Car slowing unnecessarily for slower cars in adjacent lane on EAP for anyone else?

[evannole]

For several months now, when in bumper-to-bumper traffic, if my lane (usually the HOV lane, to the far left) is moving faster than the traffic in the lane to my right, my car, while on EAP, will suddenly lock onto one of the cars in the lane to the right and slow down as if it's actually in my lane. This only happens when both lanes are quite slow - say, 10 mph for mine and 5 mph for the other lane. If I'm doing 50 and the adjacent lane is doing 40, there are no such problems, thank goodness, but even at slow speeds, this is annoying and potentially dangerous, from a property damage standpoint, at least. I can override the behavior with some force on the accelerator, but of course that defeats the purpose of EAP, which used to be especially useful to me in this kind of traffic. Note that this is not the well-known behavior of a slight slowdown, accompanied by chevrons appearing in the adjacent lane on the screen. I think my car, in this situation, would actually stop if I allowed it to.

I can see that it's picking up the car it's slowing for, as that car turns black on the display (see attached photo). The cars seem to first change to black on the screen when their brake lights are illuminated, though once black they usually stay that way until I pass them after overriding the slowdown with my right foot. I'm guessing my car is, for some reason, thinking that they're stopping in front of me, though they're not exhibiting any drift into my lane, nor are their turn signals coming on.

My car has been on Tesla Vision for probably a year now, but this problem has developed much more recently, so I don't think it's solely because of Tesla Vision; while this never happened when I was still on radar, I all the same had probably a half-year or more of great driving on Tesla Vision before this issue appeared. I'm currently on version 2023.7.30, and have had this problem for the last two or three software versions.

I've tried recalibrating the cameras multiple times and cleaning the windshield really well, all to no avail. If I use FSD rather than EAP, the problem still occurs, though maybe it's slightly less bad; unfortunately, FSD simply doesn't work well enough for my highway commute so it would not be a viable option for me even if it solved this problem. (FSD often wants to jump into left-exits from the HOV lane when it should continue straight, it makes bad lane change and navigation decisions, and so on, but that's a story for another post.)

I have an appointment for Tesla to try to diagnose the problem, but things keep coming up in my schedule and I keep having to move the appointment, so I thought I'd at least ask here if anyone else has seen anything similar, and if so, if they or Tesla ever solved the issue.

Thanks, everyone!

 

[mgs333]

I use FSD beta and not noa but I get similar slowdowns even if I'm going 60+ in the carpool lane and the lane next to me is going much slower. I think the car for whatever reason thinks some cars are about to move over into my lane.

 

[TresLA]

To double check, do you have HOV lanes switched off in the Autopilot menu (or settings listed under bottom left navigation panel when routed)? I’m curious if that setting is turned off and somehow affecting EAP (a bug), meaning it’s trying to get out of that lane, wanting to change lanes to the right, and rightly so highlights the car it wants to scoot behind, but oops no navigation/lane change is enabled since it’s only EAP so it’s stuck in a middle state of highlighting the future lead car, but not actually able to change lanes. Does that make sense?

 

[JulienW]

This is a safety feature.

 

[JulienW]

Here is an example of what can happen. This was while I was working on my Safety Score for FSD Beta a couple of years ago.

 

[evannole]

This is a safety feature.

View attachment 977533

No, as I said in my post, this is not what's happening. I'm very familiar with what you posted. That happens at high speed and is subtle. My problem is at very low speeds and is not subtle at all; moreover, the chevrons do not appear in the adjacent lane on the screen when my issue happens.

 

[evannole]

To double check, do you have HOV lanes switched off in the Autopilot menu (or settings listed under bottom left navigation panel when routed)? I’m curious if that setting is turned off and somehow affecting EAP (a bug), meaning it’s trying to get out of that lane, wanting to change lanes to the right, and rightly so highlights the car it wants to scoot behind, but oops no navigation/lane change is enabled since it’s only EAP so it’s stuck in a middle state of highlighting the future lead car, but not actually able to change lanes. Does that make sense?

Thanks - that does make sense. Unfortunately, "Use HOV Lanes" has always been switched on for me, so I don't think this is the issue. Thanks anyhow!

 

[fholbert]

Here is an example of what can happen. This was while I was working on my Safety Score for FSD Beta a couple of years ago.

What? All I saw looked like normal driving in heavy traffic?

 

[derotam]

For several months now, when in bumper-to-bumper traffic, if my lane (usually the HOV lane, to the far left) is moving faster than the traffic in the lane to my right, my car, while on EAP, will suddenly lock onto one of the cars in the lane to the right and slow down as if it's actually in my lane. This only happens when both lanes are quite slow - say, 10 mph for mine and 5 mph for the other lane. If I'm doing 50 and the adjacent lane is doing 40, there are no such problems, thank goodness, but even at slow speeds, this is annoying and potentially dangerous, from a property damage standpoint, at least. I can override the behavior with some force on the accelerator, but of course that defeats the purpose of EAP, which used to be especially useful to me in this kind of traffic. Note that this is not the well-known behavior of a slight slowdown, accompanied by chevrons appearing in the adjacent lane on the screen. I think my car, in this situation, would actually stop if I allowed it to.

I can see that it's picking up the car it's slowing for, as that car turns black on the display (see attached photo). The cars seem to first change to black on the screen when their brake lights are illuminated, though once black they usually stay that way until I pass them after overriding the slowdown with my right foot. I'm guessing my car is, for some reason, thinking that they're stopping in front of me, though they're not exhibiting any drift into my lane, nor are their turn signals coming on.

My car has been on Tesla Vision for probably a year now, but this problem has developed much more recently, so I don't think it's solely because of Tesla Vision; while this never happened when I was still on radar, I all the same had probably a half-year or more of great driving on Tesla Vision before this issue appeared. I'm currently on version 2023.7.30, and have had this problem for the last two or three software versions.

I've tried recalibrating the cameras multiple times and cleaning the windshield really well, all to no avail. If I use FSD rather than EAP, the problem still occurs, though maybe it's slightly less bad; unfortunately, FSD simply doesn't work well enough for my highway commute so it would not be a viable option for me even if it solved this problem. (FSD often wants to jump into left-exits from the HOV lane when it should continue straight, it makes bad lane change and navigation decisions, and so on, but that's a story for another post.)

I have an appointment for Tesla to try to diagnose the problem, but things keep coming up in my schedule and I keep having to move the appointment, so I thought I'd at least ask here if anyone else has seen anything similar, and if so, if they or Tesla ever solved the issue.

Thanks, everyone!

This is actually an issue that has been around for a long time but surprisingly doesn't seem to affect as many people as you would think, at least in regards to written complaints about it.

I talked about this years ago and it happened to me this morning in the same spot as in the past. When in slow traffic, I'll just say less than 20mph, in both your lane and the adjacent lane AP will occasionally lock onto(according to the onscreen visualization of highlighting the currently tracked vehicle) lock onto a vehicle in the adjacent lane. Sometimes it isn't a problem, but when the two vehicles are in the correct geometry and the adjacent vehicle is starts to slow down relative to you, then your car will speed adjust to it.

Now the only reasons I can think of to explain this are 1. if the car in thinking about changing lanes for whatever reason, route, speed, merge whether real or "imagined" then it might start tracking the "appropriate" vehicle. This I think is unlikely because I don't think(would have to verify) that the car changes the visualization of the currently tracked vehicle that quickly, or ahead of time like that.... or 2. The car has "lost" or has chosen to ignore the lane markings. Losing the lane markings would be a more likely situation except that in your case you seem to have very clear SOLID line markings. It could be more likely of an explanation for faded markings, or in the case of slow speed as is being discussed here, the time between dashed lines in my case may be making the car think that the road has turned into one big lane and it needs to merge into traffic.

Unfortunately I have changed my working hours so I rarely am in this situation anymore so it would be a while until I could re-analyze it.

 

[golferguy]

This is a safety feature.

View attachment 977533

This is both a good and bad thing. Good that often times people in the adjacent lane, just suddenly jump into your lane, and no signaling. On other hand, You are doing 70mph, speed limit is 60, an your car slows rapidly to 40 meet the adjacent lane slower speed. I find that it does this more with 18 wheelers in the adjacent lane.

 

[derotam]

This is both a good and bad thing. Good that often times people in the adjacent lane, just suddenly jump into your lane, and no signaling. On other hand, You are doing 70mph, speed limit is 60, an your car slows rapidly to 40 meet the adjacent lane slower speed. I find that it does this more with 18 wheelers in the adjacent lane.

Yeah but I think some slowdown event behavior can be separately categorized because of the distinctiveness between them. Slowing down because of a vehicle changing into your lane is a dynamic traffic analysis function for the car. It is watching the other vehicles and making the decision of whether it thinks a car is going to change into your lane based on what tesla has taught it based on visual feedback from the fleet. Slowing down due to Semi's seems to be an additional learned behavior specific to semi's. What I and the OP here are talking about is kind of related but there seems like there *might* be a different and distinct difference in the reason for the slowdown. It could just be the same learned behavior of assuming a vehicle is merging but is just amplified...or sensitive in a different way based on the slower speeds.

 

[StingrayHawaii]

I have noticed that abrupt slowing when detecting an oncoming car in the other lane can be reduced by driving with my foot just touching the Accelerator. When I am in cruise and autopilot I think the sensed car is initiating a slow down to the autopilot and if I am not touching the accelerator petal the Re-generative braking causes the car to slow abruptly! Buy lightly touching the pedal while in crowded areas, seems to avoid the problem.

 

[derotam]

I have noticed that abrupt slowing when detecting an oncoming car in the other lane can be reduced by driving with my foot just touching the Accelerator. When I am in cruise and autopilot I think the sensed car is initiating a slow down to the autopilot and if I am not touching the accelerator petal the Re-generative braking causes the car to slow abruptly! Buy lightly touching the pedal while in crowded areas, seems to avoid the problem.

Yep, it can't regen if you are providing an accelerator pedal input.... That is the positive. The Negative is that it can't slow down with an accelerator input. This could lead to an abrupt slowdown in various situations(too close to vehicle when you let off the accelerator, or the car decides you are "about to crash" and initiates AEB.

Just be careful!