Autopilot Feature - Lane preferences

[mandoskippy]

So I took my first long road trip (1100 miles in each direction) and loved it. We went through the mountains of West Virginia and Virginia (on interstates) and all and all autopilot was amazing! After getting back I had a question and a thought.

First the question. When doing the auto lane change, I find the action to make a lane change ambiguous or clumsy... not sure which. If I lean on the turn signal stick, so it doesn't lock engage, it starts the lane change, but if I accidentally release too quickly, and the car is only say 30% into the lane change, it swerves back to the original lane. If I fully lock engage the turn signal, it will complete the lane change all the way, but then the blinker stays on. Is this how everyone's lane change works on EAP? I guess my thought is this, I can see why the car, not seeing the turn signal on (if you release early) wants to jump back, but why not, if a lane change has been completed by locking the turn signal on, once the lane change is complete, disengage the turn signal? That seems to make sense to me.

The other question, thought I had on a feature would be a preference setting on where autopilot sits in a lane. I noticed a number of times, especially on curves that the car, while not crossing a line, crowded a line, at least for my preferences. By making a feature that allowed Tesla owners to set a preference, do they prefer a equal distance? Do they prefer crowding right lane marker? Do they prefer left lane marker? If they set a preference, can there be an adjustment setting. Maybe the person prefers a center of the lane, but for some reason the car is "cheating" (like mine was) towards a direction. By creating a setting for adjustment, Tesla could not only give people a little bit more comfort (there were a number of times both me and my other driver would pull the car out of auto-pilot due to how it was tracking) and if cars or firmware releases have a a number of Tesla owners creating preferences to adjust autopilot, it's just data Tesla can use to improve the system. It gives Tesla owners a bit more comfort, and it creates data for Tesla to use to further adjust auto pilot.

Thoughts?

John

 

[bob_p]

The lane changing takes some practice to determine the point when you can release the turn signal. It's reasonable for the software to detect if you release the turn signal early - indicating you've changed your mind, and you want it to stay in the current lane. It appears you need to be around halfway through the lane change process before you can release the turn signal and continue the lane change. And this requires either paying attention to the car or looking at the dashboard to determine that point.

The lane positioning remains a concern. It feels that much of the time the software prefers to ride closer to the right side (in the US) of the lane than I would normally prefer - driving closer to cars passing on the right, which can be challenging when passing vehicles that are riding close to the lane marker.

The lane positioning also has a tendency to drive a little too close to barriers on the left side, when there isn't much of a gap between the lane marker and the traffic barrier.

Another issue is when driving in areas with recent construction or where the lane lines are parallel with visible pavement seams - the software can get confused about detecting the current lane lines, and can start centering using the wrong lines.

With AP2, Tesla had to implement Tesla Vision to replace the object recognition lost through the Mobileye divorce. Musk thought Tesla Vision would be operating at AP1 levels by December last year, and a year later we're still waiting.

While I agree it would be useful to have more flexibility on controlling where the driver would prefer to position in the lanes, we should give Tesla more time to get Vision working reliably - and then see if any personalization is needed for lane positioning.

 

[The Duke]

Completing a lane change should turn off the turn signal, but I am not sure there is mechanical support for this. As you noticed, a partial lane change leads to unexpected results. I am hoping for voice control " Nicki, move left a lane".

Most of the time the car stays well centered in the road. Consider the dichotomy of speed: to react to slow turns the car needs slow input, to react to abrupt turns the car needs quick input. The combination of speed and turn radius needs to be analyzed. Tesla is tuning this and will need to keep tuning as they allow faster speeds. Staying in the proper place in a corner will get better.

 

[bob_p]

The goal for EAP is to enable auto-lane change - with the AP software really doing this on its own - monitoring the vehicle ahead and the adjacent lane, and automatically changing lanes to pass slow moving traffic.

So what we have today will eventually be the manual override for lane changing, like what we have with TACC, with the ability to temporarily increase speed above the set speed to pass - and then letting the car slow back down to the set speed.

Like most of AP2, it's getting better (incrementally), making fewer mistakes, but still requires monitoring, like you'd do with any student driver...

 

[deanofdanville]

Took my new MS out for a spin last night to test out AP at nightime.

Observations:

1) When there was light traffic, I felt like I was riding a snake. Seemed to continually weave from side to side most of the 10 miles I had AP on.

2) In heavy traffic, the car hugged the left side.

3) At 60 mph and in the middle off a right curve, the car abruptly jolted left. Had to grab the wheel to avoid heading to the guardrail.

My MS only has 225 miles. Is there a learning period for new MSs where AP matures as you put more miles on?

I sure hope so.

 

[Buster1]

My SC told me at delivery that the car needs 40-100 miles before Autopilot is truly "ready." They said once the icons appear on the screen for AP, that it should be good to go.

My icons appeared at 43 miles on the Odo, but I didn't attempt to use the AP until a few days later. It seems rock solid in the middle of a lane.

I believe there is a calibration period.

Also, I couldn't seem to get auto lane change to work until yesterday (200+ miles on the odo now). Suddenly the car began recognizing adjacent lanes and displaying them in the dash screen.

 

[Donsanborn]

I now have 6,200 miles on my 4 mon old MS 90D and have noticed a substantial improvement in my EAP. In the beginning engaging it would cause immediate fish tailing, intersections were also a problem, now both problems are gone. I am now working on a formula to determine actual highway range vs avg speed. The dashboard energy indicator does not seem to “learn” your speed and adjust remaining energy accordingly.

 

[melburstein]

After you engage the turn signal indicator to make a lane change (as opposed to a full 90-degree turn, you need to manually disengage it. That's the way it works on my Model S and on any other car that I have ever driven.