AutoPilot Almost Killed Me!

[Balthezor]

Love my Model Y, but damn, people really crucify you for saying anything bad about Tesla. Maybe the OP is not overreacting. We weren't there. If the car behind you has to swerve to avoid hitting you, that's pretty bad.

We are in a Tesla forums, so ignore me.

 

[Dennisis]

I can understand your concern, but if your ask is 100% reliability from any driver assist then you might as well sell your car .. it will never happen, not ever. The goal of any driver assist system (or, eventually, a self-driving car) is to be safer than a human driver. And let's face it, that's not a very high bar in some ways. Does that mean the car won't make mistakes? Of course it will, but if it makes fewer than a human (and, probably, FAR fewer), then that's a good thing.

Stop it now! Only fanboys think you should have to pay attention when driving - Elon promised it wasn’t so.........

 

[LasVegas2019]

I agree. I am very afraid of being rear-ended because the Y slows down suddenly. Today I was driving 55 mph in fairly heavy traffic and the cameras spotted a stop sign at the end of an off-ramp and immediately started stopping. Fortunately, I stepped on the accelerator quickly and got away from the car behind me.

Its scary right?

 

[NaiWiste]

Its scary right?

It happened to me once and I am now completely afraid of using it. Does not matter what the driving condition is (traffic or no traffic), this technology is Beta for a reason and we are the guinea pigs. Unfortunately, some guinea pigs have already lost their lives.

Glad you are safe and well.

 

[Raechris]

I have noticed these signs (in NE) change the speed limit dramatically 70-35. The car may have done exactly what it is designed to do. That said I have gone through 50 updates with EAP and learned to rest my right foot above accelerator for phantom head fakes and would always disengage AP near tolls, rotary, road splits, construction and other corner cases. EAP is currently excellent but it has never been perfect. You always have to be vigilant.

 

[kavyboy]

It is far from a self driving car.

Ah, so the "F" in FSD means "Far from", not "Full". By no set of definitions do those terms overlap.
I don't disagree with you, though. If people thought "autopilot" was misnamed and misleading, it's nothing compared to "Full Self Driving".

 

[SouthernDragon]

I've driven a few Teslas before, and never used AP. It's an unfinished product, and I am unwilling to beta test a product with that level of risk.

 

[Iain]

On a slightly different note, we had torrential downpours a few weeks ago and I was on FSD, the rain was horrific but my cars radar didn’t mind at all. When a driver slowed my car slowed and sped up with ease. I must say as much as FSD ( autopilot) can get things wrong, in heavy rain it did amazingly well. I was truly impressed

 

[Flybuddy]

I've driven a few Teslas before, and never used AP. It's an unfinished product, and I am unwilling to beta test a product with that level of risk.

AND, we have to pay quite a bit for the privilege of being a beta tester

 

[pho35]

My rule of thumb...I trust myself more than AP specially driving on highway. My bad experience came from driving on a 35mph city street near my house. The car set/read the speed limit correctly. However, as it came to a stop sign, it freaked out and told me to take control immediately, which I did knowing testing AP. That was the only time I used it.

 

[EnrgyNDpndnce]

Then it should cost $100 and not $8000.
You are not paying big money for "It is far from .... "

Don’t like the price? Then don’t buy it, no one is forcing it on you. To each his own.

 

[Pilot1226]

Couple questions as I am in the market for the Y in a few months:

Phantom braking events seem to happen mostly with overpasses or shadows, right?

can you report the phantom braking event as a big?

If this only happens when TACC is enabled, can you use a non TACC option like the old “legacy” cruise controls? Can you use “legacy” CC with Autosteer?

Thanks...

 

[EnrgyNDpndnce]

Unfortunately, some guinea pigs have already lost their lives.

Absolutely, thanks for pointing THIS out. As we all know, there were never any traffic fatalities before Tesla started producing autopilot. The roads were a safe place where we all drove peacefully and carefully on rainbows and everyone always made it safely to their destination. And certainly no one ever misused technology by reading or watching a movie or taking a nap while using autopilot. All the deaths on the road can clearly be blamed on Tesla and their dastardly technology. Damn you Tesla, damn you!!!

 

[EnrgyNDpndnce]

Couple questions as I am in the market for the Y in a few months:

Phantom braking events seem to happen mostly with overpasses or shadows, right?

can you report the phantom braking event as a big?

If this only happens when TACC is enabled, can you use a non TACC option like the old “legacy” cruise controls? Can you use “legacy” CC with Autosteer?

Thanks...

Yes phantom braking often occurs b/c of shadows or overpasses, but not always. AFAIK you can still experience phantom braking on “cruise” without auto steer. I don’t know for sure because I always enable autopilot on the highway. Phantom braking sucks but it doesn’t occur enough for me to stop using autopilot. The juice is definitely worth the squeeze, at least for me. The best analogy I have heard is that autopilot is like a 15 year old driving for you. 90% of the time they keep it between the lines and do everything fine, but during the 10% or so when something unexpected happens you had better be paying attention and take over.

And yes you can log a bug report for phantom braking, however it’s important to understand how the bug report feature works and what Tesla uses it for. There is no central bug report group reading and evaluating the thousands of bug reports logged by Tesla owners. When you file a bug report, the car simply notes the day/time in a log along with other useful data. This is mainly helpful if you need service for an issue so you can say “it happened last Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday, can’t remember for sure but I filed a bug report” and then Tesla can check the logs and more quickly diagnose the issue.

 

[Mvdaog]

Anyone know if Elon has ever discussed adding normal cruise control? I’m sure plenty of owners would appreciate it to avoid the phantom braking.

 

[john5520]

I have noticed these signs (in NE) change the speed limit dramatically 70-35. The car may have done exactly what it is designed to do.

It should brake with urgency when it thinks it will collide with another object, not a speed limit change of any degree. If it was designed that way, then that's a problem.

Anyone know if Elon has ever discussed adding normal cruise control? I’m sure plenty of owners would appreciate it to avoid the phantom braking.

I agree, I think a 'dumb' cruise control would be a good idea as a backup.

 

[mycroftxxx]

For my newish MY, I did not pay the $7k for the privilege of being a FSD beta tester but obviously I still have TACC (and autosteer, which I tend not to use for reasons not germane to this thread). I’ve experienced the phantom braking twice on the freeway. Both times it seems to have been triggered by road construction barriers gently curving in front of me, directing traffic away from a section of road being worked on; in both instances I was in the rightmost lane and the barriers were immediately on my right, slowly curving left ahead, which TACC seems to have interpreted as an obstruction in front of me. Definitely disconcerting.

I’m wondering if having autosteer enabled would have helped, as it should have been able to recognize that the barriers were outside the lane and therefore not obstructions to brake for, but I don’t know if the current version of autosteer can do that kind of sophisticated sensor fusion. Incidents like these make me wish I had the option to turn off the TA sometimes and just get the CC .

 

[alstoralset]

I've been flipped off exactly once in decades of driving. It happened during my M3 autopilot trial in late 2018, when it phantom {braked, broke} on the interstate. Immediately became an ex-user.

 

[Mansley]

Anytime this happened to me (only a couple of times) I submit a bug report afterwards.

Seems to fix itself in those spots after each update. Report bugs. “A good bug is a dead bug”.

 

[theganjaguru]

I agree with OP. Two weeks ago I had experienced this behavior on an empty freeway with no one in front or behind me (thankfully) but if I had been followed by a large vehicle things could have easily escalated to severe.

Add to that Tesla’s point that it’s the driver’s responsibility when these systems are engaged. At the end of the day, who’s the insurance company going to place at fault because your car randomly brake checked someone on a smoothly running freeway?

I am very leery of TACC after this experience. If I can’t use TACC with confidence (or autopilot) I’m surely not going to pay to beta test FSD and possibly be at fault because I couldn’t react to my car being stupid in enough time. If tesla were smart there’d offer FSD for a nominal fee or free. They’d get more data, which is what they rely on to make FSD work.

The fact that fandom braking has been a long-standing issue makes me believe FSD wont come until well after our cars are obsolete.