save the car." But yesterday I drove on the same road and it actually did quite well.

I know these cars are supposed to learn but I thought that was on a fleet basis, and not individually, yet there are some signs that it may be doing so.

Pure speculation at this point, but the bottom line is that it is getting better – quickly. Now if only the speed restrictions were raised to be actually useful.

 

[bigdaddie]

I think 17.9.3 has made an improvement. My MS AP2 car can drive the entire route highlighted. It's in a residential area with speed limit of 25mph. There is one intersection where it gets confused. I think for early beta, it's working pretty good. This road is divided therefore every intersection has a divide break to allow left turns. The only one it confuses has bike lane markings that start very wide post intersection and the AP initially tries to steer in the bike lane, but does figure it out. That route is about 2.5 mi. and the car can do it all about 80% of the time; maybe all the time, but I don't get too risky as far as possible rim to curb impact.

 

[FlyF4]

On my X, I only use it in the city during stop and go traffic, and then only part of the time.

 

[Driver Dave]

I have used it on highway for around 600 miles with no issues. Works great.

Stop and go traffic works fine.

Local works slightly better than AP1 but in general I think all self driving tech at this point should be used with greater caution on local roads.

 

[oktane]

For me AP2 doesn't work as well as AP1. AP2 is not "smooth" around turns and is oblivious to cars in adjacent lanes. With AP1, the car knows exactly how many and what type of cars are around it. AP2 is a nice demonstration, but cannot be trusted hands-free.

 

[Driver Dave]

With AP1, the car knows exactly how many and what type of cars are around it.

I'm pretty sure this is not the case as AP1 has no side cameras. Just radar.

I never get the sense that my AP1 car knows what's around it beyond the radar signals saying "something's there"

AP2 is a nice demonstration, but cannot be trusted hands-free.

Just not true. I use both AP1 and AP2, both carefully, and never really see any difference beyond AP1 is a bit "smoother" and AP2 is a bit better on local roads.

Both work great for long trips on highway and stop and go traffic.

 

[oktane]

AP1 depicts cars in adjacent lanes by type, no? I think you can use AP1 relative hands free, but of course at your own risk.

 

[chillaban]

AP1 depicts cars in adjacent lanes by type, no? I think you can use AP1 relative hands free, but of course at your own risk.

I had AP1 for 17,000 miles and I don’t think I would do that. It has made some pretty bad decisions on a split second before, such as happily driving toward a ROAD CLOSED barricade instead of a construction fork when I-5 got diverted.

Around hilly sweeping curves it’s like a confident drunk driver, consistently missing curves but still driving smoothly. Compared to AP2, the AP1 parking sensors also seem less sensitive especially at high speeds and won’t start making adjustments until scarily close when a car beside you drifts out of position. I think there’s a cognitive bias where humans believe something acting smoothly is more capable/correct.


Fundamentally from a usage perspective I haven’t found much difference between recent AP2 builds and AP1 v8.0/8.1 – AP1 until recently drove move smoothly hands down and still handles city roads with lane line breaks more smoothly. But both can make bad decisions in a split second and require your constant attention AT MINIMUM and when there’s less margin for error before crashing, require holding the wheel to react fast enough.