autopilot failed to brake

[anticowboyism]

This happened on a slightly busy freeway yesterday. I'm using NOA and an SUV just ahead of me, in the lane to my right, tries to cut into my lane, inches from my front bumper. The autopilot did not respond in time and I needed to apply the brakes. This seems like a case where AP would surely have seen and been tracking the trajectory of the vehicle as it entered my lane. So, was it just too slow to respond, or would it have never responded?

Also, what is the best way to report these type of incidents to Tesla? Bug report just after it happens? Or does someone have an AP engineering contact?

Here's the video:
Watch @ 0:22

 

[raptor5244]

This happened on a slightly busy freeway yesterday. I'm using NOA and an SUV just ahead of me, in the lane to my right, tries to cut into my lane, inches from my front bumper. The autopilot did not respond in time and I needed to apply the brakes. This seems like a case where AP would surely have seen and been tracking the trajectory of the vehicle as it entered my lane. So, was it just too slow to respond, or would it have never responded?

Also, what is the best way to report these type of incidents to Tesla? Bug report just after it happens? Or does someone have an AP engineering contact?

Here's the video:
Watch @ 0:22

Yes, AP should have detected the "cut-in" and applied the brakes and alerts accordingly. Also, you would think they would program AP to minimize the amount of time the car stays in blind spots as well since as drivers we don't normally hang out there.

 

[TANGO SUKKA]

something similar happened to me 2 days ago. i had EAP on and wasn't looking for 3 seconds. in those 3 seconds my car veered into the car next to me causing me to side swipe it.

 

[Darmie]

During Tesla's autonomous day, they were using cut ins as an example as to how the engineers creates improvements to the neural network.

 

[raptor5244]

something similar happened to me 2 days ago. i had EAP on and wasn't looking for 3 seconds. in those 3 seconds my car veered into the car next to me causing me to side swipe it.

Damn, that is my biggest fear with AP, trusting it when it is not ready to be trusted. Did it veer over because another car was cutting in? You would think it would see the other car in the next lane and choose to stay in the existing lane and brake instead. It brings up the question of whether an automated car can actually make better split second decisions than a human driver can. In your case, the AP may have overreacted and created an accident where one could have been avoided.

 

[Daniel in SD]

I consistently see Autopilot not react to cars until they are about one third into my lane (even when they are signaling!). On the screen you can see that the vision system sees the car in the lane. At autonomy day they did talk about predicting when cars were about to change lanes but they must have forgotten to work on the case of cars actually changing lanes...

 

[TANGO SUKKA]

Damn, that is my biggest fear with AP, trusting it when it is not ready to be trusted. Did it veer over because another car was cutting in? You would think it would see the other car in the next lane and choose to stay in the existing lane and brake instead. It brings up the question of whether an automated car can actually make better split second decisions than a human driver can. In your case, the AP may have overreacted and created an accident where one could have been avoided.

no i was going straight, the car next to me was going straight.. i looked at the dash cam footage, and the only weird thing i noticed was that there was a car like 5 car lengths in front of me that was changing lanes. my car literally mirrored the lane change as if it was using the car in front of me as a reference point...except it didnt realize the car was moving over.

autosteer correct didnt work, the car didn't slow down, or even chirp at me.

 

[Az_Rael]

This happened on a slightly busy freeway yesterday. I'm using NOA and an SUV just ahead of me, in the lane to my right, tries to cut into my lane, inches from my front bumper. The autopilot did not respond in time and I needed to apply the brakes. This seems like a case where AP would surely have seen and been tracking the trajectory of the vehicle as it entered my lane. So, was it just too slow to respond, or would it have never responded?

Also, what is the best way to report these type of incidents to Tesla? Bug report just after it happens? Or does someone have an AP engineering contact?

Here's the video:
Watch @ 0:22

My experience is cars aren't noticed by AP until they are farther in your lane.

There is a warning to that effect (that partial vehicles in lane may not be detected) in the user manual for both TACC and Autosteer. Odds are the response you will get from Tesla just references that warning in the manual.

 

[raptor5244]

no i was going straight, the car next to me was going straight.. i looked at the dash cam footage, and the only weird thing i noticed was that there was a car like 5 car lengths in front of me that was changing lanes. my car literally mirrored the lane change as if it was using the car in front of me as a reference point...except it didnt realize the car was moving over.

autosteer correct didnt work, the car didn't slow down, or even chirp at me.

Interesting, I wonder how the algorithm works? Priority over lane markers or following lead cars? It seems like it should default to doing nothing and let the driver take action vs. making a potentially bad choice like unnecessarily side swiping the car next to you.

 

[ksb467]

Interesting, I wonder how the algorithm works? Priority over lane markers or following lead cars? It seems like it should default to doing nothing and let the driver take action vs. making a potentially bad choice like unnecessarily side swiping the car next to you.

No way is the leading car a priority. Users would have noticed that problem throughout the past year. It’s never happened to me like described here. Maybe the line markings were unclear. I can’t think of another good reason. Even there it should have avoided side swipe.
As to OP I dont think suv crossed far enough over for EAP to react.

 

[NoMoGas]

This happened on a slightly busy freeway yesterday. I'm using NOA and an SUV just ahead of me, in the lane to my right, tries to cut into my lane, inches from my front bumper. The autopilot did not respond in time and I needed to apply the brakes. This seems like a case where AP would surely have seen and been tracking the trajectory of the vehicle as it entered my lane. So, was it just too slow to respond, or would it have never responded?

Also, what is the best way to report these type of incidents to Tesla? Bug report just after it happens? Or does someone have an AP engineering contact?

Here's the video:
Watch @ 0:22

It is POSSIBLE the car would have responded a half second later (theres much more room there than you think and AP operates in the world of microseconds), but sent to Tesla just in case.

 

[brkaus]

EAP helped me today when an idiot drifted into my lane. He was clearly looking at his phone. My car moved over automatically.

I had hands on wheel, turned sharper and applied the brakes (and horn).

He did come about 1/2 way into my lane.

But I’ve certainly also seen instances where I don’t think it was going to save me.

 

[Brian's ReX]

My experience with this kind of situation leads me to believe this: I think the car's 'tolerances' are much tighter than we, as humans, are comfortable with. In other words, maybe (and this is a big 'maybe' in that I am not an engineer or a computer expert) the car actually saw the SUV encroaching, but didn't feel it got close enough to react. Looking at the video versus being in the car at the time are obviously two very different viewpoints... but based on the video, the SUV certainly would cause me to be at the ready, but I probably wouldn't have altered my driving because it was clear (or appeared to be clear) that the SUV had corrected itself before hitting your car.

Just maybe, your Tesla saw the SUV, and was ready to react, but it was outside it's 'danger tolerance', and therefore didn't react?

But I'm less inclined to be surprised by this kind of driving because I deal with 'lane encroachers' numerous times per day in my commute - usually because of the other driver being distracted (texting/eating, etc.). So this wouldn't have caused too much alarm for me... I just would have been, as I stated, 'at the ready'.

I, for one, have taken over when my own tolerances were pushed to the limit. And I was left feeling "would my X have eventually reacted so as to avoid an accident?". The bottom line is that I don't know because I always take over (as you did) before getting to that point.

What I cannot say with certainty is this: My car would not have avoided the accident if I hadn't taken over. I've never given it the opportunity to prove my theory.

Glad nothing happened tho!!

 

[anticowboyism]

Thanks for the comments. It seems everyone agrees this is an area that Tesla is aware needs improving. Not sure if submitting this event to them would help at all. Anybody feel that HW3 and the ensuing neural net will improve response in these situations?

 

[raptor5244]

Thanks for the comments. It seems everyone agrees this is an area that Tesla is aware needs improving. Not sure if submitting this event to them would help at all. Anybody feel that HW3 and the ensuing neural net will improve response in these situations?

Supposedly they are uploading footage when certain events happen and they have AP developers analyzing the footage and training the system on how to react to various situations.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

. The autopilot did not respond in time and I needed to apply the brakes.

This is normal behavior. The car will sometimes hit other vehicles in these situations. There are videos demonstrating this.

It brings up the question of whether an automated car

Perhaps we’ll find out in 5-10 years when we have automated cars!

Even there it should have avoided side swipe

No, the car does not avoid sideswipes consistently. It just is not capable of avoiding these collisions consistently.

Just maybe, your Tesla saw the SUV, and was ready to react, but it was outside it's 'danger tolerance', and therefore didn't react?

Wouldn’t bet on it. I think your strategy of taking over immediately is a sound one.


In general AP is oblivious to cut ins. Just no response to them. It seems like a binary system of whether there is a car in front, or whether it is in the adjacent lane. There is no middle ground or anticipation.

 

[ksb467]

Thanks for the comments. It seems everyone agrees this is an area that Tesla is aware needs improving. Not sure if submitting this event to them would help at all. Anybody feel that HW3 and the ensuing neural net will improve response in these situations?

You should submit. They claim to review every contact anyway. You were likely in TAcc mode, not EAP, since the speed kept up, but the steering didn’t