Autopilot in the rain?

[Freedom101]

I got my model X in the summer and haven't drove a ton in the rain yet.

Yesterday it was quite rainy and I had autopilot engaged and noticed a significant amount of sudden jerking. There was also a decent amount tar patching on the road I was on so wondering if it's rain related or maybe it was reading the patches as lines?

 

[ztaylor]

Good thi

I got my model X in the summer and haven't drove a ton in the rain yet.

Yesterday it was quite rainy and I had autopilot engaged and noticed a significant amount of sudden jerking. There was also a decent amount tar patching on the road I was on so wondering if it's rain related or maybe it was reading the patches as lines?

Good thing it doesnt rain much here....I used my today on West Georgia and it was normal. I find the TACC always a bit harsh on the stops

 

[Barklikeadog]

Tesla has the most advanced autopilot system ever developed. this could be operator error

 

[kort677]

Tesla has the most advanced autopilot system ever developed. this could be operator error

probably not operator error, depending on the composition of the road surface, the condition of the road striping, the level of rain could all have an effect on the ability of the system to "see" the road well and it could be adjusting according to the "mixed" signals it is receiving

 

[Superendo]

Tesla has the most advanced autopilot system ever developed. this could be operator error

???? please elaborate. I am new to TMC but i read and saw an thread where a volvo outperformed tesla's EAP by far.

 

[kort677]

???? please elaborate. I am new to TMC but i read and saw an thread where a volvo outperformed tesla's EAP by far.

is volvo's system available for purchase today? if no, then their system is irrelevant.

 

[DarkMatter]

Tar patches have a big impact if they run in the direction of travel. Rain should not be a big deal.

 

[kort677]

Rain should not be a big deal.

try to picture a blacktopped roadway with poor markings and a sheen of water on it, in poor lighting most people let alone a camera system would be able to follow a lane.

 

[365gtb4]

I've run my AP1 S85D in the snow, rain and fog with no problems. My AP2 X90D in the rain. The X performed the same in the rain as in the clear, still not as good as the S.

 

[DarkMatter]

try to picture a blacktopped roadway with poor markings and a sheen of water on it, in poor lighting most people let alone a camera system would be able to follow a lane.

Sure, but that's more than just rain. If the markings are otherwise good I've not experienced any additional squirming due to rain.

 

[Freedom101]

Tesla has the most advanced autopilot system ever developed. this could be operator error

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Although not the most experienced with autopilot I have used it for more than 4000km and have not had an issue until yesterday.

To elaborate, it was jerking me across the center line and the shoulder line. Happened 3 times and I had to break autopilot by turning the wheel. After the 3rd time I shut it off.

Tar patches have a big impact if they run in the direction of travel. Rain should not be a big deal.

I'm thinking more and more that this was the problem and the rain was just coincidental. Quite a few of them ran the same way as the direction of travel so the car could have been reading them as lane markings.

I'll have lots of test time in the rain as we head into winter here...

 

[arcus]

There was also a decent amount tar patching on the road I was on so wondering if it's rain related or maybe it was reading the patches as lines?

That would do it. The autopilot at its current incarnation is best used on clearly marked roads - rain or shine.

Just to put it in perspective, couple of months ago when coming back from our roadtrip we've been caught in a torrential rain outside of Little Rock, AR. So much so that you could barely see the tail lights of the truck ahead. I set my distance to 7 and engaged autopilot. It did better than I would, since you could not see the roadway at all.

 

[Brucesown]

We have a stretch of road with tar lines all over it. Autopilot gets all confused regardless of weather conditions. Haven't had any trouble in rain or fog. And we get a lot.

 

[pdxrajiv]

In Portland, OR (which IMO has climate similar to Vancouver, BC), heavy rain can cause TACC and lane keeping to become unavailable. When the feature is available, I have not experienced any effect on smoothness due to rain.
As others have noted, anything on the road that could be interpreted by the system as a "line" can have a non-trivial effect on the feature's performance.

 

[TexLaw]

I'm also betting on the tar striping. I've had something similar happen in perfect weather on roads with repairs.

 

[BrettS]

I have been through a number of very heavy downpours (We get those a lot and often quite suddenly in Florida). Typically autopilot does well, although in the worst of them I will manually take over simply because while I trust autopilot under most conditions when it gets to the point where I am having a hard time seeing the lines on the road I don’t want to have to take over unexpectedly if autopilot does have an issue.

One thing I have noticed that I thought was kind of interesting is that often during a very very heavy rain autopilot will be cruising along just fine, but I will manually disable it and take over. Once it has been disabled it won’t give me the option to re-enable it until the rain slows down. It seems like it can operate with a lower confidence level in the road markings when it’s already engaged, but it needs a pretty high confidence level to actually engage.

 

[travwill]

AP does bad when there are poor line markings, even sometimes cracks/separations in road with line markings, when it is really wet with puddles, does even worse in bright sunlight towards cameras, doesn't work when directly into cameras on reading lines at times, and just disables in the above conditions and it can't see any other cars to lock onto with radar.

 

[Peteybabes]

autopilot works fine in most rain conditions, be careful for low lighting or extremely heavy rain and make sure to have your wipers set to automatic so that it can wipe away rain as it see fit.

Example of wonderful rain performance below:

 

[kort677]

That would do it. The autopilot at its current incarnation is best used on clearly marked roads - rain or shine.

Just to put it in perspective, couple of months ago when coming back from our roadtrip we've been caught in a torrential rain outside of Little Rock, AR. So much so that you could barely see the tail lights of the truck ahead. I set my distance to 7 and engaged autopilot. It did better than I would, since you could not see the roadway at all.

I have issues on a roadway here in sunny FLA, the road is a concrete surface with faded striping, sometime the can be squireley or it just won't allow ap to work at all.

 

[ztaylor]

Wonder how it would handle the puddles here