Be Careful with Automatic Lane Changes

[Joe F]

I read other posts here which suggest that TACC/AP 'false alarms' are whiteboarded when they are reported. Before using the mic 'report' facility I used to email these to my SC where the tech people apparently much appreciated it! Run a search on 'whiteboard' and see if you can find the thread(s).

That does not speak to the point. Tesla stated their database had an incorrect speed limit, and that's why the car slowed down. I'm simply stating all slowdowns I've had are momentary, lasting a fraction of a second, and can't possibly be an incorrect speed limit change, and within a few feet, increases back to the correct speed limit.

Different from a reported whitelisted location, which BTW is supposed to be handled via fleet learning and their backend Neural Network, from my limited understanding.

 

[David29]

Whenever you have an unexplained slow down using TACC or AP, such as overhead bridge, sign or gantry you could press the mic button and report the incident direct to Tesla ie say something like "Report - 405 Northbound - 14h30 - TACC - overhead gantry" - you'll see a "Thanks" notification on the driver screen.

I usually do this and noticed that 4 overhead gantries ceased to be a problem within a week of my reporting it!

If we all do this we'll all be helping one another!

Great idea! Trouble is, I have had a great deal of difficulty making bug reports. The voice to text is so poor that I have had to make them 3, 4,and 5 times to get the text anywhere near what I want to say. By then I am well past the location where something happened. Or I give up.

 

[David29]

I've also had the mysterious sudden slow down for no apparent reason. I informed (complained) Tesla about this and they responded in a few days wanting to know the exact time and location and conditions. A few days later they called back and said the speed limit based on GPS location was incorrect. Therefore, it was not strictly a real-time AP fault as much of a data input (or data merge/cleanse) fault. That said, AP should take into consideration that if everyone else in the immediate vicinity is going 70, then for safety perhaps you should not suddenly slow to 45.

My AP1 car has had a number of sudden, startling slowdowns as well, including when I am not changing lanes but another car ahead is doing so. Most recent example, a car ahead of me moved out of the lane to take an exit, and when he was about 3/4 of the way out of the lane, the car suddenly braked. Maybe he hesitated or something, no idea, but it was certainly a situation in which I would not have braked if I were driving without/Autopilot engaged.

I wish I had a clearer recollection of how the AP1 behaved in the early versions of the firmware, from up to 18 months ago (version 7?). i don't recall this sort of problem, but perhaps it was there.

 

[kort677]

there seems to be an obvious glitch involved here, I've experienced the same sort of odd slowdown while in autopilot 1, and in addition on a recent drive in the evening without the AP system engaged I had two instances of where the car alerted and sounded the "red screen of death" sounds while driving on a clear road at about 30 MPH. this happened both headed north and south so the sun doesn't appear to be a factor.
the car is seeing ghosts.

 

[MDMGSO47]

We have a Tesla with AP1 (my wife's) and I just ordered a S100D with EAP. I was going to wait awhile until the bugs were worked out of EAP, but pulled the trigger to avoid the recent price increase. The S100D arrives in July unless I push it back.

I love AP1. Will someone who is familiar with both AP1 and EAP compare the functionality of EAP to AP1 as it currently exists. I know there are a number of long threads about this, but it is a changing comparison as EAP evolves. I know what Tesla says, but is EAP actually reliable? Even with AP1 I stay engaged with the driving process and am ready to take the car over at any time, and would expect to do the same with EAP.

Thanks

 

[QUBO]

That reply sounds strange to me. Any momentary slowdowns at highway speeds I've had have been just that, momentary. This under TACC as well as AP control. Suggesting "the speed limit based on GPS location was incorrect" would imply the speed limit in their database changes every few feet. Kind of hard to believe.

Unless the slowdown you mention was not momentary?

The slowdown I had lasted about 30 seconds using AP1 autosteer with no other cars immediately around me. Not sure about the quantification of momentary, but it did speed back up after a short while. AP did not disengage, nor were brakes applied, just regenerative slow-down. It was startling because I had driven this boring stretch of highway many times. This occurred after an update in late 2016, but I've not had any such problems since then. Tesla indicated they would "update" that stretch of road (I-29 in Missouri).

 

[gavine]

My BMW i3 does phantom stops too (it's Mobileye, I believe). It happens quite often to the point that I need to keep my foot near the accelerator to override it when it happens. With no OTA updated, I'm stuck with the way it is.

My Model X with HW1 only did this once back in November while on a 1,000 mile trip. No overpass, nothing obvious on the road ahead....it just started to brake on the highway.

 

[Joe F]

The slowdown I had lasted about 30 seconds using AP1 autosteer with no other cars immediately around me.

Ah, okay, thanks. That does not sound the same as the momentary (less than one second) abrupt slowdown, followed by a return back to the set speed, within a second or so. It's as though the radar gets spooked by something, but then it's not verified by the camera system, so the set speed is returned to.

FWIW, I've been using AP2 at the max 80 MPH on the weekends, and have not noticed any lane change issues. Even tried it part way through a long curve in the road and it managed to stick it, much to my surprise, given how poorly auto steer does in curves.

 

[kort677]

The slowdown I had lasted about 30 seconds using AP1 autosteer with no other cars immediately around me. .

FWIW:
if you would have taken over by pressing the accelerator with your foot it wouldn't have lasted that long.

 

[David29]

The slowdown I had lasted about 30 seconds using AP1 autosteer with no other cars immediately around me. Not sure about the quantification of momentary, but it did speed back up after a short while. AP did not disengage, nor were brakes applied, just regenerative slow-down. It was startling because I had driven this boring stretch of highway many times. This occurred after an update in late 2016, but I've not had any such problems since then. Tesla indicated they would "update" that stretch of road (I-29 in Missouri).

The slowdowns i experienced were abrupt but only lasted a second or maybe 2-3 seconds, max. (Come to think of it, in some cases I may have intervened, though, so maybe they would have lasted longer if I had let it. But by then I'd have been run over....)

 

[whttiger25]

My BMW i3 does phantom stops too (it's Mobileye, I believe). It happens quite often to the point that I need to keep my foot near the accelerator to override it when it happens. With no OTA updated, I'm stuck with the way it is.

My Model X with HW1 only did this once back in November while on a 1,000 mile trip. No overpass, nothing obvious on the road ahead....it just started to brake on the highway.

That's the best thing to remember here, at least we get OTA updates and can look forward to continued improvements.

 

[mhan00]

Different car, but my Volt occasionally gives a AEB alert when there is nothing in my lane. Most of the time I can see what it detected (car in an adjacent lane that's stopped or a parked car on a bend in the road), but there has been two times where the alert has gone off with no cars around and nothing I could see that could have triggered it. I figured it might have been something blocking the radar sensor momentarily.

 

[ClyffeWarden]

Seen the same — in most cases for me I think been when I've been switching from either outside lane (1) on a 3-lane interstate to the middle lane (2) and the computer picked up a car in the next lane (3) as being in my path. Or it saw a bridge and freaked.

I was changing from the left lane into the next lane to the right when this slowdown happened. My car might have seen the traffic in the next lane over.