Cannot use autopilot for more than 15-30 minutes

[Handsome Jack]

Hello,

I'm considering buying Tesla Model Y and rented one for a week. It's a new model - end of 2022, EU, with interior camera.

I'm having a problem with autopilot - it just doesn't work long enough and constantly ending with message like "Autopilot has been disabled for the rest of the trip"

I'm keeping my hands on steering wheel all the time, I'm not wearing hat, doesn't have sunglasses

It shutting down autopilot with 2 circumstances from what I've noticed:

1) By flashing blue light and then beeping it seems once and then just it - autopilot is disabled. It happened in following circumstances:
- I'm driving some difficult curve, watching traffic and/or holding steering wheel so ready to intervene within milliseconds - then I don't have time to look at display and can legitimately miss blue flashing and when it starts to beep I may not be able immediately to jiggle strong enough (like I'm mid turn) so it'll notice it .
- I'm driving on the road where autopilot makes minor correction left and right, blue light is flashing, I'm jiggling the wheel but it looks like I'm doing it into the same direction as autopilot correction so it doesn't notice that, eventually it sees my intervention but too late - I'm blocked.

Often it's combination of both.

2) Different scenario - I'm driving on straight highway for about 15-20 minutes where nothing much happened - driving straight with stable speed, then out of the blue it just start screaming and flashing red that I need to immediately hold steering wheel (I'm holding it all the time so had to jiggle it strongly).

Just to clarify - I'm holding steering wheel all the time, looking straight to the road (mostly, had to look downwards a lot to see if it's flashing blue), not using my phone, not wearing sunglasses etc.

I'm actually quite disappointed in autopilot - it works really great but had to get a stop each 15-30 minutes to restart it, while my current vehicle - 2020 Toyota Rav 4 seems far superior - can drive on a highway for hours with me just resting a hand on a steering wheel, I barely got any requirements to jiggle. However it doesn't handle windy road that well as tesla (but at the other hand no need to restart)

Wondering, if it's rental car I have is defective?

Or is it just how autopilot works, and if so - how do you manage it, i.e. do you just drive without autopilot or keep stopping and restarting a whole car each 15-30 minutes?

 

[nate704]

Autopilot function is totally depends on the surroundings, such as traffic, road condition (construction, lane markings,), emergency vehicles, etc.
It is not really designed for local roads with a lot of distractions.
The one that you rented could be defective or it could be just the road conditions that initiated the "take over steering now" warning and disengagement.
I take 300-500 mile trips frequently with autopilot and have no issues at all.

 

[Handsome Jack]

> or it could be just the road conditions that initiated the "take over steering now" warning and disengagement.

BTW just to add - road conditions where autopilot is disabled are nearly perfect - it's either highway or a country road, both with perfect lane markings, no pedestrians, no difficult intersection etc.

It's not just "take over steering now" (happened couple of times on very sharp turns where I'm already taking control) but "autopilot disabled for the rest of the trip" (I have message in Czech so it's my translation) - so I cannot engage autopilot without full restart a car.

My current Toyota drives on highway perfectly - it see lanes and drives there with no issues, it sees lanes also perfectly on country roads but it cannot handle sharp turns there.

 

[Yelobird]

Like your Toyota, autopilot is only designed to work on major highways not country roads. That’s where FSD comes in.

 

[Handsome Jack]

Hm, so you mean it's expected that tesla autopilot works only for 15-30 minutes and then disables for the rest of the trip? (Because perfectly marked national 3 lanes highway is not major enough for tesla?)

I.e. the issue that autopilot on tesla disables after 15-30 minutes, where Rav4 can drive for hours with me resting hand on steering wheel with no issues.

I actually test driven new Toyota highlander - it handled country roads perfectly - steering through sharp corners seemingly about as good as Tesla.

However Highlander has 2 years waiting time and is more expensive then Tesla.

 

[DrGriz]

Hm, so you mean it's expected that tesla autopilot works only for 15-30 minutes and then disables for the rest of the trip? (Because perfectly marked national 3 lanes highway is not major enough for tesla?)

I.e. the issue that autopilot on tesla disables after 15-30 minutes, where Rav4 can drive for hours with me resting hand on steering wheel with no issues.

I actually test driven new Toyota highlander - it handled country roads perfectly - steering through sharp corners seemingly about as good as Tesla.

However Highlander has 2 years waiting time and is more expensive then Tesla.

As others have said, Autopilot is really meant for controlled access highways with gentle curves and therefore rare need to intervene.

But if you are getting the disabled for trip warning, it is very possible you are missing some flashing blue warnings. It usually only does that after it senses you are not paying attention several times, or if you have to break away without turning AP off several times. I rarely drive on controlled access roads where I live, and I know exactly what you are experiencing. I have learned where I can use it and am careful to keep the flashing blues from happening. And if I need to I turn AP off before I take over control. That seems to make it better. My wife, on the other hand, isn't so careful, and ends up having AP disabled more often. She says she doesn't like it and just quits using it.

Best,

 

[nicholb]

If it is disabling for the rest of the trip you are probably not putting turning pressures on the wheel. From your post you say you are holding the wheel and jiggling the wheel. It is not looking for holding, it is looking for rotational pressure. Easiest way to to that is to let one of your arms weigh down one side of the wheel until you feel it resist a bit.

 

[nate704]

My current Toyota drives on highway perfectly - it see lanes and drives there with no issues, it sees lanes also perfectly on country roads but it cannot handle sharp turns there.

It's not even funny when you compare Toyota lane keeping feature for Tesla's AP.

 

[WyoDude]

Hello,

I'm considering buying Tesla Model Y and rented one for a week. It's a new model - end of 2022, EU, with interior camera.

I'm having a problem with autopilot - it just doesn't work long enough and constantly ending with message like "Autopilot has been disabled for the rest of the trip"

I'm keeping my hands on steering wheel all the time, I'm not wearing hat, doesn't have sunglasses

It shutting down autopilot with 2 circumstances from what I've noticed:

1) By flashing blue light and then beeping it seems once and then just it - autopilot is disabled. It happened in following circumstances:
- I'm driving some difficult curve, watching traffic and/or holding steering wheel so ready to intervene within milliseconds - then I don't have time to look at display and can legitimately miss blue flashing and when it starts to beep I may not be able immediately to jiggle strong enough (like I'm mid turn) so it'll notice it .
- I'm driving on the road where autopilot makes minor correction left and right, blue light is flashing, I'm jiggling the wheel but it looks like I'm doing it into the same direction as autopilot correction so it doesn't notice that, eventually it sees my intervention but too late - I'm blocked.

Often it's combination of both.

2) Different scenario - I'm driving on straight highway for about 15-20 minutes where nothing much happened - driving straight with stable speed, then out of the blue it just start screaming and flashing red that I need to immediately hold steering wheel (I'm holding it all the time so had to jiggle it strongly).

Just to clarify - I'm holding steering wheel all the time, looking straight to the road (mostly, had to look downwards a lot to see if it's flashing blue), not using my phone, not wearing sunglasses etc.

I'm actually quite disappointed in autopilot - it works really great but had to get a stop each 15-30 minutes to restart it, while my current vehicle - 2020 Toyota Rav 4 seems far superior - can drive on a highway for hours with me just resting a hand on a steering wheel, I barely got any requirements to jiggle. However it doesn't handle windy road that well as tesla (but at the other hand no need to restart)

Wondering, if it's rental car I have is defective?

Or is it just how autopilot works, and if so - how do you manage it, i.e. do you just drive without autopilot or keep stopping and restarting a whole car each 15-30 minutes?

I’d recommend just keeping your Rav 4

 

[TesLEEZ]

Wow, why are people so aweful on here??? Guy comes here for help and people dismiss all his claims and tell him to go back to Toyota??? Really? A community forum should not be like that. I drove a 2022 Rav4 rental on a long 8 hour trip and back. Their system is one of the worst among the major automakers. Even Hyundai/Kia's system was better. The Rav4 tended to wander alot more in the lane and would sometimes try to put me in the shoulder even though the lane markings were fine. I drove a Hyundai rental on a 20 hour trip, it was better at centering. I think the OP has an actual issue.

For the OP, did you try recalibrating the Model Y cameras? Controls > Service > Camera Calibration > Clear Calibration

It's here in the service manual: Model Y Owner's Manual | Tesla

 

[GBMaryland]

one of the things I’ve noticed about auto pilot here in the US is that it has a tendency to do two things that I find problematic:

1: It has a tendency to give me a hard time about not paying attention to the road, when I am actually paying attention to the road. (Looking straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel, and don’t have a cell phone in my hand…..) I have noticed that it’s even gone so far as to lose his *sugar* over the fact that I have a cup of coffee in my hand (Starbucks). I’ve even discovered times in the past where it was telling me I had some sort of steering wheel something or other device, when I had my hands on the steering wheel the entire time. (I’m assuming it means some sort of waited device on the steering wheel.?)

2: Every now and then it has a tendency to try to switch me into another lane where no other lane actually exists. For example, there’s a short period of a dotted line for a turn lane or a merge lane and it tries to put the blinker on and put me into the lane that’s ending.

3: I frequently have to drive out on I – 66 in Virginia, which now has an express lane in the center of the highway. Auto pilot does not know how to handle a road with multiple speed limits. In this case the center of the highway is 70 miles an hour, and the outside lane on the highway or 55 miles an hour. For whatever reason it keeps slamming the speed limit up and down all over the freaking place. I suspect it’s seeing the speed limit sign on the far right hand side of the road and ignoring the one that is in the center of the road.

That last one is probably an edge case. It’s still pretty damn annoying.

This is my way of saying that auto pilot / FSD is not without its issues.

 

[GBMaryland]

Wow, why are people so aweful on here??? Guy comes here for help and people dismiss all his claims and tell him to go back to Toyota??? Really? A community forum should not be like that. I drove a 2022 Rav4 rental on a long 8 hour trip and back. Their system is one of the worst among the major automakers. Even Hyundai/Kia's system was better. The Rav4 tended to wander alot more in the lane and would sometimes try to put me in the shoulder even though the lane markings were fine. I drove a Hyundai rental on a 20 hour trip, it was better at centering. I think the OP has an actual issue.

For the OP, did you try recalibrating the Model Y cameras? Controls > Service > Camera Calibration > Clear Calibration

It's here in the service manual: Model Y Owner's Manual | Tesla

That’s a really good point… Definitely try clearing the calibration if the car is not yours and you were renting it. The downside is if it’s going through the relearning mode, if this is what the poster is talking about, I think it takes about 90 miles for it to come back out of its initial learning mode.

 

[Art84]

As was already mentioned here, you need to keep one of your hands always on the steering wheel creating just a little "turning force", so that car will know that you keeping control. The "blue light" happens only when the car can't detect that you are still here and keeping the steering wheel, and it disables autopilot completely if after the "blue warning" you didn't touch the wheel strong enough.
Over time you ll figure out that "just enough" level of pressure at the steering wheel, so you ll not have those "blue warnings" at all, and autopilot with continuously work until you disable it or some emergency happens on the road and you ll see a loud red flashing message to take over the control of the car.

 

[sidewinder]

hold on...doesn't the newer teslas use the cabin camera to determine if driver is paying attention rather than torque on the steering wheel?

 

[Art84]

hold on...doesn't the newer teslas use the cabin camera to determine if driver is paying attention rather than torque on the steering wheel?

no it doesn't

 

[charlesoris]

Keeping hands on the steering wheel and continuously applying light force becomes tiring after a while. I would prefer something similar to Ford's approach that tracks your eyesight using an onboard camera.

The other issue is off-ramps and on-ramps. When I approach an off-ramp, the car takes a few milliseconds to make a decision to stay on the highway. The on-ramp behavior is really troublesome: the car wants to center itself between the right lane and the on-ramp lane by pulling hard to the right.

 

[astrobill]

I take 300-500 mile trips frequently with autopilot and have no issues at all.

I find this bit hard to believe. Are any portions of these "500 mile" trips at night and/or light fog and/or rain of any kind, including light drizzle? Since Tesla all-but-disabled the radar in my Model Y, I've found Autopilot to be highly unreliable except in perfectly clear, dry conditions. Other than that, it's gotten really bad. Light rain or mist often triggers the various "camera blocked" notifications, which I never used to get prior to the "Tesla Vision" forced updates. Even windshield wiper fluid droplets on the front camera can now sometimes trigger the "Autopilot speed limited due to limited front camera visibility" notification and turn off Autopilot.

 

[howardnj]

I find this bit hard to believe. Are any portions of these "500 mile" trips at night and/or light fog and/or rain of any kind, including light drizzle? Since Tesla all-but-disabled the radar in my Model Y, I've found Autopilot to be highly unreliable except in perfectly clear, dry conditions. Other than that, it's gotten really bad. Light rain or mist often triggers the various "camera blocked" notifications, which I never used to get prior to the "Tesla Vision" forced updates. Even windshield wiper fluid droplets on the front camera can now sometimes trigger the "Autopilot speed limited due to limited front camera visibility" notification and turn off Autopilot.

I only use autopilot on clear dry days. I think everyone needs to be smart on how they use this new technology. It keeps getting better over time but it is still far from perfect.

 

[shoemakj]

When I use 2 hands on the wheel, I tend to zero out the torque that AP is looking for. Now I just hang my left hand at the bottom of the wheel and I can drive without any nagging for as long as I need to.

You can also roll the left or right scroll wheel up and back down to satisfy the “hands-on” requirement.

 

[exxxviii]

Hm, so you mean it's expected that tesla autopilot works only for 15-30 minutes and then disables for the rest of the trip? (Because perfectly marked national 3 lanes highway is not major enough for tesla?)

I.e. the issue that autopilot on tesla disables after 15-30 minutes, where Rav4 can drive for hours with me resting hand on steering wheel with no issues.

I actually test driven new Toyota highlander - it handled country roads perfectly - steering through sharp corners seemingly about as good as Tesla.

However Highlander has 2 years waiting time and is more expensive then Tesla.

I wonder if you had a flaky car. I have never had AP disengage in any conditions, and I used it any time I can to get used to its limits. Lane Centering generally works amazingly well. My only frustration with the system is its forced disengagement to change lanes. Nobody else does it that way.