AP2 collision avoidance ...? Or SW bug?

[Farkle-Edina]

Hello. New to posting to the forums here but have been lurking for a while.

I have a 2017 S 90D running 2017.32.17 software. I was using AP2 on the freeway this past weekend -- 190 miles of uninterrupted, assisted driving! -- when my steering suddenly jerked and shifted my car out of my lane, to the right! Startled me and I grabbed the wheel (breaking off auto steer) and corrected back to my left.

Almost ...

This is on I94 just east of Hudson WI. There are three lanes heading west, I was in the center lane at the time. A car was shoulder to shoulder with me, on my left (passing lane in the USA). There was some construction happening there with cones on the median, slowly forcing the interior lanes (the passing lanes) to merge to the right. I wasn't paying too close attention but what I think happened was the guy shadowing me got too close and the car jerked right to avoid a collision. I also corrected back into him before I noticed we were almost mirror-to-mirror.

There was a car only a few feet behind me in the right-most lane (where the AP intervention put me). I'm sure he was startled too and probably was fuming at me for literally cutting just a few feet in front of him, suddenly. He was not overtaking me, just following at a similar speed to me.

All ended up OK but after the adrenaline had been processed and I thought about it, I was left to believe AP2 intervened to avoid a side-to-side impact. Does AP2 include that detection and avoidance logic? (Anyone ...? Anyone ...?)

Thank you for any helpful insights.

 

[Tam]

...steering suddenly jerked and shifted my car out of my lane...

Yes. It does happen to me. It is a beta program and I fully expect that it does so there is no surprise for me here.

It is not a problem for me because I have a minimum of one hand on the steering wheel so I can notice right away if it misbehaves such as in your scenario, I could easily override its steering at will.

I am so familiar of how unpredictable its steering can be, my own reflex is now so automatic, I don't even realize that it's a scary big deal at all!

If you don't feel comfortable because you now learn that it will keep happening again during its beta phase, you can turn it off.

 

[OilSucks]

OP, were you driving into the sun by any chance? I've had that happen to me as well when driving directly into the sun.

Also you on a pretty problematic SW version (for me at least) and I would see if you can get your car updated to the latest version ASAP.

 

[Farkle-Edina]

OilSucks -- I was heading west at the end of the day so, yes, I was driving into the sun. I don't remember it being particularly bright -- and it was later in the day so the sun was lower on the horizon. I had been driving for several hours -- west or north-west -- by that time.

I have a notice tonight to load updated SW. Interesting as the version I'm running is only a week or so old. I suspect you're correct about the bug(s) as in my limited experience, I've never gotten software updates more often than once every 3-6 weeks.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[chillaban]

Autosteer (and even non-Autosteer) both have “Side collision avoidance” between 30 and 80mph that can suddenly move your wheel if someone gets too close to your side.

Note that in recent 8.x software builds, this is accompanied by a high pitched “beep beep beep beep beep” noise, very similar to that one your parking sensors make when you’re extremely close to something (e.g. when it says “Stop” on the screen)

Autosteer can also abruptly offset your car to one side of your lane, if someone gets close but not dangerously close to you on your side. This is silent, and you’ll only see orange/red ultrasonics. But that kind of intervention will not cause you to depart your lane.


It could be one of those features, or it could be a bug too...