Autopilot Shortcomings and Limitations

[cambyses]

Hi Folks -- I have had my Model 3 for a bit over a month so far. I don't regret my decision to pay extra for EAP as I do enjoy it overall. I have a long commute from OC to LA and I do feel less tired when I have Autopilot engaged for most, if not all, of my time on the freeway. That being said, clearly there are still limitations and shortcomings that I hope Tesla will sort out as we move forward.

So I thought perhaps we can start a thread where everyone can share what they may view as shortcomings and limitations of Autopilot. Who knows, maybe some Tesla autopilot engineers find this thread useful.

So here is what I would start with:

1) Lane change when nearing freeway exit and the destination lane is too busy: In my experience, the way Autopilot currently handles it doesn't make much sense. It almost stops the car in its current lane waiting for the destination lane to become clear (which, with LA 405 traffic, never happens!). When this happens, you can imagine that the drivers behind you in your current lane don't like it and will probably have some choice words for you . The better way to handle it would be to speed up in your current lane or at least continue moving at a reasonable speed until the lane can be changed.

2) Motorcyclist impact: I have noticed that whenever a motorcyclist passes me, often Autopilot seems to react excessively and engage quick regenerative breaking for no apparent reason. My suspicion is that the algorithms that look at the distance to any object/car, etc. are not properly calibrated for the typical dimensions and the scenario of a passing motorcyclist.

3) Navigate on Autopilot insisting on moving away from the passing lane: With Version 9, Autopilot keeps suggesting to change lanes when you are in the passing lane. I understand the reason behind this and it is OK, except when the passing lane happens to be the Carpool lane! Then it gets annoying I don't think it would be difficult for Autopilot to know when I am in a Carpool lane and if so, stop lane change suggestion.

What else? Share your thoughts...

 

[M3PD]

I just drove 300 highway miles, mostly on autopilot in my Model 3. Here are my top 2 observations:

1) When you are in the right lane and a car comes up an on-ramp to your left, often motorists enter the highway 10-20 MPH slower than the flow of traffic. The autopilot completely misses the chance to speed up slightly to get in front of the slow merging car, and having failed to do that, it is suddenly surprised when that car enters the lane, and it brakes heavily. To avoid this, it is up to the human driver to anticipate this well in advance and move to the left lane before an entrance ramp joins the highway. Tesla needs to study human behavior in merging situations and make this experience smoother. This is related to your #1 suggestion @cambyses, but in this case the Tesla makes itself the victim of bad merging rather than the cause.

2) The self driving algorithm "dives" to the right and quickly corrects back to the left when it encounters an empty on-ramp to the right of the slow lane. It seems to be attempting to stay centered between white lines, so instead of hugging the straight line to the left of the slow lane as a human would do, it tries to take the average distance between the on ramp's right lane marker and the slow lane's left border. It drives me crazy. After some time I would man-handle the steering wheel to override this obnoxious tendency and keep the car going straight, forcing the autosteer to disengage. Autosteer needs to recognize more than just paint to undertsand the correct path in the lane.

 

[wenkan]

When there is a long lane split on the highway, autopilot would try to keep you middle of the lane. Then when it see the lane marker right in the middle it will make a sudden swerve to the inside lane. I guess this is how the accident on 101 happened.

 

[sperkin]

Auto lane change will swerve when it sees an object in the side mirror while already half way into the next lane. It will keep trying to change lanes and then swerve back 3 or 4 times. The car is 2 car length behind yet Auto Lane Change will not complete the change. It's very Annoying and I bet people behind is having a good laugh at me being a bad driver.

 

[Daniel in SD]

2) Motorcyclist impact: I have noticed that whenever a motorcyclist passes me, often Autopilot seems to react excessively and engage quick regenerative breaking for no apparent reason. My suspicion is that the algorithms that look at the distance to any object/car, etc. are not properly calibrated for the typical dimensions and the scenario of a passing motorcyclist.

I noticed last night that autopilot doesn't see motorcyclists reliably when they're in front of you at night. The motorcyclist kept flashing in and out of view on the display and the car would abruptly accelerate and brake as it switched between following the motorcyclist and the car in front of them. I wish there was a way to tone down the acceleration while on autopilot. Or more accurately a way to down down the jerk (derivative of acceleration).