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"Autopilot unavailable for remainder of drive"
- Thread starter NeoDog
- Start date
Oh, goody, this thread again. I know new members have a few functions that are not available, like avatars and edits, until they have a certain number of posts. Is the search function also disabled?
As stated above, and a few thousand times in other threads, the main issue is HANDS on the wheel. ONE HAND, folks, on one side of the wheel. If you have big hands and heavy arms, then grip or rest almost to the bottom of the curve of the wheel, but still on the side. If you have small hands/light arms, then grip the wheel further up the side, which will put more weight (therefore torque) on the wheel. Around curves, just let your hand stay on the wheel, still exerting a little force downward.
I NEVER get warnings. I have NEVER been put in a corner for not having "hands" on the wheel.
Being in the doghouse for going faster than 90 mph with AP on? Yeah, I have season tickets.
One factor that may or may not have an effect on how well this works is the steering setting -- mine is on Sport, so maybe it is a little more sensitive to the torque? I don't know, but it may be a factor in why some people seem to want to drive their car off a cliff, and others are perfectly happy.
As stated above, and a few thousand times in other threads, the main issue is HANDS on the wheel. ONE HAND, folks, on one side of the wheel. If you have big hands and heavy arms, then grip or rest almost to the bottom of the curve of the wheel, but still on the side. If you have small hands/light arms, then grip the wheel further up the side, which will put more weight (therefore torque) on the wheel. Around curves, just let your hand stay on the wheel, still exerting a little force downward.
I NEVER get warnings. I have NEVER been put in a corner for not having "hands" on the wheel.
Being in the doghouse for going faster than 90 mph with AP on? Yeah, I have season tickets.
One factor that may or may not have an effect on how well this works is the steering setting -- mine is on Sport, so maybe it is a little more sensitive to the torque? I don't know, but it may be a factor in why some people seem to want to drive their car off a cliff, and others are perfectly happy.
My concern is that I'd be holding with enough force to stop the nagging, and THEN Autopilot turns itself off on its own. At that moment, if I'm traveling at high speeds, I have a an unsafe amount of torque applied to the wheel which could turn the wheel say 45 degrees or so, which again is a lot at high speeds. The only scenario I can think of where this would happen is if Autopilot gets into an emergency situation and declares "take over immediately". I believe when this happens it disengages Autopilot and the steering wheel would then move freely.
Yes, it means torque. My wife told me she was kept squeezing the steering wheel and the warning never went away, I tried not to chuckle, which isn't fair because the car doesn't give great clues about what it means (at least now it uses the word "force" instead of "hold"). Things got a lot better for her when I told her it senses steering forces, i.e. torque, and nothing else. Yes, honey, it is counterintuitive because the car is steering and you'd think it would actually be confused by your help, but do it anyway.
No, this doesn't mean I'll never see another nag. Some people are saying they do this already and it's not enough. I think hanging on the wheel would be enough for me, but it represents an uncomfortable amount of strain and I decline to do it, especially over long distances. I expect the car to tell me when it needs some reassurance, and when it does I'll give it... momentarily. If my tires pull, I'll replace them. If the road pulls, I'll put up with it for awhile, but seek another lane or another route. I will not put more continuous force on the wheel than I would put on it if I were driving without the car's help, and in general my car can keep to its lane with a light touch.
So, the car is making me choose between repetitive strain injury and a high-maintenance automation experience. I'm picking the latter, but it's not exactly a fitting choice for a luxury brand.
What works depends somewhat on the road being driven. A slightly curvaceous road with a light touch works fine, because as the car tries to steer, IT is putting torque on the wheel and the light touch is enough to resist that movement which is good enough to register as driver presence. On long straight roads, there isn't much steering being done, so the car gets little feedback from a light touch. Putting a little torque on the wheel all the time is easier and does not require conscious effort. I switch hands frequently, do other motions like lane changes and media adjustments, so I doubt RSI is much of a problem. My hand has to rest somewhere, so it might as well be on the wheel.
There have been a LOT of times I was glad I had my hand on the wheel.
Oh, goody, this thread again. I know new members have a few functions that are not available, like avatars and edits, until they have a certain number of posts. Is the search function also disabled?
Maybe not disabled, but it could be maimed. I searched yesterday for the terms in "Autopilot unavailable for remainder of drive" and I got nothing. Today, I get exactly the posts in this thread. I couldn't think of a better way to zero in on the topic... how could a thread exist and not mention the admonishing message from the car? I was truly surprised to find nothing, so I tried multiple things.
If I search today omitting the word "unavailable", I find "Autosteer put me in the penalty box?" as result 26 of 28. That's a pretty good match for the topic. It's possible the search engine returned the result I was looking for near the bottom of the list and I didn't recognize it.
If I omit instead the word "remainder", I find that same post as #2. Yesterday it would have been #1. I probably didn't try that search.
The fact that these two threads miss each other WRT "remainder of" vs "rest of" was enough to derail an effective search -- but I also used the word "autopilot" instead of "autosteer". I might expect a search engine to correlate those terms better for relevance. I still don't remember which terms the car actually uses --- it's a brief message that's read in a moment of panic.
Now that this thread mentions all the terms, maybe the next person will do better...
If "I switch hands frequently" and "does not require conscious effort" are both true, I think that means you have some practiced muscle memory that keeps you going even on straight roads with no lane changes... that would still require conscious effort until it becomes automatic.
As I described originally, my hands are already on the wheel all the time in these scenarios. But they are always neutral force, either because they are high on the wheel and balancing each other out, or because they are low on the wheel and basically resting in my lap. If I were willing to consider a constant asymmetric force I imagine I could see what you see. I'm glad you don't find the forces stressful.
I basically agree with your characterization that light touch is adequate for curvaceous roads; when the car turns itself a little resistance on the wheel is all that's required and is easy to provide regardless of where my hands are. It's the boring straight highways with infrequent merges and lane changes that are the problem.
I assume you mean it will dismiss the "please apply light force" alert in particular?
It won't help with the problem that I sometimes don't notice the warnings to start with, but I might like a more deterministic form of input when I do.
Yes it will dismiss the "please apply light force" alert.
Well, you could try driving with one hand on the wheel when Autopilot is engaged. For most people, that is enough to dismiss the warnings and not get the Autopilot unavailable message.
If one hand works for you, that's great. Perhaps this thread is not for you, esp. since it seems worse for AP2.5 cars. The problem is that "one hand on the wheel":
1) Is not enough for some cars without applying extra torque, which is potentially unsafe if AP disengages.
2) Goes against everything everybody was taught about driving, and decades of habits from other cars.
One thing that I did on a trip last year was to constantly tick the speed up or down every 10 seconds or so. At least at that time, changing speed or changing lanes would reset the timer. It would not, however, clear the warning.
If they find the 7 mile DUI guy was using an orange, they may go to the interior camera for eye movement in the AP 2.5 cars. I don't know what they could do to the AP 1.0 and 2.0 cars. The orange must give a pretty steady torque on straight roads so maybe they could look for a little variance. That may get to be difficult as sensors age. Hopefully the systems will get reliable enough soon to make holding the wheel moot.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
Interesting. I only have to apply very light torque on my X. Just rest my hand in the lower corners. Perhaps you may want to ask service to look at that the next time you take in the car. Not sure if this sort of thing is adjustable or fixable or not.
I'd strongly prefer the camera to the wheel torque.
But isn't the camera model 3 only? I have an APHW3 (eg, AP2.5) Model X, and I don't (think) I have an interior camera.
Confirmed: acts as benign and simple as adjusting stereo volume (from the wheel) or pulling on the CC stalk will dismiss the "apply light force" warning. I'll try this out for a bit.
I also got over myself a bit and raised the steering wheel a scoche, so that I can see at least some of the alert's flashing border up there. The change doesn't seem to be as big a deal ergonomically as I thought it would.
Let's see if I feel less ornery about things after these adjustments.
TaoJones
Beyond Driven
The current UI/UX causes less safe conditions relative to how it was before with AP2, and definitely relative to AP1.
The change from AP1 to AP2 for nagging was bad enough, and it got worse from there while picking up speed.
Now, it’s the worst part of AP along with the failure to read and react to speed limit signs as did AP1.
I am LESS SAFE now due to the kludge that is torque sensing. With my hand(s) on the wheel 100% of the time during recent drives to/from Sandy Eggo, I’ve had to pull over ON THE 405 AND THE 5 multiple times to shift into Park, back into Drive, and then merge into traffic just to reset the nag counter.
I’ve stopped recommending Tesla purchases to friends and colleagues because of crap like this. Nor will I buy another new S until ALL of the Driver Assist deficiencies relative to AP1 are fixed.
Which I expect will be in about 3 years. At best. But at least the car will manage a stop sign then, as we were told it would back in 2014.
The change from AP1 to AP2 for nagging was bad enough, and it got worse from there while picking up speed.
Now, it’s the worst part of AP along with the failure to read and react to speed limit signs as did AP1.
I am LESS SAFE now due to the kludge that is torque sensing. With my hand(s) on the wheel 100% of the time during recent drives to/from Sandy Eggo, I’ve had to pull over ON THE 405 AND THE 5 multiple times to shift into Park, back into Drive, and then merge into traffic just to reset the nag counter.
I’ve stopped recommending Tesla purchases to friends and colleagues because of crap like this. Nor will I buy another new S until ALL of the Driver Assist deficiencies relative to AP1 are fixed.
Which I expect will be in about 3 years. At best. But at least the car will manage a stop sign then, as we were told it would back in 2014.
Brass Guy
Active Member
It's threads like this that help me feel that nothing is lost having a "classic." All this fiddling and tricking the car to get it to drive itself, you might as well just drive the thing - like I do! By the way, it's a great car to drive if anybody hasn't noticed.
I have seen several people now report that they pull over on freeways just to reset AP!! That is craziness. Drive manually to the next exit, pull over somewhere safe, then re-enter the freeway like a sane person. No one is making you stop in such an unsafe place just to get your cruise control back.
Since you mentioned left lane/ passing, this might be a factor: If you exceed 90MPH with AP/ TACC on, it instantly puts you in the penalty box.
