We've had our Model 3 for less than two weeks, and have put almost 1,000 miles on it. I have been getting used to EAP - figuring when I fully trust it, predicting its behavior, etc. The following two cases occurred within a few minutes of each other and were both instances in which EAP made me feel less safe and created a situation that would have probably been safer if I had been in full control. I wonder if I should have done something differently or whether these are just examples of the limitations of EAP as it currently stands. My hope is that with future updates some of these nuances will improve, and I'm sure they will.
1) I was traveling on the highway in the second-to-left lane in EAP with a max setting speed of 70-72, traveling in the high 60s. Follow distance 3 or 4. Traffic was moving above the limit of 65 but it was moderately busy (a Sunday afternoon). A car was gradually passing me in the left lane, moving maybe 2-3 mph faster. One or two cars ahead of me suddenly moved out of my lane, opening up my lane. Of course, EAP suddenly sped up. This led to me sticking to the blind spot of the car that was passing me on my left. That driver thought he had left me behind and started moving into my lane. As I said, I was pretty much right in his blind spot so we would have definitely collided. I don't remember exactly the sequence of events after that point other than [I think] there was some kind of warning sound, I jerked the wheel right and then left and swerved wildly mostly within my lane and possibly into the next lane and my wife freaked the heck out. Fortunately there was no collision. I'm not sure if the other driver ever even realized what happened because I didn't even have a chance to honk as I was reacting.
This was a perfect example of why you have to watch the road and keep your hands on the wheel when using AP, and an instance in which AP itself can get into a hairy situation even when conditions seem ideal for its use. I was watching this happen in real-time so was able to avoid the collision - I know my reaction came before or just as there was some kind of warning siren. And I don't think EAP would have been able to avoid the collision by swerving or braking but of course I don't know the answer to that since I took over.
Now this is a pretty common highway driving occurrence. I think most of us (when not using AP) would deal with this by simply allowing a car to pass. It's obviously poor form to sort of "race" or stick to a car that's passing you on the left unless you're trying to be a jerk. But this is exactly what EAP did. It seems the car does have the information needed to fine-tune the behavior in this scenario beyond "speed up to max until following distance reached," integrating data from the side sensors/cams, and hopefully that's what we'll see in the future.
2) The second scenario again had to do with EAP speeding up to its max setting, this time in stop-and-go, and I'm wondering if there was something I should have done to mitigate the issue. 55mph highway stop-and-go, following distance set to 2 I believe. Max speed setting was maybe 45mph because traffic had been flowing before it came to a standstill. Again had the occurrence of many cars moving out of the lane ahead of me somewhat in unison, which caused EAP to accelerate rapidly to close the gap. Needless to say that's pretty unsafe when everyone around you is stopped or moving at less than 5mph and could move into your lane at any second. I think I realized this as it was happening and tried rapidly lowering my max speed setting on the screen, which caused EAP to cancel (?). I'm not sure why it canceled - was it because I was trying to set the max speed too low on a 55mph road? What AP settings do you guys use when you get to stop-and-go to avoid this kind of situation?
Apologies for the rambling novel - just wanted to get my thoughts down and figure out what I could have done differently.
1) I was traveling on the highway in the second-to-left lane in EAP with a max setting speed of 70-72, traveling in the high 60s. Follow distance 3 or 4. Traffic was moving above the limit of 65 but it was moderately busy (a Sunday afternoon). A car was gradually passing me in the left lane, moving maybe 2-3 mph faster. One or two cars ahead of me suddenly moved out of my lane, opening up my lane. Of course, EAP suddenly sped up. This led to me sticking to the blind spot of the car that was passing me on my left. That driver thought he had left me behind and started moving into my lane. As I said, I was pretty much right in his blind spot so we would have definitely collided. I don't remember exactly the sequence of events after that point other than [I think] there was some kind of warning sound, I jerked the wheel right and then left and swerved wildly mostly within my lane and possibly into the next lane and my wife freaked the heck out. Fortunately there was no collision. I'm not sure if the other driver ever even realized what happened because I didn't even have a chance to honk as I was reacting.
This was a perfect example of why you have to watch the road and keep your hands on the wheel when using AP, and an instance in which AP itself can get into a hairy situation even when conditions seem ideal for its use. I was watching this happen in real-time so was able to avoid the collision - I know my reaction came before or just as there was some kind of warning siren. And I don't think EAP would have been able to avoid the collision by swerving or braking but of course I don't know the answer to that since I took over.
Now this is a pretty common highway driving occurrence. I think most of us (when not using AP) would deal with this by simply allowing a car to pass. It's obviously poor form to sort of "race" or stick to a car that's passing you on the left unless you're trying to be a jerk. But this is exactly what EAP did. It seems the car does have the information needed to fine-tune the behavior in this scenario beyond "speed up to max until following distance reached," integrating data from the side sensors/cams, and hopefully that's what we'll see in the future.
2) The second scenario again had to do with EAP speeding up to its max setting, this time in stop-and-go, and I'm wondering if there was something I should have done to mitigate the issue. 55mph highway stop-and-go, following distance set to 2 I believe. Max speed setting was maybe 45mph because traffic had been flowing before it came to a standstill. Again had the occurrence of many cars moving out of the lane ahead of me somewhat in unison, which caused EAP to accelerate rapidly to close the gap. Needless to say that's pretty unsafe when everyone around you is stopped or moving at less than 5mph and could move into your lane at any second. I think I realized this as it was happening and tried rapidly lowering my max speed setting on the screen, which caused EAP to cancel (?). I'm not sure why it canceled - was it because I was trying to set the max speed too low on a 55mph road? What AP settings do you guys use when you get to stop-and-go to avoid this kind of situation?
Apologies for the rambling novel - just wanted to get my thoughts down and figure out what I could have done differently.