Autopilot/TACC - what to be aware of when using.

[Oceanwolf]

I don't want to talk about who crashed their car when using it or horror stories. I commute on 101 in the Bay Area and time to time I turn my autopilot on. Here are a couple just be aware notes;

1. If the driver in the next lane steers towards your lane, the car will not move to the left to keep the distance. It is still watching the lane markings, not the guy who is texting. It is time to move the car your self.
2. The car does not understand lane sharing. When you see motorcycle approaching, get ready to move to the left side of the lane.
3. When you are in the carpool lane, if the car in front of you decides to exit to a very slow moving lane, the car breaks hard instead of veering away and continue. Don't forget the car behind you maybe a car pool cheater playing with his/her cell phone, not paying attention thinking it is a nice flow of traffic.

Tell me if you have tips that you would like to share.

 

[hmmm]

Not exactly tips, but rather 2 observations:

- I tend to play with the the "spacer" (ie setting the distance between my car and the car in front) all the time to adjust to the flow of traffic depending on how aggressive surrounding drivers are. It's fine, just surprising how often I feel the need to adjust it.
- I think AP sometimes annoys the --- out of the car following a Tesla: with AP, the car tends to brake more often, even if slightly (ie more than a human driver would) and so I could see how that gets annoying. AND if all of a sudden the traffic in front opens up as the car following you decides to pass, then you can expect disapproving stares (at least I am ready for them now after a couple of real-life "situations"...). Or maybe it's just me.

 

[Phil Seastrand]

If any of those situations arise, turn off autopilot and drive the car yourself. When the situation is clear, resume autopilot. This is what I do and it's works great for me.

 

[DJ 240V]

1. If the driver in the next lane steers towards your lane, the car will not move to the left to keep the distance. It is still watching the lane markings, not the guy who is texting. It is time to move the car your self.

Does it slow down to avoid collision ?

 

[Oceanwolf]

Does it slow down to avoid collision ?

I wasn't dumb enough to check it out. I generally move the car myself, the autopilot turns off.

 

[DJ 240V]

I wasn't dumb enough to check it out. I generally move the car myself, the autopilot turns off.

Let me rephrase - is it expected to do so?

 

[Oceanwolf]

Let me rephrase - is it expected to do so?

That, I don't know. I have not seen much information in the manual on how the behavior would be. If I were the programmer, I would give the control back to the driver instead of slowing down or speeding up.

 

[chillaban]

Let me rephrase - is it expected to do so?

Honestly, don't count on it. The AP 1 sensors are not high enough resolution to 100% accurately determine if it's going to clip a car or not. Most of the time it assumes the worst and always slows down until a car is well out of your lane. The danger spot is that the car cannot see well in the region about a half car distance to 1 car distance in front of you (e.g. the zone between ultrasonics and radar). If a car suddenly moves into clipping danger zone (tm) at that distance, it may not react.

What the OP said is the right thing to do -- whenever you have any doubt, take over instead of using other drivers as a guinea pig for Autopilot experiments...