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Autopilot Highway Lange change for no good reason

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So, I've started using Autopilot on the highway for my two hour, twice weekly commute. I try to stay in the center lane. I've noticed though, that sometimes the car (Model 3), moves me to the left lane when there is no one to pass. And, likewise, sometimes moves me back to the center lane when it feels like the car there in front of me is too close. I don't see why it doesn't just stay center unless someone is in front of me. Anyone else noticed this?
 
So, I've started using Autopilot on the highway for my two hour, twice weekly commute. I try to stay in the center lane. I've noticed though, that sometimes the car (Model 3), moves me to the left lane when there is no one to pass. And, likewise, sometimes moves me back to the center lane when it feels like the car there in front of me is too close. I don't see why it doesn't just stay center unless someone is in front of me. Anyone else noticed this?
When it changes lanes, there is sometimes a notice on the screen that indicates why it's changing lanes. It may say it's changing to stay on route, changing for speed, or changing to avoid something (like cones). Does it tell you why?
 
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There are a few reasons why it would make the lane change: lane selection for an exit, passing slower traffic, getting away from on or off ramps or construction. I assume its not the first 2 in your case... is this behavior near an exit or construction? My teslas with NOA have sometimes but not always moved over a lane when approaching an interchange. Does anything change if you swap between mad-max, average, & mild? Those should make the car more or less likely to swap lanes.
 
I haven't yet noticed any pattern with regard to construction or off ramps. This is happening in the center lane. But I'll the changing the mad-max etc settings. Thannks!
You also have options in Settings - Navigate on Autopilot for speed based lane changes. You can set that to never and it will never changes lanes for speed (to get around someone going slower). You'll have to indicate you want to change lanes and it will change for you. Or you can set it to mild/chill and it won't change too often.
 
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NoA doesn't change lanes automatically and you must confirm for it to change lanes. Either by using the Turn Signal or Torquing the steering wheel, which is selectable under Customize Navigation on Autopilot. You can also cancel any lane change it wants to make (which it can not do until you confirm it) by tapping Cancel Lane Change on the screen.
 
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NoA doesn't change lanes automatically and you must confirm for it to change lanes.
Unless you disable NoA lane change confirmations, which it seems the OP did.

NoA proposes questionable lane changes for me also, so I've never disabled the confirmations. On a road trip, the questionable lane changes can get annoying enough that I'll temporarily disable NoA and just use Autosteer.
 
Lane changes under NOA are sometimes weird for me. When I drive on highways in the Dallas area, I have little trouble with them and they are (usually) for good reason. However, on a recent cross country trip the car would start ping ponging between two lanes on the interstate despite there being no other cars in my proximity. I ended up changing the setting to require confirmation and had to leave it that way for the entire trip.

So, it seems to depend on where you are. Perhaps when single-stack FSD comes about, this will improve. I suspect that this sort of issue is unlikely to be addressed for the legacy NOA code.
 
Unless you disable NoA lane change confirmations, which it seems the OP did.....
Doesn't matter. Even disabled NoA still requires a torque of the wheel confirmation before it will change a lane. If you don't torque the wheel it will just sit in the lane with the signal on. It won't change lanes. Also on screen it has a Cancel Lane Change button that you can hit to cancel the lane change.
 
Doesn't matter. Even disabled NoA still requires a torque of the wheel confirmation before it will change a lane. If you don't torque the wheel it will just sit in the lane with the signal on. It won't change lanes. Also on screen it has a Cancel Lane Change button that you can hit to cancel the lane change.
It does matter. With lane change confirmations on, NoA won't make lane changes unless you confirm with the autopilot stalk (legacy X/Y) or turn signal. With confirmations off, NoA will change lanes itself, but as you noted, it needs to know you're holding the wheel.
 
So, I've started using Autopilot on the highway for my two hour, twice weekly commute. I try to stay in the center lane. I've noticed though, that sometimes the car (Model 3), moves me to the left lane when there is no one to pass. And, likewise, sometimes moves me back to the center lane when it feels like the car there in front of me is too close. I don't see why it doesn't just stay center unless someone is in front of me. Anyone else noticed this?

I know I havent been following this subforum much, but this post says "started using AUTOPILOT on the highway", but is talking about automatic lane changes. Did the ability to do lane changes get added to the autopilot feature set (or should this say " I have started using FSD on the highway"....)?
 
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I know I havent been following this subforum much, but this post says "started using AUTOPILOT on the highway", but is talking about automatic lane changes. Did the ability to do lane changes get added to the autopilot feature set (or should this say " I have started using FSD on the highway"....)?
Basic AP does not make lane changes. Any lane change reference refers to FSD features.

Edit: Or EAP.
 
.....(or should this say " I have started using FSD on the highway"....)?
No because there is driving mode called FSD (even FSD Beta is a misnomer and SHOULD be Autosteer on City Street Beta/ACS Beta. FSD Capability is a package of features. The correct thread title would be "Navigate on Autopilot (NoA) Lane Change for no good reason". NoA is included in the Enhanced Autopilot (EAP) and Full Self Driving (FSD) Capability packages.
 
No because there is driving mode called FSD (even FSD Beta is a misnomer and SHOULD be Autosteer on City Street Beta/ACS Beta. FSD Capability is a package of features. The correct thread title would be "Navigate on Autopilot (NoA) Lane Change for no good reason". NoA is included in the Enhanced Autopilot (EAP) and Full Self Driving (FSD) Capability packages.

Im aware that NOA is available in EAP and FSD (enough acronyms there? lol), but the OP said "AUTOPILOT" and was talking about auto lane change, so I was asking if that feature was now included in regular autopilot. Sounds like it still isnt.
 
So, I've started using Autopilot on the highway for my two hour, twice weekly commute. I try to stay in the center lane. I've noticed though, that sometimes the car (Model 3), moves me to the left lane when there is no one to pass. And, likewise, sometimes moves me back to the center lane when it feels like the car there in front of me is too close. I don't see why it doesn't just stay center unless someone is in front of me. Anyone else noticed this?
Car-initiated lane changes are a feature of Navigate on Autopilot (NoA), not of basic Autopilot (AP). Even when using NoA, there are options for how much interaction with the driver the car requires before initiating a lane change. Personally, I've got mine configured to require explicit approval from me via the turn-signal stalk, since I don't want the car to change lanes without my approval. Even so, I rarely use NoA because of incidents like what you describe -- the car just does a bad job of selecting what lane to use, IMO. As NoA is basically picking the lane and handling highway interchanges, and NoA is a bit iffy at the latter, too, NoA just isn't worth it for me. If you don't like it moving you into the passing lane without cause, then you may want to consider not using NoA, too. IIRC, there's an option to either enable NoA automatically when you engage AP or to not do so. If you've got it set to automatically engage NoA, you can locate and disable that option and you'll be set. If you decide you want to use it for a particular drive, you can still do so; it's a single button in the directions window on the center console (on the Model 3, anyhow).
 
So, I've started using Autopilot on the highway for my two hour, twice weekly commute. I try to stay in the center lane. I've noticed though, that sometimes the car (Model 3), moves me to the left lane when there is no one to pass. And, likewise, sometimes moves me back to the center lane when it feels like the car there in front of me is too close. I don't see why it doesn't just stay center unless someone is in front of me. Anyone else noticed this?
As of Dec 2022, with FSD, still constantly "moving out of the right hand lane" on non-expressway 4 lane roads (2 lanes each way), with no one in front of me in right hand lane. I no longer use FSD with anyone else in car on the non-expressway 4 lane roads, since I am constantly fighting the system. I have speed set to 10% over speed limit. As others noted, the action occurs even when someone is approaching from behind in the left lane. The larger issue is that the car tries to automatically move to the left lane, and I have to cancel using the turn signal quickly to stop the action. I always use the setting whereby I have to confirm the lane change, which works on expressways, but the car changes lanes without confirmation on non-expressway multi-lane roads. The car should not change lanes without my confirmation, but it happens all the time with both "moving out of right hand lane" and "changing lane to follow route" (when a lane change is not needed for many miles or never). It is a bug, not a feature, not related to exits, merge lanes, or other excuses. In my Model Y, I have been dealing with it for 20,000 miles over the past year. I have announced "Bug Report" more times than I can count. I keep hoping it will be fixed with next update. I am hoping someone at Tesla looks at these forums. (I still use FSD a lot, including Miami to Seattle round trip and 3 round trips from Miami to Maryland thus far in 2022, but keep hoping the system will improve more quickly relative to fixable issues.)
 
As of Dec 2022, with FSD, still constantly "moving out of the right hand lane" on non-expressway 4 lane roads (2 lanes each way), with no one in front of me in right hand lane. I no longer use FSD with anyone else in car on the non-expressway 4 lane roads, since I am constantly fighting the system. I have speed set to 10% over speed limit. As others noted, the action occurs even when someone is approaching from behind in the left lane. The larger issue is that the car tries to automatically move to the left lane, and I have to cancel using the turn signal quickly to stop the action. I always use the setting whereby I have to confirm the lane change, which works on expressways, but the car changes lanes without confirmation on non-expressway multi-lane roads. The car should not change lanes without my confirmation, but it happens all the time with both "moving out of right hand lane" and "changing lane to follow route" (when a lane change is not needed for many miles or never). It is a bug, not a feature, not related to exits, merge lanes, or other excuses. In my Model Y, I have been dealing with it for 20,000 miles over the past year. I have announced "Bug Report" more times than I can count. I keep hoping it will be fixed with next update. I am hoping someone at Tesla looks at these forums. (I still use FSD a lot, including Miami to Seattle round trip and 3 round trips from Miami to Maryland thus far in 2022, but keep hoping the system will improve more quickly relative to fixable issues.)
No development has occured in highway FSD in quite some time because Tesla has been working on merging the Highway and City software stacks, this will occur in the V11 FSD release slated to happen "Tesla soon" . Current issues will be replaced with a whole new set of issues.