Brand new MY road trip: the good and the ugly

[astrocling]

We defnitely had one of those unusual experience drives last night. We've had a few drives pretty much on autopilot all the time and they've all been great day or night. Yesterday we had a lot of unusual wiper activity and lots of notifications that a camera was obstructed when it wasn't, and the auto high beams are not great (note that they behave the same in our Toyota). I think the more I drive the more my biggest gripe is the way it handles speed limits. I hate being limited to 45MPH on autosteer for miles because it didn't see a speed limit sigh or because there just isn't one when its a 60MPH road. All in all though my autopilot and tripping experience is pretty great. Google maps isn't the best router, and oddly it seems worse than traditional Google maps routing.

 

[RayB]

How was your experience with charging, range, and planning?

We’re planning a 1,500 mile trip (Colorado to NC) in our 2 week old Y.

We just completed a 3,200+ road trip from CA to CO and back. Planned the route using A Better Route Planner, but used the Tesla built in navigation once on the road. The SuperCharging network is great, and very reliable. They seem to be only crowded during holiday weekends. We made a couple YouTube videos of our trip, if your interested in watching. I tried to plan to arrive at the Supercharger at low SOC, so that the charging would be quicker, and charge enough to get to the next stop. Check winds (Windy app is great), as well as rain, etc, for each part of your journey, and stay a bit longer at the charger, if necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSevL6nRfLCXQJnyoccMF7w

Ray

 

[tangible1]

I haven't been on a longer road trip yet but in a couple hundred miles I've definitely found my gripes in the Autopilot and Cruse Control. No problems with headlights really or wipers, but I do have to take control a lot, and for me the bigger thing is that I'm learning my area must not have a lot of speed limit signs. There are a lot of roads where the speed limit is 45 and autopilot is limiting to 25 or the speedlimit is 60 and it is limited to 40. My autopilot experience hasn't been amazing, but its not quite as bad as what the OP is saying. I really think a lot of this is related to the radarless implementation and its going to improve (I believe rather quickly) most likely in future software releases as Tesla becomes more comfortable with the new sensor array.

This is what Tesla leans on - 'expectations' and 'imagination'.
Classic in the software industry, it's just a 'simple fix' that 'should' be available in the near future.
No one wants to believe it will be difficult or take time, because it's imagined as simple. It's usually NOT.

Tesla makes a very good product and has an excellent charging network. It will take quite a while for competitors to approach Tesla on the EV basics.
But because the legacy car companies have relied on 3rd party suppliers for their AP, Intelligent Cruise, etc controls, those are much more refined.
They have to be; those suppliers are held to account by the Legacy guys and not paid for if they're not up to snuff.

 

[roblab]

Heading off to Phoenix next week, a little 3000 mile round trip jaunt. I've never had these issues you complain about. I've had random braking events, but on two lane roads with large dips and shadows, where I probably shouldn't be driving on AP anyway. In my opinion, AP should be used on open freeway, and in my experience, PB is not a problem.

I've taken quite a few "road trips" as this is my fourth Tesla, for over 250,000 miles of driving. There isn't a better car as far as I can tell. I never had a gas car drive 350 miles to a motel where it would fill up over night and be ready to go the next morning, and I never had a gas car I wouldn't take to the dealer before a long trip to make sure I had an oil change and filter. I did have another electric, but its range was like 95 miles (if you kept it down near 35-40 mph), with a top speed of 80 mph, something no one did very often.

Maybe the wiper issues are due to the car being built in CA where it rains but rarely. I don't think my car has been in the rain since I bought it a year ago.

 

[Fourdoor]

Heading off to Phoenix next week, a little 3000 mile round trip jaunt. I've never had these issues you complain about. I've had random braking events, but on two lane roads with large dips and shadows, where I probably shouldn't be driving on AP anyway. In my opinion, AP should be used on open freeway, and in my experience, PB is not a problem.

I've taken quite a few "road trips" as this is my fourth Tesla, for over 250,000 miles of driving. There isn't a better car as far as I can tell. I never had a gas car drive 350 miles to a motel where it would fill up over night and be ready to go the next morning, and I never had a gas car I wouldn't take to the dealer before a long trip to make sure I had an oil change and filter. I did have another electric, but its range was like 95 miles (if you kept it down near 35-40 mph), with a top speed of 80 mph, something no one did very often.

Maybe the wiper issues are due to the car being built in CA where it rains but rarely. I don't think my car has been in the rain since I bought it a year ago.

What Tesla can you drive 350 miles on a road trip at highway speeds? If you only use back roads, disregard my question.

Keith