Autopilot Review: AP1 on California Hwy 1

[suraj1194]

I have AP1 (17.26.17) on my car. Recently, we spend a night at Half Moon Bay, taking CA-92W, and then HW-1/I-280 back. On the return, I enabled Autopilot throughout the stretch of Hwy 1 from HMB to San Francisco . This is a route with a variety of features - undivided road, rough pavement in places, assorted lane entrances and exits, and lots of curves to negotiate. I did the entire stretch with hand on wheel - that's not a disclaimer, I didn't believe AP could handle the road characteristics without bailing repeatedly. At least, that was my assumption.

But I was surprised how well AP1 kept a lock onto the lane. It made it across intersections, slowed for merging traffic and took all the curves with a degree of confidence that surprised me, and only disengaged once. On multiple occasions, the car in front drifted left or right into exit lanes, but AP correctly followed the lane rather than follow the car in front or become confused. It took the winding coastal section near perfectly. I expected pingponging due to over/under compensation. But that didn't happen at all. It was impressive to see it take repeated S curves while centering within the lane correctly. Overall, its perforamnce engendered confidence.

AP1 continues to have notable weaknesses, e.g. cresting a hill or bottoming an underpass, especially while driving into sunlight, often causes it to 'go blind' momentarily and disengage. It may lack some originally promised features still (e.g. traffic light identification, which the EyeQ3 hardware can track), but it's still an extremely useful driving assistance platform. It's on for almost all of my significant freeway driving, and during this first hill driving experience in a while, its performance was memorable indeed.

 

[CalBlue 85D]

The performance may also reflect how many Teslas have driven that route. The Bay Area probably has more data collected on our roads than almost any other region. Regardless, it's a great testimony to how well AP1 continues to work as a driver-aide.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[K-MTG]

I had near perfect autopilot experience on mountain roads:

and that was several months ago

 

[EVie'sDad]

We have taken our Model S85D up and down the coast on hwy1 from the Bay Area to Atascadero and up to Medicino just south of Eureka.

Most of the trip in the AP1 was on Manual (I found it to be an invigorating workout), but I am happy to hear improvements are being added, although I doubt I would ever fully trust my vehicle to drive that ever so winding road outside of the central coast. Also split lanes on a coastal or mountainous region is not advised for auto-steering.

Coming back we took 101 either north or south, using AP1 most of the trip, which it is much more suitable for.

Drive safely and enjoy!

 

[AZ Desert Driver]

I just did a road trip from Tucson to Laguna Beach. Shortly (50 miles) after I left Tucson, while comfortably cruising on AP, I got distracted briefly during a truck pass and earned the "red hands of death" - where the AP disengages. I had three passengers and wanted to continue my trip without delaying them - did not want to pull over and reboot AP. So for the next 100+ miles, I drove without the assistance of AP.
Is there any way to re-engage AP without stopping? Put the car in neutral? Apologize to the 17" screen? Drive for 10 min and retry?

I am getting dependent on AP. My passengers each got a chance to drive my car and test AP themselves. Before they got their test drive, they were quite nervous about my use of it. We are so accustom to having hands firmly on the wheel, that brief removal of hands by the pilot causes passengers to encourage returning hands even faster than the white nag-ring.

 

[EVie'sDad]

I just did a road trip from Tucson to Laguna Beach. Shortly (50 miles) after I left Tucson, while comfortably cruising on AP, I got distracted briefly during a truck pass and earned the "red hands of death" - where the AP disengages. I had three passengers and wanted to continue my trip without delaying them - did not want to pull over and reboot AP. So for the next 100+ miles, I drove without the assistance of AP.
Is there any way to re-engage AP without stopping? Put the car in neutral? Apologize to the 17" screen? Drive for 10 min and retry?

I am getting dependent on AP. My passengers each got a chance to drive my car and test AP themselves. Before they got their test drive, they were quite nervous about my use of it. We are so accustom to having hands firmly on the wheel, that brief removal of hands by the pilot causes passengers to encourage returning hands even faster than the white nag-ring.

Are you not aware that you can reboot the center screen and dashboard panels while in transit? No need to 'pull-over' or stop. Also exceeding the AP1 limit (88mph I think) in Autosteer will result in the same 'penalty' (from personal experience).

 

[AZ Desert Driver]

No- I did not know you could reboot while driving. I THOUGHT it was crazy to disconnect the computer from a computer driven car, so that is was blanked out. Any consequences I need to know during the 60 sec of reboot? What is not working?

So- for dashboard screen reboot --> just hold both the thumb scroll wheels down for about 10 sec. And main screen reboot is.. press both buttons above scroll wheel for 10 sec? Which one restores AP?

And I thought exceeding the AP speed limit simply disconnected it. You say hitting 88 mph while AP is engaged results in "red hands". That explains why. I was between two trucks (left and right) and they were getting narrower so I launched out from between them. Gosh I love the acceleration!! and this is when I got red-hands. I thought I was distracted from the white ring nag by traffic.