Autopilot getting worse?

[STPM3]

I know I am only working on my 2,389th mile but I have noticed since the last upgrade the autopilot feature in means of capability is trending downward for me. Noticing it the most in stop and go city traffic where before the system was able to handle an aggressive up hill S curve with ease and now it struggles. Also notice during stops at times I have to push the accelerator to move where this was never needed before the upgrade.

In most every other feature with firmware 9, the upgrade was defiantly a move upward but in one of the most important ways, for me, it has stumbled. Am I alone with this?

 

[CameronB]

In my experience, AP has been, and continues to be, excellent on the highway/freeway. And Navigate On AutoPilot continues that trend, especially now being able to transition from one highway to another (off and on ramps...eh, that's a whole different story in my experience!).

Using AP in non-highway/freeway use is more hit and miss. I have a local "test road" that I drive with every update multiple times and it features a quite *gentle" S-curve, that even after 18 months of updates, it still can't negotiate without crossing over the center line into the oncoming lane. A year ago it would go multiple feet into the opposing lane. Now it goes maybe 9-12" inches...still encroaching the oncoming lane (dangerous!) but a bit less than it used to. At the end of the road, there is a berm that requires a (fairly) hard left turn to get around. Every time the car gets there, it is a bit of a random crapshoot what will happen...sometimes it seems like it will just go straight into the berm unless I jerk the car away (which I of course do!). Sometimes it makes the left turn pretty well. And sometimes it 'gives up' and sounds the take over immediately alarm. The thing that bothers me most isn't that after 18 months has problems with this road (even though I have 'bug reported it many many times) but it's that it is not predictable (at least on the berm side). It almost seems 'random'.

I, like you, feel that I frequently have to step on the accelerator to move away after stopped cars (at a stoplight, for example) in front of me move forward. But I don't know if I'd say it is worse now than it used to be. Maybe. Maybe not. Even before v9, I always wished the car wouldn't be so slow to take off after coming to a stop. Yes, it accelerated very smoothly...but there has always been (in my experience) too much 'lag' before it started moving. Unnatural lag that human drivers wouldn't normally do.

Long story short, in my experience with AP in non-highway driving, it seems roughly the same as it has been in the past. Could there be some minor improvements and some minor negatives? Could be, but I guess in my mind they kind of cancel each other out to keep the status quo for me.

 

[365gtb4]

I've driven almost 50k miles on autopilot including three cross country trips. For me and my wife autopilot is getting worse. The steering nag makes using it a pain. Applying light pressure on the steering is plain stupid and counter to normal driving. Long straights and now your trying to drive the car off the road. The occasional emergency stopping for no reason in traffic is very dangerous. We haven't been rear ended yet, but we have come close. I'm really pissed off at Tesla with there recent upgrades. Give me the old AP! system which was much easier to live with on the interstates. Note I have both an AP! car and AP2 car.

 

[Dana1]

In my experience, AP has been, and continues to be, excellent on the highway/freeway. And Navigate On AutoPilot continues that trend, especially now being able to transition from one highway to another (off and on ramps...eh, that's a whole different story in my experience!).

Using AP in non-highway/freeway use is more hit and miss. I have a local "test road" that I drive with every update multiple times and it features a quite *gentle" S-curve, that even after 18 months of updates, it still can't negotiate without crossing over the center line into the oncoming lane. A year ago it would go multiple feet into the opposing lane. Now it goes maybe 9-12" inches...still encroaching the oncoming lane (dangerous!) but a bit less than it used to. At the end of the road, there is a berm that requires a (fairly) hard left turn to get around. Every time the car gets there, it is a bit of a random crapshoot what will happen...sometimes it seems like it will just go straight into the berm unless I jerk the car away (which I of course do!). Sometimes it makes the left turn pretty well. And sometimes it 'gives up' and sounds the take over immediately alarm. The thing that bothers me most isn't that after 18 months has problems with this road (even though I have 'bug reported it many many times) but it's that it is not predictable (at least on the berm side). It almost seems 'random'.

I, like you, feel that I frequently have to step on the accelerator to move away after stopped cars (at a stoplight, for example) in front of me move forward. But I don't know if I'd say it is worse now than it used to be. Maybe. Maybe not. Even before v9, I always wished the car wouldn't be so slow to take off after coming to a stop. Yes, it accelerated very smoothly...but there has always been (in my experience) too much 'lag' before it started moving. Unnatural lag that human drivers wouldn't normally do.

Long story short, in my experience with AP in non-highway driving, it seems roughly the same as it has been in the past. Could there be some minor improvements and some minor negatives? Could be, but I guess in my mind they kind of cancel each other out to keep the status quo for me.

It’s a math problem. At the lights/stopped cars it waits until the car in front has moved 1, 2, 3, whatever seconds away before starting up. It doesn’t immediately take off but will move sooner on a setting of 1 than it will with a setting of 5, at least Lucy seems to.

 

[dave999z]

I've driven almost 50k miles on autopilot including three cross country trips. For me and my wife autopilot is getting worse. The steering nag makes using it a pain. Applying light pressure on the steering is plain stupid and counter to normal driving. Long straights and now your trying to drive the car off the road. The occasional emergency stopping for no reason in traffic is very dangerous. We haven't been rear ended yet, but we have come close. I'm really pissed off at Tesla with there recent upgrades. Give me the old AP! system which was much easier to live with on the interstates. Note I have both an AP! car and AP2 car.

Totally agree that the requirement to apply light pressure to prove you're paying attention is plain stupid. They should have just included a grip sensor or something on the steering wheel to sense that you're touching it. Wiggling the wheel is dumb.

Question related to this... You have to wiggle the wheel lightly to prove you're there. If you turn the wheel more than lightly, it cancels autopilot and gives you back control. So, when you wiggle lightly, does it actually steer the car, or is the steering wheel input ignored unless you turn it enough to cancel autopilot? (I'm sure I can figure this out myself, but just got my car and have only engaged autopilot two times so far.)

 

[CameronB]

It’s a math problem. At the lights/stopped cars it waits until the car in front has moved 1, 2, 3, whatever seconds away before starting up. It doesn’t immediately take off but will move sooner on a setting of 1 than it will with a setting of 5, at least Lucy seems to.

You are probably correct. Still...I wish it would start accelerating (even if slowly) a bit faster even if it then reduced throttle afterwards to get to end up at the proper selected follow distance. Maybe I am in the minority, but I feel compelled to nudge the accelerator a bit, lest the people behind me think I am a distracted driver (playing with my phone or whatnot). Because when I am behind someone and the light goes green and they sit there for up to several seconds without moving, I guess I assume they are distracted. And AP probably appears similarly "distracted" I'd guess as it sits there (or is moving but ever so slowly) after the car ahead of it is moving along.

Maybe this will be solved once AP can read/recognize stop signs and stoplights? Maybe then it can put two and two together and say, "Ah, the light just turned green and the cars in front of me are moving, so I should move forward and match their acceleration so as to appear like those humans expect"

 

[Alpaca]

I just got my 30 day free trial of AP ... first time I used it today .. a few notes ..

Worked great in stop/go traffic this morning on the freeway. Someone cut in front of me pretty hard at one point, and the car slowed nicely. Maintained space to car in front at about what I would have done if I was driving. Putting pressure on the wheel was no big deal. Coming home in the dark though, I noticed a few "issues"

i) on inside lane of freeway , I came up on a merging space (for cars entering the freeway) and the lane suddenly got wide, with the left marking off on the shoulder - normal driving would be to keep to the left side of the lane, but car tried to steer towards the right to be "in the middle of the now wide lane" -I would not have driven like that myself - and if a car hard been merging at the time - not sure what would have happened.

ii) Tried to change lane to let truck pass with indicator to the right. There was no one in the lane next to me, car started to move over and then swung back - I think because the bright headlights from the truck behind in my original lane was confusing it . I had to take control and change lane myself.

iii) SUV was slightly ahead of me on lane to the right, indicated to come into my lane, started to move over, then realized I was there and pulled back. The Tesla braked pretty hard - being overly cautious - I think this would have upset the guy behind me if he had been closer - in that case the Tesla was driving more like my grandmother than I would have done (the one that says "I've never hit anyone, but I've been rear-ended dozens of times .....


I'm going to try it for the rest of the month ... let's see ...

 

[Glamisduner]

I just got my 30 day free trial of AP ... first time I used it today .. a few notes ..

Worked great in stop/go traffic this morning on the freeway. Someone cut in front of me pretty hard at one point, and the car slowed nicely. Maintained space to car in front at about what I would have done if I was driving. Putting pressure on the wheel was no big deal. Coming home in the dark though, I noticed a few "issues"

i) on inside lane of freeway , I came up on a merging space (for cars entering the freeway) and the lane suddenly got wide, with the left marking off on the shoulder - normal driving would be to keep to the left side of the lane, but car tried to steer towards the right to be "in the middle of the now wide lane" -I would not have driven like that myself - and if a car hard been merging at the time - not sure what would have happened.

ii) Tried to change lane to let truck pass with indicator to the right. There was no one in the lane next to me, car started to move over and then swung back - I think because the bright headlights from the truck behind in my original lane was confusing it . I had to take control and change lane myself.

iii) SUV was slightly ahead of me on lane to the right, indicated to come into my lane, started to move over, then realized I was there and pulled back. The Tesla braked pretty hard - being overly cautious - I think this would have upset the guy behind me if he had been closer - in that case the Tesla was driving more like my grandmother than I would have done (the one that says "I've never hit anyone, but I've been rear-ended dozens of times .....


I'm going to try it for the rest of the month ... let's see ...

if you let off the turn signal to early it will return to the lane you were in. Not sure if thats what happened on ii but something I have noticed.

 

[Alpaca]

Could be - I will try it this weekend in the daytime when it is less crowded ...

 

[ElectricCanuck]

Interesting -- I was thinking about this today -- I've found that follow distance has increased substantially. Even on 2, at highway speeds, spacing is wide enough you could park a semi trailer in between me and the car in front. in situations where traffic is busier, I'm finding myself turning it off to maintain better spacing.

Anybody else seeing this?

 

[StealthP3D]

You are probably correct. Still...I wish it would start accelerating (even if slowly) a bit faster even if it then reduced throttle afterwards to get to end up at the proper selected follow distance.

Electric motors reach optimum efficiency at every rpm at a specific level of torque. It's possible the car waits a little bit so it can accelerate in the torque range that provides optimum efficiency off the line. Because, once it starts accelerating, it doesn't pussy-foot around!

Creeping off the line really slowly might seem more efficient if you're only going by intuition, but it's not the most efficient way to accelerate from a standing stop. However, that's how most ICE cars seem to leave the line. That's probably why the "creep" setting is not the standard setting, it's less efficient. The same thing probably applies to how TACC and EAP accelerate.

 

[CameronB]

I just know this...I'd trade a few percentage points of efficiency for those initial few hundred feet at stoplights for my Tesla in AP to behave a bit more like a human driver. If all cars were truly autonomous, of course we'd have different expectations. But part of driving is not just staying between lines, staying a safe distance away from cars, not hitting obstacles (peoples, cars, other objects) - though obviously those mechanics are definitely part of it. But there are other aspects like getting along with the human drivers and doing things they expect and/or are conditioned to accept as "the right" or "better way" to do things.

Tesla not moving away from a stoplight quick enough to make it seem to people behind me that I might be an inattentive driver is just one of those things. There are others. As an another example (as has been said here before, no originality on this point!), when Navigate on AutoPilot transitions from one lane that merges/becomes another, it doesn't (currently, 46.2) use the turn indicator. While not technically needed or required by law since you aren't technically 'changing lanes', as many people have said, it would be better if NavOnAP signaled anyhow. The humans would appreciate that curtesy. There are more examples as well. Point being, driving is also social interaction with other drivers and conforming to some established expectations. This is an area where Tesla should (and I believe, will) improve over time.

 

[StealthP3D]

I know I am only working on my 2,389th mile but I have noticed since the last upgrade the autopilot feature in means of capability is trending downward for me.

I've been using EAP since mid-May and through a slew of software upgrades. While I have noticed from time to time a regression is very specific areas, those seem to disappear within the next one or two upgrades and the overall trend is strongly more positive.

I use EAP in a lot of unsupported situations and in the last couple of months I've noticed what I would call a dramatic improvement in its ability to negotiate a curvy 50 mph highway with turns marked between 30 and 45 mph. It's getting pretty close to how the average human driver would slow down and speed up for the corners. I've noticed it taking the corners about 5 mph faster than the marked corner speed in most instances. This means it will cruise smoothly around most of the corners marked 45 mph without any slowdown and, on the tighter turns it does a good job of knowing when to slow down (not too soon) but it does seem to hesitate for a second or two coming out of a tight corner while a human would begin to accelerate right as they were finishing up the corner.

Overall, I would say it's pretty steady progress, better each new release in noticeable ways and seldom a regression that sticks around for more than one upgrade (two at the most).

 

[StealthP3D]

Tesla not moving away from a stoplight quick enough to make it seem to people behind me that I might be an inattentive driver is just one of those things.

I hear you on that point. It has caused me to set a closer following distance (time) than I might otherwise. If I'm in traffic that seems more frantic, I deal with it by easing on the accelerator manually. Once moving the EAP will take over pretty quickly. My foot is there with nothing to do anyway, but, yeah, I'll like it when this behavior is improved. Or at least give us the option of a setting in the menu to chose efficiency over "Mad Max" or vice-versa.