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Autopilot issues....

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Hi All

I've had my Model S for 2 months now and love it. What an awesome car. I do a lot of miles (4000 so far!) and use AP for maybe 80% of that, on motorways here in the UK.

So far, autopilot has been very good, but I wanted to run a couple of experience past other owners to see if what I'm experiencing is common. Here we go.

1. Refusal to change lane

Sometimes, when changing lane, the car will just point blank refuse. Even on an absolutely empty road, no vehicles around. You check your blind spot, signal, hold the wheel and give it a gentle nudge in the direction you want to go.
I've even tried this when driving late at night, on an empty road, and had the indicator on 1+ minutes, trying to get it to change lane. Nope. Won't do it.

This drives me mad - and has caused a few drivers to flash me and then I have to force the car over, cancelling AP in the process. Can't pinpoint any conditions under which this occurs, other than seemingly a little more on a curve but that might be wrong. Happens maybe 1 in 10 times, perhaps a little less.

2. Slowing down when changing lane

This I feel is quite dangerous (in the UK anyway). You change lane, and when 50% of the way into the next lane, the car will slow down, as if it had seen something oncoming or had a reason to do so - again this has happened when nothing is around other than the car in front which I am overtaking. Once in the other lane, it speeds up correctly.

Most of the time, the last thing you want is for the car to slow down when doing this - you have traffic behind and need to overtake, then move back over to allow other cars past. You don't want a speeding car up your proverbial.......

3. Phantom red warnings

Sometimes the car will show a red car warning in front for no good reason. Again, can't figure this one out but happens quite rarely.

4. Not seeing cars alongside

I imagine the car would show other vehicles alongside to the left or right, as it comes from behind and overtakes on either side (e.g. in traffic). I swear it used to do this pre v8.0.

5. Cars aren't trucks and vice-versa

Sometimes the car will see a truck (HGV/"big rig") as a car and vice-versa. Again this seems to have change in v8.0 or it could be me imagining it................

Otherwise AP has been fantastic, great on long trips, I just wish it let ME decide when to change lane rather than it taking all day about it (or not at all). The fact that it can take a few seconds to think about it is worrying - a lot can happen in 2 seconds at 70mph. I have been known to scream GO NOW!!! when it fails to move out in a timely manner.

I wish there were a debug/report issue button that you can hit when it does stuff like this, to capture the logs and discover why it decided to do whatever it did (or didn't) do.
 
I'm no expert or anything, but that sounds like something wrong with the sensors on the side of the car, as if they're 'blind' and the car wont allow AP to do something because of the lack of sensor.

Again, just my 2cents, but take it to your SC and get them to check it out!
 
2, 4 & 5 - I have not experienced. Always senses the car and shows a heat map when there is one to the side, but it won't show a car icon, which is to be expected

1- Yes, very often and is very annoying. But I have an idea why it is doing it. It will hesitate and simply refuse to shift lanes:
- if it can't detect the edge of the lane you are trying to shift to.It is has to know for sure that a lane exists and not some random natural boundary like edge of the concrete. That is the lane marking on the far side of your destination lane should be clear to the camera. It should get a high level of confidence that you are indeed shifting a valid lane, and sometimes it is difficult to ascertain that.

- if you have a continuous line or yellow line indicating that you are not allowed to shift. I understand that is not your case, but I have tried it and it will refuse and quite rightly so.

3 - maybe around 4 or 5 times so far in the last 15K miles of AP driving I have seen the phantom red car flashes and warnings.
 
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1) yep, numerous times. never did figure out why.
2) quite the opposite. almost always accelerates to change lanes.
3) twice in 14,000 miles. pulse races for 5 minutes after.
4) if this did occur, i never noticed it.
5) it occasionally displays trucks as cars, but never vice versa. in this case i assume the semi has canvas sides, plastic cover and is running unloaded. but that's just a WAG.
 
I wish there were a debug/report issue button that you can hit when it does stuff like this, to capture the logs and discover why it decided to do whatever it did (or didn't) do.

Just press the voice command and say "bug report" it will exactly do what you waiting for. It will take screenshots of both screens and record what you say and send it along to the devs.
 
Just press the voice command and say "bug report" it will exactly do what you waiting for. It will take screenshots of both screens and record what you say and send it along to the devs.

That's exactly what I needed to know - thanks! I agree it does seem like an issue with the right hand sensors maybe, but I'm not convinced because we drive on the left, and so you always overtake on the right. I can't say I've ever noticed it when moving left but I'll give that more of a try on my next long drive, tomorrow.

I had an issue just after delivery where the front sensors were out of alignment and AP would not engage. SC fixed this.
Guess I'll log it and call the SC.
 
1. Refusal to change lane

2. Slowing down when changing lane

3. Phantom red warnings

4. Not seeing cars alongside

5. Cars aren't trucks and vice-versa
.

A fellow UK owner here, had my Model S for 2 months and noticed 1. quite frequently. Now I don't even attempt a lane change if I can't see the destination lane's far edge on my dash, that's the only way I can be sure I won't look like a fool middling a lane for 10 seconds whilst indicating for no apparent reason.

2. I've also encountered - I believe this is caused by AP seeing the vehicle you're attempting to overtake drifting into your target lane, it isn't actually doing so in real life but the lane transition causes the autopilot's view to be slightly skewed and I often see the car in front momentarily appear to drift into my target lane on the dash.

Also - not always but could this be related to the "no undertaking" functionality? Sometimes when pulling off a busy motorway into a segregated next exit lane my car brakes heavily as it obviously sees the slower traffic to it's right... a simple touch of the accelerator solves this for that autosteer session.

3. Only had once of these, no issues, no brakes etc so thought nothing of it.

4. Not really noticed this issue, I don't rely on blind spot sensors/warnings but it would be nice...

5. All the time.
 
I had Auto Lane Change fail(as in it didn't change lanes when I hit the turn signal) during a trip. After the third time, I called Tesla service from my car(instead of starting a forum thread titled "Tesla Autopilot Failure!"). The super nice Tesla service rep suggested I check my settings to ensure Auto Lane Change was enabled(it wasn't:oops:). I enabled Auto Lane Change, apologized for being a dumbass and they pleasantly stated they deal with this type of thing all the time and to call again if I have any further issues.
 
1. Refusal to change lane


2. Slowing down when changing lane


3. Phantom red warnings


4. Not seeing cars alongside


5. Cars aren't trucks and vice-versa

I have had my MS for a 2.5 months and have done about 1,000m on auto pilot. My 2p...

1) Has happened a few times. For me it happens every time that the lane markings are longer and closely packed together, i.e. hazard warning lines (Hazard Warning Lines – Driving Test Tips). MS detects them as a solid line and does not change lanes. Happens quite frequently closer to motorway exits.

2) Has happened once or twice. Generally the car should be tracking the car on the right lane if it is slower and won't overtake from the left. However, if it has not picked up the car on the right then it gets in lane and notices that the car in front is slower.

3) Have had 3 red warnings. All of them were valid. Once it detected stopping traffic before I had and the car went bananas.

4) Don't think that I have ever seen cars alongside. Cars alongside come up in the edge radars (the ones that light up with parking sensor). Personally, better side car detection, especially blind spot, can be better. I am sure MS is detecting them but just not putting them up on the display.

5) Had this yesterday. There was a truck with a crane on it and it kept flipping between a car and a truck. I suspect it works on height and the edge of the truck must have been borderline.