Auto-Pilot - I give up, it's downright lethal

[NATO]

Unfortunately there's no option to have a dumb cruise control that just holds your speed. Or have I missed that setting?

I really wish there was a standard adaptive cruise control that just holds your speed but slows behind cars, in the same way Volkswagen group cars do. Maybe one tap down for basic adaptive cruise, two taps for TACC, three taps for AutoPilot.

TACC bugs the hell out of me sometimes - there's a stretch of motorway I drive a lot on and at one point it sweeps round to the right for a bit. When I have TACC enabled, when I get to that section it automatically changes my set speed to 65MPH. I'm guessing somewhere in is mapping system it thinks you need to slow down for that bend but you really don't.

Is there a way of feeding back about mapping quirks like this?

 

[Cloggie]

I really wish there was a standard adaptive cruise control that just holds your speed but slows behind cars, in the same way Volkswagen group cars do. Maybe one tap down for basic adaptive cruise, two taps for TACC, three taps for AutoPilot.

TACC bugs the hell out of me sometimes - there's a stretch of motorway I drive a lot on and at one point it sweeps round to the right for a bit. When I have TACC enabled, when I get to that section it automatically changes my set speed to 65MPH. I'm guessing somewhere in is mapping system it thinks you need to slow down for that bend but you really don't.

Is there a way of feeding back about mapping quirks like this?

I feel your pain! There is a bit of the M42 near me that goes over a 50 road, so guess what happens.. 70 -> 50 -> 70 in the space of 200 hundred yards. I know where it is, so just keep my foot down, reset the TACC after. Still ridiculous that I need to do this. When I forget, it p!sses the people off behind me as you can expect.

I totally agree that a 'dumber' cruise control that just keeps to a certain distance is required.

 

[adsheff]

You're only supposed to use it on motorways. Saying you are angry that it doesn't work well on A roads doesn't make a lot of sense - it's not meant to be used on those.

 

[tomorrowman]

You're only supposed to use it on motorways. Saying you are angry that it doesn't work well on A roads doesn't make a lot of sense - it's not meant to be used on those.

Based on the manual traffic aware cruise control i.e. TACC is not only motorway. Autosteer however the tesla recommendation is motorways, dual carriageways etc (as was kindly highlighted earlier in this thread). Agreed it's 'Beta' but the Tesla promise has always been this is going to get better, which to date it isnt.

Hopefully this will get resolved with 'vision' only AP etc in the next x weeks/months and to be fair Tesla are still one of the few (or only ?) manufacturers that have the capability of improving this OTA.

Don't get me wrong love the car even with it's soft paint, dodgy AP and as a Tesla shareholder I do have faith in this company achieving their stated aim of moving us to a sustainable future (at least from a transport perspective). They are not perfect though.

 

[NATO]

Agreed, TACC is not just for Motorway as it's not dependent on lane markings for autosteer. In my previous car (VW) the adaptive cruise control was great for any road large or small - it was as useful on motorways as well as keeping to 30MPH on small roads when there was likely speed cops around.

 

[Dilly]

TACC would be much improved by disabling the side cameras and leaving the job to front ones.
I’ve never had an issue with single front camera/radar smart cruises

 

[Nick77]

I love TACC and regularly have it on when sitting in traffic.

I've only had one issue of unexpected braking and that was someone sticking their nose out when waiting to turn onto the road. But that's not what it was designed for. Yet.

Only thing that annoys me just from regular driving is the sudden and loud alert/chimes when a car slows in front to turn off left. Cuts over the music/radio which is annoying. I'm driving the car with no TACC/AP on, let me decide what needs to be done, don't bleep at me.

 

[M3PBOSS]

This phantom braking and other issues with Auto-pilot is road dependent i think. I have been using it for 7 months regularly on both motorways and A and B road and i have never experienced phantom braking or other dangerous behaviour

 

[M3noob]

My experience:

Tesla's Autopilot is no more, or less, sensitive than Cruise Control on the previous Mercedes. Neither like anything on the left which suggests to the system "something" might happen. Mostly it is when a vehicle is waiting to turn right from a side turn on the left, but also when there is a slip lane for cars turning left. It is better than the Mercedes as I can set the distance between me and the car in front.
BUT I had a full blown emergency stop when it spotted a pedestrian crossing the road from right to left, it ignored the fact that there is a pedestrian refuge and assumed that the person would run in front of the car. Not fun.

Autosteer is pointless, other than driving slowly in traffic on a motorway.

I have no expectation that autonomous driving, other than on a motorway, will happen in my lifetime (Im 69)

I can't agree. Long straight, 90kph and NARROW roads in Catalonia are perfect for AP. I get to do a bit of sightseeing without winding up in a ditch I'm older than you, sonny Jim ;-)

 

[impee]

I've read many a thread regarding AP and it's failing etc, but I persevered for the last 2 years, and thought had a handle on it's peculiarities.

Main challenge was phantom braking, learnt to watch out for bridges, passing lorries, crest's in road's, sharpish turns with oncoming traffic, occasional sporadic slow down for no apparent reason and pressed accelerator promptly to avoid freaking out following traffic (no doubt a few 'why is that muppet braking' thoughts by the unfortunates following).

However what happened today means I give up.

Travelling down straight A-Road, no traffic in front of me, few cars behind (all keeping their distances i.e. no tailgating thank god).
Road on left has a car patiently waiting to join A-Road - Not to far forward to provoke 'phantom braking' in my view.
Next thing full emergency braking and the wind knocked out of me by seatbelt tightening - WTF !!!!

This is just bloody dangerous

yep, same happens to me, but I have now learnt, when overtaking a truck, always keep the foot ready to press the accelerator....all I can hope is this issue gets fixed soon, as today it happened to me while driving on the M3 with empty lanes, and nothing else that should caused this!

 

[JupiterMan]

You're only supposed to use it on motorways.

technically correct, its just annoying that some of these bugs were not there before, but have got introduced with recent software updates.

I'm a big fan of FSD and following its path, but it annoys me when big bugs appear in the code that don't get updated with the "cold weather improvements" (!).

You get the sense that FSD Beta in US is absorbing so much of Tesla's time that bugs are creeping into the code in other markets that are not getting sorted quick enough.

 

[gangzoom]

TACC would be much improved by disabling the side cameras and leaving the job to front ones.
I’ve never had an issue with single front camera/radar smart cruises

Ignorance is bliss, but ignorance doesn't bring progress.

People use to rave about AP1 been 'better' than AP2+. But when you looked at the tech it was running it was scary, sub VGA processing at something like 15FPS?? The reason is never phantom braked or got nervous around a truck was because it had no idea about the truck or any concerns about crashing.

OPs event will have been triggered by the software been inable to decide if the merging car was going to collide, and hence the 'safest' action is to slow down.

What's pretty obvious, especially with V9 FSD beta is that 'vision' or seeing things isn't the rate limiting step for FSD development. There is no need for more sensors beyond cameras, however there is a real need for true cognition and ability of the system to understand the world it sees and plan a route/action around it.

The next step of FSD development is going to be much harder than solving visualisation. My 5 year old daughter can see everything I see when we are driving, but she has zero idea how to actually drive in a same manner.

Can AI learn to drive like a human?? We have to wait and see.

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

This phantom braking and other issues with Auto-pilot is road dependent i think. I have been using it for 7 months regularly on both motorways and A and B road and i have never experienced phantom braking or other dangerous behaviour

I agree, I just had a trip up the A1(M) and experienced the phantom braking for the first time in 2 years. Defo road dependant.

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

technically correct, its just annoying that some of these bugs were not there before, but have got introduced with recent software updates.

I'm a big fan of FSD and following its path, but it annoys me when big bugs appear in the code that don't get updated with the "cold weather improvements" (!).

You get the sense that FSD Beta in US is absorbing so much of Tesla's time that bugs are creeping into the code in other markets that are not getting sorted quick enough.

Yup. I have been resigned to our "orphaned code" since the FSDbeta programme was revealed. This will have to be well established in US before we get non EU directive hampered code passed by parliament.

 

[Jason71]

. My 5 year old daughter can see everything I see when we are driving, but she has zero idea how to actually drive in a same manner.

My wife can see everything I can see when when we are driving but...

 

[Hurricane]

You're only supposed to use it on motorways. Saying you are angry that it doesn't work well on A roads doesn't make a lot of sense - it's not meant to be used on those.

Phantom braking happens a lot on motorways too as lots of posts on this forum will testify. On more than one occasion I’ve experienced full on emergency braking in the outside lane, bringing me down from 70mph to 40mph before I can intervene. Cue lots of rude gestures from the very angry drivers behind who barely avoided rear ending me. I stopped using it some time ago because I consider it to be a dangerous POS.

 

[adsheff]

I think there's a distinction to make between 'Phantom' braking (where there is no visible cause) and simply an abundance of caution.
In the original post example, and in some others here, there was a car waiting to come out of a side junction. Now, if the car starts nudging forward, the autopilot sees this and has to work out what is going to happen. It cannot predict what the driver will do, so if the car is moving, however slowly, it simply has to assume it will cross your path and apply the brakes. The alternative is that it keeps on driving at full speed and ends up in a situation where there isn't room to stop if the other car continues.

Now most humans driving will see this situation and assume from experience that the other car will not pull out. Most humans would continue at their current speed. However, there are thousands of such incidents every day, where the other car does continue to pull out, and a crash occurs. Just a cursory look at youtube will show this. Anyone who rides a bicycle around town will have stories of car drivers pulling out in front of them without looking. Humans can and do cause crashes all the time. As a human driver, I am cautious. I was taught defensive driving when I learned to drive, and as I cycle a lot I know only too well how inattentive a lot of drivers are. If I see a car nudging out of a side street, I will ease off the accelerator slightly, to give myself time to react should something happen. I will also slow down significantly if I see young children waiting to cross a road, or walking along a narrow pavement, because I know that children often run out without looking.

Now, if you are programming autopilot software, and you get to the bit where you are teaching the car what to do in this situation - what do you do? Program it to continue regardless and hope for the best? Or program it to be cautious and avoid a crash? It's clear that you'd do the latter, or the lawsuits would be piling in in no time.

So I think some appreciation of the task at hand is required by users. The same could be applied to the passing lorries on motorways issue - it's nearly always because the lorry is drifting into your lane. If you are attentive when autopilot is on, you can spot the braking coming a mile off. I can't see how any software can avoid having to do this, until such time as each car has a massively capable AI system that can predict human behaviour based on probabilities etc, and even then it will still come down to a straight choice - proceed and risk a crash, or slow down.

 

[NATO]

You're absolutely right about an abundance of caution, it does seem to be over-cautious in that I've had the car chuck out the anchors if there's a car waiting to pull out from the left even if it's far enough back and completely stationary. I think the fact the Tesla sees that car and is making a decision on it is a good thing, but I think it needs to be refined a bit more to avoid taking action if the other car is stationary.

 

[adsheff]

You're absolutely right about an abundance of caution, it does seem to be over-cautious in that I've had the car chuck out the anchors if there's a car waiting to pull out from the left even if it's far enough back and completely stationary. I think the fact the Tesla sees that car and is making a decision on it is a good thing, but I think it needs to be refined a bit more to avoid taking action if the other car is stationary.

I do wonder about how the cars in the visualisation jump around - is this just the visualisation not keeping up, or is this genuinely what the sensors think is happening? If it's the latter, it needs better sensors and I can't see software solving that. If it does really think the other vehicles are jumping around like that, then again, it has to brake - to do anything else would be illogical.

 

[Cnixon]

A few days ago there was a post on one of the US forums asking what the yellow arc was he saw on his screen extending from the corner of the car...after 2 years of ownership. Thats why we have all our problems our roads, drives, parking spaces, junctions are all so much narrower!