Autopilot Error - Following Car in Adjacent Lane

[KenC]

HAL9000 was having a bit of an anxiety attack.

 

[Andi]

View attachment 453779
I'm not sure if there is another thread specific to this issue, as I haven't been able to locate one.

As you can see in the picture I took last night, my car is thinking that the car all the way in another lane is my "follow car" which you can tell because the car is dark gray on the display.

In this instance, there is not a shadow on the road or anything to exponentially confuse the visuals, so I am having trouble figuring out why my car is viewing the situation this way. It is also not even close to the line, and it's a double white HOV line! My display even shows the car in the appropriate lane... this is just super weird

Anyone else experiencing this and have ideas on why it's happening? or just a bug..

I can confirm this behavior. I am taking the LIE (I495) HOV lane every day. The issue is always happening at exact same location, which are the HOV entrances. This issue came up since V9 and I had several email exchanges with Tesla including photos and videos about it, but sadly they still did not fix it.
For the navigation to work, the system needs to know where entrances and exits are. I believe the issue is that those are treated as merging entrances and therefore it tries to give way to the cars adjacent. This is especially annoying and somewhat dangerous, when they are much slower than you.
Right now the best solution is to be prepared on those locations and either take over or slightly press the accelerator.

Here is an older post where this came up: Autopilot Choosing Wrong Target Car(s)

 

[Jbss]

Just wanted to add, this does affect the behavior of the car. Happens consistently on 118E to 5S and on 5N towards the 118 exits in LA county.

 

[PhantomX]

Happened to me this morning as I was driving my Model 3 in the HOV and it all of the sudden started to slow down to match the speed of car next lane over. No one was in front in my lane, but there was a car not too far behind me. I just cancelled AP and took over.

I have noticed 2019.28.3 is quite buggy. I have been having all sorts of warning messages that I have never had before.

 

[BZM3]

I can confirm this behavior. I am taking the LIE (I495) HOV lane every day. The issue is always happening at exact same location, which are the HOV entrances. This issue came up since V9 and I had several email exchanges with Tesla including photos and videos about it, but sadly they still did not fix it.
For the navigation to work, the system needs to know where entrances and exits are. I believe the issue is that those are treated as merging entrances and therefore it tries to give way to the cars adjacent. This is especially annoying and somewhat dangerous, when they are much slower than you.
Right now the best solution is to be prepared on those locations and either take over or slightly press the accelerator.

Here is an older post where this came up: Autopilot Choosing Wrong Target Car(s)

I think you might be spot on with this, it is definitely related to the entry/exit (FYI I too take the 495 HOV everyday, maybe we have waved at eachother )

I guess it has good intentions, just have to work out the kinks. At least they are on the right track!

 

[TJtv]

I have the same thing happening to me every single day at the same exact spot. The location is I78 in NJ going eastbound, just past exit 36. For about 1/2 mile or so it thinks the car in the center AND/OR rightmost lanes in the fast lane. It's infuriating.

What's even more comical about it is that if autopilot REALLY thought the car was in my lane it would crash into it every single time. It applies the brakes suddenly and abruptly, but with nowhere near enough force to actually prevent it to "crashing" into that other vehicle. Seems like autopilot has some maximum braking force allowed and it won't exceed that. Scary to think what would happen if there really was an emergency scenario where emergency braking was required that autopilot would likely not be willing to apply that much force to the brakes. Yeah I know the whole spiel about "autopilot is only a driver assist, driver must pay attention at all times", and I do that, but it sure would be nice if the system would react properly in an emergency situation because in theory it should have shorter reaction time than a human. And don't try to say that AEB would help because it wouldn't. It's only functional below 25mph.

I suppose I know the real reason that autopilot has a fairly low maximum braking force level, and that's because with all these different phenomena that cause phantom braking events if autopilot was truly allowed to fully slam on the brakes then there'd be Teslas getting rear ended constantly on freeways all over the place.

 

[thewishmaster]

^ AEB is functional up to 90mph IIRC, but it only slows you down by 25mph. So under 25 mph it might stop you but above that it won't.

 

[TJtv]

^ AEB is functional up to 90mph IIRC, but it only slows you down by 25mph. So under 25 mph it might stop you but above that it won't.

Thanks for clarifying that. I was clearly wrong when I posted that it only worked below 25mph. That being said, if it really does think that I'm 2 feet from a car that is directly in front of me going significantly slower than me then why the hell DOESN'T it engage AEB?

 

[Electroman]

I have seen very similar behavior. Slow down gently from your set speed for no apparent reason. Happens all the time at the same spot. I gently press the accelerator and once you crossed that region everything is alright

 

[thewishmaster]

Thanks for clarifying that. I was clearly wrong when I posted that it only worked below 25mph. That being said, if it really does think that I'm 2 feet from a car that is directly in front of me going significantly slower than me then why the hell DOESN'T it engage AEB?

If it's misjudging that the cars near you are merging into your lane I don't think it will engage AEB necessarily the way it might if you have an obstacle in your lane, but without seeing it myself I'm just speculating. If it suddenly saw the cars merging next to you rather soon, I don't think it will panic-brake with AEB though.

I've had a few times where my car was confused about lane merges, with the worse one being when lanes *are* merging and your car blissfully ignores the car that's literally about to merge into you... This was particularly bad on one of the older software versions. Seems like it got better at detecting merges but maybe they overshot and made it too cautious in some places

 

[BZM3]

I have the same thing happening to me every single day at the same exact spot. The location is I78 in NJ going eastbound, just past exit 36. For about 1/2 mile or so it thinks the car in the center AND/OR rightmost lanes in the fast lane. It's infuriating.

What's even more comical about it is that if autopilot REALLY thought the car was in my lane it would crash into it every single time. It applies the brakes suddenly and abruptly, but with nowhere near enough force to actually prevent it to "crashing" into that other vehicle. Seems like autopilot has some maximum braking force allowed and it won't exceed that. Scary to think what would happen if there really was an emergency scenario where emergency braking was required that autopilot would likely not be willing to apply that much force to the brakes. Yeah I know the whole spiel about "autopilot is only a driver assist, driver must pay attention at all times", and I do that, but it sure would be nice if the system would react properly in an emergency situation because in theory it should have shorter reaction time than a human. And don't try to say that AEB would help because it wouldn't. It's only functional below 25mph.

I suppose I know the real reason that autopilot has a fairly low maximum braking force level, and that's because with all these different phenomena that cause phantom braking events if autopilot was truly allowed to fully slam on the brakes then there'd be Teslas getting rear ended constantly on freeways all over the place.

No this isn’t the case. It knows it is not in your lane. The car is preparing for a “potential” merge that may or may not be happening. This seems to be Geo-tagged to specific spots where merging occurs.

 

[BZM3]

Thanks for clarifying that. I was clearly wrong when I posted that it only worked below 25mph. That being said, if it really does think that I'm 2 feet from a car that is directly in front of me going significantly slower than me then why the hell DOESN'T it engage AEB?

It doesn’t think you are that close to the car. It knows exactly where it is, the problem is that it is, a majority of the time in specific locations, wrongfully assuming that car is trying to merge into your lane.

I am commonly going 70mph in HOV while the adjacent left lane is going 40mph. So I understand the concept of being cautious of a car suddenly merged into the HOV. The issue is it seems to come out of nowhere. Hopefully they can figure out a way to soften the slowdown

 

[alsetym]

For several months now I have been impressed at how well my Teslas react to cars merging from onramps immediately to my right, adjusting speed so as to allow enough space for them to merge. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and that Auto Pilot capability didn’t even exist last year.

I have not seen the behavior you describe when cars are two lanes away from me.

I suspect these two things are related, they added fantastic merge lane recognition...but it also can potentially screw up I guess. I know tesla doesn't fully appreciate HOV lanes, and will try to get out of them if they are slightly slower for even a second lol, so it is possible that they get confused as a merge lane if the painting is weird.

Hands on wheel!