Autopilot during rush hour traffic .... a parting of the seas occurs .....

[RubberToe]

Not as simple a problem as it seems, to handle automatically. So if the "Red Sea" of cars in front of you opens up, how should the car know to NOT accelerate to 70mph if the TACC is set to 70? Well, if the cars on either side are also basically stopped, the car could infer that the just opened up lane in front is a temporary open lane in an otherwise stop and go traffic pattern. Case closed right? Just look at the speed of the traffic in the surrounding lanes and don't accelerate to 70, but something less based on them.

But then there is the case where you are in an express lane and going 70mph and the next lane over is stop and go. The car would then have to be smart enough to know that in that case it should ignore adjacent lanes when deciding whether you should be going 70 or accelerating to 70.

RT

 

[Az_Rael]

But then there is the case where you are in an express lane and going 70mph and the next lane over is stop and go. The car would then have to be smart enough to know that in that case it should ignore adjacent lanes when deciding whether you should be going 70 or accelerating to 70.

Around here where the only physical barrier between the HOV lane and the stop and go is two yellow painted lines, I still don't want to be going 70 next to them. Someone can (and will) jump in front at any second. If there is a physical barrier, then AP will just see the wall next to you and you are good at 70.

 

[Stretch2727]

I agree the max speed should be limited by the operator in this situation, but to me the acceleration in AP is way to aggressive for me in almost every situation. In stop in go or heavy traffic it seem to be either all on or all off with heavy braking. I wish there was a way to adjust the acceleration lower. The braking could also use a little smoothing as well by maybe temporarily allowing less distance to the car in front until the proper gap has open up. I think most people do this as they drive (at least the better ones!) to give a smooth experience and be more efficient.

 

[Az_Rael]

I agree the max speed should be limited by the operator in this situation, but to me the acceleration in AP is way to aggressive for me in almost every situation. In stop in go or heavy traffic it seem to be either all on or all off with heavy braking. I wish there was a way to adjust the acceleration lower. The braking could also use a little smoothing as well by maybe temporarily allowing less distance to the car in front until the proper gap has open up. I think most people do this as they drive (at least the better ones!) to give a smooth experience and be more efficient.

I liked how the gen 1 Volt did a cruise resume (I didnt have the ACC option). You could resume from 0 miles to freeway speeds and it would do it keeping the "green ball" within the center. So it accelerated in cruise to keep the car in the efficient band. Not very fast, but you can always override with the go pedal without disengaging if you want to move it along.

 

[Jpjpjp]

This x 1000.

AP works exactly how it’s supposed to and how you (OP) have it set. Simply turn down max speed in this type of situation until traffic clears.

How do I do that? Sorry first time Tesla owner so apologies if it’s obvious

 

[AviP]

I'm curious if others have seen this behavior? Slow car in front moves out of the way and M3 just jams on that accelerator to get to speed. Seems like it should eventually take into account the traffic on either side to decide how fast to ramp up. It's just not safe to go so fast relative to cars on either side.

Thanks for posting this. I'm now strongly in the I-dont-want-BetaPilot group. I just don't think it's a mature product.

 

[Stretch2727]

How do I do that? Sorry first time Tesla owner so apologies if it’s obvious

To adjust the max AP speed, right scroll wheel on the steering wheel, or +/- on the screen on either side of max speed.

 

[JeffK]

I just don't think it's a mature product.

It's quite mature and it'll never be 100% perfect. Out of curiosity, what is your benchmark for "mature"?

Tesla will start posting numbers soon with regards to autopilot statistics, so I'm interested in how you personally will determine that it's ready for you.

 

[chronopc]

It's quite mature and it'll never be 100% perfect. Out of curiosity, what is your benchmark for "mature"?

Tesla will start posting numbers soon with regards to autopilot statistics, so I'm interested in how you personally will determine that it's ready for you.

I find it funny how people expect an AI to drive perfectly but are fine with people driving poorly.

 

[Catman20009]

This is EXACTLY how the last two infamous Tesla crashes into the median and the fire truck happened since the car ignores stationary objects. The phenomenon is being called “slight of hand”

I get that stationary objects like parked cars, trees, trashcans on the side of the road (and on the other side of the lane marker) need to be ignored. But I still don't understand why the computers can detect a stationary object like a stopped vehicle or a bicycle crossing the lane ahead, if it's in the same lane makers why wouldn't radar at least see the object blocking the lane?

 

[Jpjpjp]

To adjust the max AP speed, right scroll wheel on the steering wheel, or +/- on the screen on either side of max speed.

I just noticed the +/- today after my post and tried it. Didn’t know the scroll worked too though. Thank you!

 

[teslcls]

I've found the spacing control also affects acceleration when seas part. I can usually anticipate that parting whereas software cannot, so attentiveness is important.
The inability to anticipate certain situations will limit the ultimate utility of self driving cars.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I find it funny how people expect an AI to drive perfectly but are fine with people driving poorly.

Umm, that's kinda the entire point of having the car do the driving.

You can correct 100,000+ machines one time. With humans you have to teach them all separately; including the unteachable.

From this thread it appears that some people are perfectly fine with this behavior as it is exactly how adaptive cruise control work. They're designed to be simple because doing too much can cause issues.

An example of this was when Tesla added more features to TACC. Like they added a feature where it would automatically slow down for an emergency vehicle on the shoulder. Sounds like a good idea, but then it started slowing down drastically for any vehicle on the shoulder. Then after a bunch of complaints Tesla pulled that behavior.

I tend to like the idea that TACC remains pretty straight forwards without much intelligence, and AP is where Tesla should add the intelligence.

So I'm in the camp of the people who believe AP should have more situational awareness to accelerate more conservatively with stopped cars on either side. I don't want to be flying by stopped cars at 70mph.

I say that as someone who mostly uses TACC, and it's behavior is really predictable so I have no problems with it. I only occasionally have to override it.

 

[jamnmon66]

YOU are in control and need to take responsibility to make sure that you're driving safely. AP is just a tool that will do exactly what you tell it to do. YOU had the max speed cranked up so the car did exactly what you told it to do. Take the responsibility to crank down the max speed in this situation. It's pretty simple. AP is NOT self driving, simply a super advanced cruise control.

 

[Cheburashka]

Not as simple a problem as it seems, to handle automatically. So if the "Red Sea" of cars in front of you opens up, how should the car know to NOT accelerate to 70mph if the TACC is set to 70? Well, if the cars on either side are also basically stopped, the car could infer that the just opened up lane in front is a temporary open lane in an otherwise stop and go traffic pattern. Case closed right? Just look at the speed of the traffic in the surrounding lanes and don't accelerate to 70, but something less based on them.

But then there is the case where you are in an express lane and going 70mph and the next lane over is stop and go. The car would then have to be smart enough to know that in that case it should ignore adjacent lanes when deciding whether you should be going 70 or accelerating to 70.

RT

Yes it does.

Tesla can make a neutral network to turn the damn wipers on but uses basic if/then logic to accelerate the car in traffic.

 

[conman]

Okay, I'm driving in bumper to bumper traffic with autopilot activated. We are moving at 25 to 35mph and the autopilot max is 70mph (hwy speed limit). All is good. Cars are all packed in. Then, for some reason, cars in front of me move to different lanes and there is a huge open passage for me. I'm talking 200 to 300 feet completely clear for me with cars stopped on both sides. My car pretty much just wants to accelerate to the max speed. Holy buckets.

Sounds like my driving style. Maybe the neural network got trained off my driving?

All joking aside, it'd be nice to have configurable acceleration for the TACC as well, or to look at what you have yours set to already - chill, sport, insane, ludicrous, plaid etc...

 

[diamond.g]

Umm, that's kinda the entire point of having the car do the driving.

You can correct 100,000+ machines one time. With humans you have to teach them all separately; including the unteachable.

From this thread it appears that some people are perfectly fine with this behavior as it is exactly how adaptive cruise control work. They're designed to be simple because doing too much can cause issues.

An example of this was when Tesla added more features to TACC. Like they added a feature where it would automatically slow down for an emergency vehicle on the shoulder. Sounds like a good idea, but then it started slowing down drastically for any vehicle on the shoulder. Then after a bunch of complaints Tesla pulled that behavior.

I tend to like the idea that TACC remains pretty straight forwards without much intelligence, and AP is where Tesla should add the intelligence.

So I'm in the camp of the people who believe AP should have more situational awareness to accelerate more conservatively with stopped cars on either side. I don't want to be flying by stopped cars at 70mph.

I say that as someone who mostly uses TACC, and it's behavior is really predictable so I have no problems with it. I only occasionally have to override it.

Just to be clear are you saying when using AutoSteer that TACC should act differently than when just using TACC? That seems like it would be even more confusing.

 

[diamond.g]

Yes it does.

Tesla can make a neutral network to turn the damn wipers on but uses basic if/then logic to accelerate the car in traffic.

There was a thread in the Autonomy forum that talked about how many cameras Tesla was using for AP functionality. Have they gotten past using the normal and wide angle cameras yet?

 

[Knightshade]

I get that stationary objects like parked cars, trees, trashcans on the side of the road (and on the other side of the lane marker) need to be ignored. But I still don't understand why the computers can detect a stationary object like a stopped vehicle or a bicycle crossing the lane ahead, if it's in the same lane makers why wouldn't radar at least see the object blocking the lane?

If you mean the AZ driver (hit by a car with a different auto-driving system) it did detect the bicycle, it just wasn't programmed to do anything about it.

https://nypost.com/2018/05/24/self-...pedestrian-6-seconds-before-hitting-her-feds/

 

[Saghost]

Well, I guess Tesla in future need to add a psychological questionnaire for each driver:
Defensive?
Aggressive?
Road rage?
Then matching with difference Autopilot personalities.

You already have a feature that adjusts AP to match this. They called it following distance.

If you have a tight following distance set, the car has to react aggressively, especially on slowing down - there's no room to do anything else, and the current 1 setting seems to be inside of the car's effective reaction time (which is much longer than the theoretical reaction time from the systems installed,) so the car has to brake harder than the car in front.

On higher settings, the car uses the extra distance to reduce the sharpness of the reaction, driving defensively.