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Autopilot seems useless

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I just started driving my new 2023 MYP. I didnt purchase the additional autopilot versions as I wanted to first see how the base autopilot works.

I am very underwhelmed with the self driving on the base version after reading all the hype!

Little blue light comes on constantly to remind me to put hands on steering wheel and to do minor correction. Guess what hands ARE on the wheel and when/if I giggle the wheel like it asks sometimes it disconnects anyhow.
I find it useless as I have to constantly move the steering wheel not because I need to correct direction but to tell it i am Present. Its more work than me driving the car. And more distracting as I am looking at the stupid screen for the blue light.
Often it goes caput for the “rest of the trip”.

As I write this I feel like it would be a colossal waste of my money for the 6000 or 15000 dollar versions.

Any feedback appreciated. Maybe its just my experience or I am doing something wrong. I trully want to be wrong here!!
 
Mine works great for me. But there was another recent thread where the person’s AP only stayed engaged for 15-30 minutes. The $6K version probably is a colossal waste. I would love to have the auto lane change, but it’s not worth that much to me.
 
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I just started driving my new 2023 MYP. I didnt purchase the additional autopilot versions as I wanted to first see how the base autopilot works.

I am very underwhelmed with the self driving on the base version after reading all the hype!

Little blue light comes on constantly to remind me to put hands on steering wheel and to do minor correction. Guess what hands ARE on the wheel and when/if I giggle the wheel like it asks sometimes it disconnects anyhow.
I find it useless as I have to constantly move the steering wheel not because I need to correct direction but to tell it i am Present. Its more work than me driving the car. And more distracting as I am looking at the stupid screen for the blue light.
Often it goes caput for the “rest of the trip”.

As I write this I feel like it would be a colossal waste of my money for the 6000 or 15000 dollar versions.

Any feedback appreciated. Maybe its just my experience or I am doing something wrong. I trully want to be wrong here!!

It's a computer so it does experience computer crashes sometimes and the Autopilot can suddenly scream that it is down with no prior notice.

After a while, you'll learn how to hold your steering wheel so you won't be penalized by the robot. We, humans, have to please the robot!

More expensive versions are based on what you have right now: TACC and AutoSteer. If you are not happy with those 2 basic, you won't be happy with the $15,000 version either.
 
It's a computer so it does experience computer crashes sometimes and the Autopilot can suddenly scream that it is down with no prior notice.

After a while, you'll learn how to hold your steering wheel so you won't be penalized by the robot. We, humans, have to please the robot!

More expensive versions are based on what you have right now: TACC and AutoSteer. If you are not happy with those 2 basic, you won't be happy with the $15,000 version either.
Thank you for that explanation. I will keep playing with the basic AP and at some point i guess I can rent the full for a bit to check it out.
For now when it works its fun but just that.
 
I just started driving my new 2023 MYP. I didnt purchase the additional autopilot versions as I wanted to first see how the base autopilot works.

I am very underwhelmed with the self driving on the base version after reading all the hype!

Little blue light comes on constantly to remind me to put hands on steering wheel and to do minor correction. Guess what hands ARE on the wheel and when/if I giggle the wheel like it asks sometimes it disconnects anyhow.
I find it useless as I have to constantly move the steering wheel not because I need to correct direction but to tell it i am Present. Its more work than me driving the car. And more distracting as I am looking at the stupid screen for the blue light.
Often it goes caput for the “rest of the trip”.

As I write this I feel like it would be a colossal waste of my money for the 6000 or 15000 dollar versions.

Any feedback appreciated. Maybe its just my experience or I am doing something wrong. I trully want to be wrong here!!
You just need to get accustom to how much wiggle to put on the wheel, I went through the same experience as you when I first started using it. You'll get the hang of it. Base autopilot works great for me on freeways. Use it all the time.
 
I just started driving my new 2023 MYP. I didnt purchase the additional autopilot versions as I wanted to first see how the base autopilot works.

I am very underwhelmed with the self driving on the base version after reading all the hype!

Little blue light comes on constantly to remind me to put hands on steering wheel and to do minor correction. Guess what hands ARE on the wheel and when/if I giggle the wheel like it asks sometimes it disconnects anyhow.
I find it useless as I have to constantly move the steering wheel not because I need to correct direction but to tell it i am Present. Its more work than me driving the car. And more distracting as I am looking at the stupid screen for the blue light.
Often it goes caput for the “rest of the trip”.

As I write this I feel like it would be a colossal waste of my money for the 6000 or 15000 dollar versions.

Any feedback appreciated. Maybe its just my experience or I am doing something wrong. I trully want to be wrong here!!

I thought I was the only one..I was telling my wife the exact thing that autopilot is just hype and underwhelming. I have only driven 500 miles in 2 weeks but autopilot hasn’t made me scream “wow”…I am more impressed with headlights that change from bright to dim on winding roads…don’t know if it’s due to the matrix lights or that’s how Tesla’s lights are but that has made me say wow out loud..autopilot is meh!
 
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You just need to get accustom to how much wiggle to put on the wheel, I went through the same experience as you when I first started using it. You'll get the hang of it. Base autopilot works great for me on freeways. Use it all the time.
Hope you are right and its not just that the 2023 has gotten worse than prior year models. They clearly made some changes as for example the magnet stopped working on the 2023.
Are you driving a 2023model? Ive been in a 2021 MYP with a magnet on the wheel and its great.
 
Hope you are right and its not just that the 2023 has gotten worse than prior year models. They clearly made some changes as for example the magnet stopped working on the 2023.
Are you driving a 2023model? Ive been in a 2021 MYP with a magnet on the wheel and its great.
I'm driving a 2022 MYP made 12/2021 . Never used a magnet on the wheel or any cheat device, autopilot stopped nagging me all the time once I got the hang of it.
 
The basic Autopilot operation leaves much to be desired. The TACC is adequate but not great. The Autosteer portion is the infuriating part.

It feels like you’re constantly fighting it. You have to force the wheel to change lanes which disables it and you have to re-engage. It only keeps you dead center in the lane and you can’t bias yourself to one side or the other. You try to lightly jiggle the wheel but it’s often either not enough or too much and it disengages.

In my old vehicle you can have lane assist on and it will still let you deviate within the lane to avoid ruts or potholes or give more space to cars on the shoulder or semis in the other lane, etc. And when changing lanes it pauses lane assist when the signal is on and resumes automatically once the lane change is completed. You never feel like you’re fighting it. Never had hands off nags unless I was actually intentionally testing it with my hands off to see how long before it nags me.
 
The basic Autopilot operation leaves much to be desired. The TACC is adequate but not great. The Autosteer portion is the infuriating part.

It feels like you’re constantly fighting it. You have to force the wheel to change lanes which disables it and you have to re-engage. It only keeps you dead center in the lane and you can’t bias yourself to one side or the other. You try to lightly jiggle the wheel but it’s often either not enough or too much and it disengages.

In my old vehicle you can have lane assist on and it will still let you deviate within the lane to avoid ruts or potholes or give more space to cars on the shoulder or semis in the other lane, etc. And when changing lanes it pauses lane assist when the signal is on and resumes automatically once the lane change is completed. You never feel like you’re fighting it. Never had hands off nags unless I was actually intentionally testing it with my hands off to see how long before it nags me.
The old autopilot, AP1, never nagged. It wasn't even a thing it was programmed to do. You could nudge the wheel to deviate within a lane quite a bit - useful for passing a truck, for example - without disengagement.

Those things were taken away.

It's sad that autopilot is less useful now than it was in 2015.
 
I just hold the wheel lightly with one hand in the 4 or 8 o'clock position, letting my hand just hang there, and when the car goes around sharper corners, I release a little and let the wheel slide through my hand until the car is going mostly straight again. I pretty much never get nags this way. I don't think it's meant to be used by keeping your hands off the wheel all the time and just wiggling it when it nags. I do wish they would allow us to keep hands off the wheel without nags, though, at least on highways if the camera can see that we're paying attention.
 
The old autopilot, AP1, never nagged. It wasn't even a thing it was programmed to do. You could nudge the wheel to deviate within a lane quite a bit - useful for passing a truck, for example - without disengagement.

Those things were taken away.

It's sad that autopilot is less useful now than it was in 2015.
Where do I even start...

When AP1 was released, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (from a technology timeframe), there wasn't much legislation with regards to autonomous features. The tech was so new and evolving so rapidly that it took government time to catch up. In the meantime people were setting AP and falling asleep or climbing in the back seat and making YT videos about it. Police were having to surround Tesla cars and forcing them to slow down to a stop. So regulators started putting pressure to have some technical solution to confirm the driver was paying attention. Hence the wheel torque "nag" came to be.

Then idiots found a way to circumvent the safety feature, and regulators once again put pressure to improve safety, and an arms race began. Wheel weight detection, cabin camera monitoring, and so on.

It has nothing to do with how superior AP1 was. It has to do with idiots who have to ruin it for everyone.
 
Where do I even start...

When AP1 was released, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (from a technology timeframe), there wasn't much legislation with regards to autonomous features. The tech was so new and evolving so rapidly that it took government time to catch up. In the meantime people were setting AP and falling asleep or climbing in the back seat and making YT videos about it. Police were having to surround Tesla cars and forcing them to slow down to a stop. So regulators started putting pressure to have some technical solution to confirm the driver was paying attention. Hence the wheel torque "nag" came to be.

Then idiots found a way to circumvent the safety feature, and regulators once again put pressure to improve safety, and an arms race began. Wheel weight detection, cabin camera monitoring, and so on.

It has nothing to do with how superior AP1 was. It has to do with idiots who have to ruin it for everyone.
Not being able to nudge the car anymore has nothing to do with safety. It's the opposite, since I can no longer tell the car to drift *away* from a truck riding the line in an adjacent lane.

The rest, I agree with to a point, and I understand the history - I drove a Model S through it. Even with the nags, I recently fell asleep on AutoPilot but with hand-on-wheel, I drove for miles like that. (Mea culpa, I shouldn't have been driving if I was that sleepy. AP saved me, but those stories don't make the news.) So, the nags utterly failed in the one case they should have been useful.

I saw a YouTube clip of a guy driving his truck down the road and he gets out any literally lies on the hood - and promptly crashes into a pole. What's the technical solution for that? You can't save people from themselves. I guess what I'm saying is that after almost 8 years of Autopilot, I haven't really seen any working safety improvements. I have, however, seen performance degradation as a result of trying. As such, AP1, as released, was indeed superior to what I have now, and I don't feel like buying a HW3/4 car would be any better. I could be wrong, as I haven't driven HW3+.
 
I just started driving my new 2023 MYP. I didnt purchase the additional autopilot versions as I wanted to first see how the base autopilot works.

I am very underwhelmed with the self driving on the base version after reading all the hype!

Little blue light comes on constantly to remind me to put hands on steering wheel and to do minor correction. Guess what hands ARE on the wheel and when/if I giggle the wheel like it asks sometimes it disconnects anyhow.
I find it useless as I have to constantly move the steering wheel not because I need to correct direction but to tell it i am Present. Its more work than me driving the car. And more distracting as I am looking at the stupid screen for the blue light.
Often it goes caput for the “rest of the trip”.

As I write this I feel like it would be a colossal waste of my money for the 6000 or 15000 dollar versions.

Any feedback appreciated. Maybe its just my experience or I am doing something wrong. I trully want to be wrong here!!
Yup, we are all beta testers. I agree that it's more work to be a beta tester constantly training the system. I no longer use AP, just too much work. I have a Feb 2022 MSLR with just the basic autopilot (TACC and autosteer).
 
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The old autopilot, AP1, never nagged. It wasn't even a thing it was programmed to do. You could nudge the wheel to deviate within a lane quite a bit - useful for passing a truck, for example - without disengagement.

Those things were taken away.

It's sad that autopilot is less useful now than it was in 2015.
Incorrect.

My 2015 Model S with HW1 autopilot required periodic torque on the steering wheel, or scroll wheel use, just like HW3 does in my Model 3.

HW1 also insisted on staying in the center of the lane. Search “truck lust” on TMC to see how owners did not like this when passing semis. Tesla did improve this, but before they did it was very unsettling espically for passengers.

GSP
 
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Incorrect.

My 2015 Model S with HW1 autopilot required periodic torque on the steering wheel, or scroll wheel use, just like HW3 does in my Model 3.

HW1 also insisted on staying in the center of the lane. Search “truck lust” on TMC to see how owners did not like this when passing semis. Tesla did improve this, but before they did it was very unsettling espically for passengers.

GSP
Mine did not have nags, not with the original software - 7.0 or 7.1. Nags were a brand new thing at one time - AP originally didn't even have the concept. I could literally drive for hours without touching the wheel. I didn't, but I could have. Then an OTA update brought nags. Nags were every few minutes. Now I think it's variable based on time and speed.
Also, I could nudge the car by applying slight torque to the wheel. It was possible to move all the way over to where the wheels touched the lane line. This countered the truck lust. Then an update took away that ability.

I think I'm done with this discussion since it's now pretty much off-topic for this thread. Sorry about that, OP.
 
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