Autopilot slammed on breaks in middle of highway

[Tampaukfan]

Your signature says you are in Tampa.. the whole Tampa section is under construction.
Your pic is of Pasco county... Which is not and autopilot worked perfect for me in that area.

sigh... It is a very long road. The whole thing is not under construction.

Do you think this looks unsafe for autopilot?

 

[Ulmo]

1st. Tesla did call me today. Which is great. They were also very nice about it. They have not pulled the logs yet. I have an appointment tomorrow anyways to get my 12V system fixed so they said they would address it then.

Also, I looked back and I believe this is where it happened, right under/near this sign. I was in the middle lane.

I see the shadow actually hits the cars that drive under that sign. Although shadows aren't dangerous, perhaps the car didn't know it was just a shadow.

 

[Electroman]

Autopilot is the kind of feature that even a test drive will not really give you an idea if it is a really useful feature or not. You have to own the car and drive it around for a few hundred miles over a period of many days for you to get a feel for it and get comfortable with it. You will then start to appreciate it and will realize that this is the best feature any car manufacturer has ever introduced that reduces your stress like no other - hands down.

Unfortunately there are a few here in this forum - a select handful, i guess probably less than 5% - who incessantly complain about AP because they:

• either use it in situations that are not really conducive for AP, like back roads, surface streets, construction zones, mountain roads, roads with bots instead of lines, roads that look like roller-coaster, driving 10 or 15 miles over the speed limit
• or had a one time event that could not be explained, etc..

And these folks are so loud that the rest of the majority of the folks who enjoy AP everyday are not heard much.

So for a newbie I can understand how confusing it can be and can come to wrong conclusion that AP is gimmick, even after test driving a few times.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I think it's important to keep in mind that any car with Automatic emergency braking does have a slight chance of a false positive causing the car to unexpectedly brake. On the Tesla this is a really quick slow down of at least 25mph which would be startling. Luckily I haven't had this happen. As to TACC I've never seen it brake so hard that I couldn't easily hit the gas to correct it.

Simply getting a different car from a different manufacture doesn't mean that it won't also have false positives on one of those systems on a rare occasion.

 

[Electroman]

Lots of crazy stories.. I have read so many stories like these in this forum. One of them actually convinced me to not go ahead with my MS order.

Not really. You read the same person repeating it over and over with different over-dramatic verbiage.

While GolfingBuddha's one time event is something that sure seems an AP issue and needs to be fixed, every one of the accidents that has been reported here so far, has been primarily through a situation where basic common sense would tell them the conditions were not good for AP - construction zones, mountain roads, roads with no shoulder, undivided back roads with two way traffic or worse cross traffic etc.

In my daily commute of close to 80 miles round trip around 10 miles are not AP friendly. I sure can let AP drive in those sections also, but I know it will sure cause me panic some day. So I just use AP everyday the rest of the 70 miles and don't bother about those AP unfriendly sections.

And identifying those sections is fairly easy. Just use common sense.

 

[SDRick]

Lots of crazy stories.. I have read so many stories like these in this forum. One of them actually convinced me to not go ahead with my MS order.

This is a common reaction for many who read automobile forums. There is probably not a car or forum out there that if read closely would not cause pause to one purchasing that particular vehicle. There are no perfect cars and the forums are quick to point that out no matter the brand.

 

[Zybd1201]

sigh... It is a very long road. The whole thing is not under construction.

Your signature says you are in Tampa.. the whole Tampa section is under construction.
Your pic is of Pasco county... Which is not and autopilot worked perfect for me in that area.

I live in Tampa. However, I have been known to travel long stretches of highways to get to and from places outside of Tampa on a regular basis. ;-) I have a dashcam with two cameras. One of the cameras is pointed at myself at all times, the other and the road in front of me. If you feel it is necessary I would be happy to video my entire commute and you can see the problems I am having on clearly marked and safe roads.

 

[Zybd1201]

In my daily commute of close to 80 miles round trip around 10 miles are not AP friendly. I sure can let AP drive in those sections also, but I know it will sure cause me panic some day. So I just use AP everyday the rest of the 70 miles and don't bother about those AP unfriendly sections.

And identifying those sections is fairly easy. Just use common sense.

I do the same thing. in fact, there is a random spot on perfect highway that every single night my AP just decides to dart across the lane to the lane beside me (where the is a toll). It is quite strange (maybe I'll post a video tonight). I just know that at that spot I have to turn it off and then turn it back on again.

I don't think AP is a gimmick and I use it every day. I do think it is not as good as I was told it is, though. In fact, there are times in can be outright dangerous and unpredictable/inconsistent.

Now, I have had other problems with my car (documented elsewhere). So maybe something is wrong with MY autopilot. I don't know.

 

[zambono]

The last update has caused AP to do this 3 times over the weekend. There were no cars in front, could have been a low sun but not sure. I rebooted both systems and it helped

 

[zambono]

The last update has caused AP to do this 3 times over the weekend. There were no cars in front, could have been a low sun but not sure. I rebooted both systems and it helped

I should add that it has never been slamming on brakes , more like full regen

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Which is exactly my concern. Also, who is responsible? I did not apply the breaks and as soon as I noted a dangerous situation had occurred I immediately intervened and was ready to do so because I was alert and not distracted.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE autopilot btw and am passionate about a future with zero auto fatalities because of autonomous cars.

BRAKES please, not "breaks" . . .

 

[sbrand]

I think the issue here is that occasionally Telsa's map data on highways, even divided highways, gets requests to limit autopilot to no more than 5mph over a certain speed. Perhaps that's from temporary construction or repair work. Anyway, the problem I've seen is that the removal of this temporary restriction lags the need for it. So, for instance, a regular drive westbound from Allston Tolls on the MA Turnpike should not be and is usually not autopilot speed enforced. But last week for 2 days it was, for no apparent reason. The effect was that I was suddenly braking from 65mph to 15mph. I saw the dash pop up the reason: autopilot limited to 5mph over 15... I turned off autopilot. 2 days later, the limitation was gone and it was back to normal. I am pretty convinced this is what happened to OP.

 

[Mleitko]

I too was driving on a Freeway (99 in Houston) on autopilot at 75 m/hr and my Tesla S went to an almost complete stop for no reason! It scared me to death!! Thankfully there were no casualties s behind me....Will call Tesla to let them know!!

 

[SDRick]

What year, model and AP are you running?

 

[bob_p]

Part of the problem appears to be the poor speed limit data coming from the changeover to TomTom - that has so many areas with missing or incorrect speed limits, I've given up on reporting them.

If a highway has incorrectly low or a missing speed limit, AutoSteer will immediately slow down when it hits the area. In the Houston area, I've noticed this is several places.

There also still seems to be a false warning periodically with overhead signs - which causes a slowdown when passing under them. It's seems to happen less often in the most recent update to our car - but it has still happened.

As long as you treat AutoSteer as a student driver, that's learning - and getting better, it's OK.

Looking forward to the next release - and why did Tesla change their speed limit data? That wasn't in the release notes - and no official announcement...

 

[spc]

AP1 here. received my car in apr 2015 and all worked great until update to V8. Now all is broken and Tesla seems not to be able to get it fixed.
Many times my car slammed on the brakes with nothing ahead like described in earlier posts. or when following someone that pulled over on the left lane and slowed down, even once in front of a large 18 wheeler, a car pulled over on the left and mine break hard, I heard the screech of his tires while I reacted and stomped on the accelerator not to be hit from behind. My fault or not I dont care to be hit from behind much less be run over.
How about the drunkenness mentioned in a post earliest going up a small hill close to the top the car will weave from one side to the other clipping both lane makers and watch out it will do it again on the other side just after cresting.
At times leaving the roadway on the left or going over the center line by over a foot.
I always have the settings at 7 and never trust what it is going to do. I complained to Tesla several times, taken it into service... with the same response "NTF".
It has scared wife and I several time when it try to pull too close to a truck we are passing it like it is not there. Display show nothing.
Although I have learned to never let my hands off the wheal and my foot on the pedal ready, I tend to turn it off as I approach a situation I know it will misbehave. Not a "FEATURE" I would say is worth the money we paid in a car this expensive.
I would not mind to have V7 back on my car again, it did not do any of it.
Keep in mind that anything over 55 even with the setting at 7 and early warning set, the car will tend to break hard when it see another stopped ahead. Really, not worth the passenger scare so I don't wait for it to decide for me, I turn it off when I feel it should.... dreaming here... maybe it will learn when it should start slowing down.. HA HA HA.
Good luck and be smart, be safe. I sure hope ap2 is better with all the cameras and sensors, it better not do this, Ill be very disappointed with my new car about to arrive.

 

[JenniferQ]

I've had TACC slam on the breaks for an impending crash into a ghost car. A car suddenly appears on the display in red right in front of my car, the collision alert sounds and the car hits the breaks hard, but, there's nothing actually there. I assumed it was something hitting the sensors confusing the system.

I had this exact same thing happen Friday with the "ghost car." My car showed a "ghost car" in red in the display and started braking aggressively. I accelerated and kept it going. That's the first time that has ever happened to me and I thought maybe it was because my car had recently been repaired after road debris damage and they had to recalibrate AP. Now, I'm not sure.

And now I've had suspension issues as well. I've definitely lost some confidence in the "car that broke Consumer Reports rating system" which is what made me decide to purchase in the first place! But I still love AP and hope to regain trust in the car.

 

[smilepak]

That happened to me three or four times via 91 Express Lane here in CA. I suspect it has to do with two things. Those damn tall stick dividers that is 6-12 inch apart throwing off the sensor or second, I was going over 60 mph while the lane to my right outside the express lane was traffic stand still and it happen right where the lane starting to curve a bit. Making the sensor see in front of it cars at stand still. All the times it happened was about the same area, so I suspect the latter in the scenarios

Luckily each time I immediately tap on pedal and it disengaged the AP

 

[cantanko]

Happened to me on my second test drive (!) - although in this instance I reckon I could see what the car was 'thinking'. 70MPH dual carriageway with open fields to left and right. Tributary road perpendicular to the dual carriageway had a car approaching at speed. Knowing the road, the car would turn through a sweeping left onto a slip road / merge lane, but if its speed and trajectory hadn't changed it would have intersected our path almost perfectly. In that instance, I think AP2 decided it was going to apply pre-collision as it didn't appreciate the road layout of the merging traffic.

Given that the radar and / or camera(s) can produce a point cloud with range and bearing, you'd have thought it would be able to place other cars on other roads and predict paths of other traffic. I'm guessing Tesla aren't doing that yet

Didn't really change my purchasing decision as the braking was cured with a bootful of throttle, same as correcting any other automated system when it mispredicts...

 

[tomas]

Or I'm on my iPhone which autocorrects everything.... As it sees fit. My car slams. On its BRAKES without me and my iPhone decides to say what it wants... ;-) either way, there is a legitimate conversation to be had here too

Hmm between your auto pilot car and your auto correct phone maybe you are letting technology do too much for you?