Cruise control annoyingly timid

[jonLV]

We're 3000km into our tesla experience and have some observations, can I ask.... are any of these a fault or is this just something I need to accept until a software update fixes it?
.
speed control only -
when following (black lead car) in the overtaking lane, if the lead car changes lane our tesla will latch onto a car in the slower lane to 'follow' that (you see it turn black), as these cars are obviously slower this triggers out tesla to brake heavily. our tesla can see the lane lines and is painting them so why latch onto a car that's irrelevant?
this issue is fast losing me WAF points with the missus!
.
cruise acceleration is lumpy without a lead car, i guess the autopilot can only see 100m or so infront so is super chicken. it tends to add 10-20kmh then level off then add another 10-20kmh.
.
if another car turns out of our lane cruise will brake hard until the lane is completely clear. how do you tell autopilot 'you could land a jumbo fkin jet in that gap, just go!' again - disengagement.
.
.
this sounds like a winge but overall it isnt, I absolutely love our new car, it's incredible.
I share this in the hope someone has found a way to smooth out some of these niggles, if not... I excitedly await updates.

 

[AndyCharged]

if another car turns out of our lane cruise will brake hard until the lane is completely clear. how do you tell autopilot 'you could land a jumbo fkin jet in that gap, just go!' again - disengagement.

Right now the software is designed to be used on Freeways so you shouldnt have cars crossing in front of you. Yes, it will work on other roads but in Australia with the version of AP we have (sometimes called a stack) it is not very good. When the FSD beta is rolled out here, we should see much better behavior in the car.

Its frustrating as I wish we could have a "dumber" cruise control as I am losing WAF points too when the car jerks for a car. You can overwrite it by gently having your foot on the accelerator which will stop it from slowing down, just dont speed up - Or just get used to disengaging AP and re-engaging it when a car crosses in front of you.

 

[YAnthony]

Whats your distance setting? have you played with that?

Car wont accelerate until the other car has 100% cleared your lane.

 

[paulp]

We're 3000km into our tesla experience and have some observations, can I ask.... are any of these a fault or is this just something I need to accept until a software update fixes it?
.
speed control only -
when following (black lead car) in the overtaking lane, if the lead car changes lane our tesla will latch onto a car in the slower lane to 'follow' that (you see it turn black), as these cars are obviously slower this triggers out tesla to brake heavily. our tesla can see the lane lines and is painting them so why latch onto a car that's irrelevant?
this issue is fast losing me WAF points with the missus!
.
cruise acceleration is lumpy without a lead car, i guess the autopilot can only see 100m or so infront so is super chicken. it tends to add 10-20kmh then level off then add another 10-20kmh.
.
if another car turns out of our lane cruise will brake hard until the lane is completely clear. how do you tell autopilot 'you could land a jumbo fkin jet in that gap, just go!' again - disengagement.
.
.
this sounds like a winge but overall it isnt, I absolutely love our new car, it's incredible.
I share this in the hope someone has found a way to smooth out some of these niggles, if not... I excitedly await updates.

Like you I love the car but seriously dislike the cruise for all the reasons you mentioned. Been waiting 4 years for an update to fix these issues. I don’t think it will be occuring any time soon.

 

[cafz]

when following (black lead car) in the overtaking lane, if the lead car changes lane our tesla will latch onto a car in the slower lane to 'follow' that (you see it turn black), as these cars are obviously slower this triggers out tesla to brake heavily. our tesla can see the lane lines and is painting them so why latch onto a car that's irrelevant?

I don't think I've ever seen this. The only time cars in the adjacent lane should affect your speed is if the speeds of the two lanes are wildly different - it shows this by painting moving chevrons on the adjacent slow lane.

 

[Maximillan]

Right now the software is designed to be used on Freeways so you shouldnt have cars crossing in front of you.

The Hume has heaps of side roads and middle roads to facilitate crossing to the other side of the freeway, so it's an issue even in this scenario. Recently on a stretch between Gundagai to Goulburn my wife was driving and in the distance a ute came in from the left to proceed to the other side of the freeway. I saw what was happening and even had enough time to warn her to be ready to accelerate because the ute will cause the car to brake (enough land a jumbo jet indeed), which is exactly what happened and still caught her out. Her assessment was why did it do that we had heaps.

This and the issue the OP described with the slower lane are both a result of a higher margin of error due to the introduction of Tesla vision. It's frustrating to have gone backwards in order to allow Tesla to build the data set on the back of its customers. They do so many other difficult things so well, an average cruise control should be table stakes for a car manufacturer.

 

[AndyCharged]

The Hume has heaps of side roads and middle roads to facilitate crossing to the other side of the freeway, so it's an issue even in this scenario. Recently on a stretch between Gundagai to Goulburn my wife was driving and in the distance a ute came in from the left to proceed to the other side of the freeway. I saw what was happening and even had enough time to warn her to be ready to accelerate because the ute will cause the car to brake (enough land a jumbo jet indeed), which is exactly what happened and still caught her out. Her assessment was why did it do that we had heaps.

This and the issue the OP described with the slower lane are both a result of a higher margin of error due to the introduction of Tesla vision. It's frustrating to have gone backwards in order to allow Tesla to build the data set on the back of its customers. They do so many other difficult things so well, an average cruise control should be table stakes for a car manufacturer.

Is the Hume technically a Highway and not a Freeway? (I'm curious, I don't know)

 

[donmac]

Is the Hume technically a Highway and not a Freeway? (I'm curious, I don't know)

The portion of the Hume between Berrima and Albury is classed as a "rural motorway" (as it has at-grade intersections, driveways, etc). When driving south from Sydney you will see the "End Expressway" sign where it changes from "urban motorway" to "rural motorway".
The rest of the world considers "urban motorways" to be freeways, and "rural motorways" to be divided highways.
Since such a significant part of the Hume is a divided highway, leaving it out of the freeway autopilot experience would likely have been seen as a negative; or since it was labelled M by the NSW government, Tesla took their word for it...
Anyway, the upshot is that the software isn't really expecting, or trained for, non-freeway situations on a freeway, so it is understandable that it's behaviour is suboptimal in those conditions.
For those of you with NAP, you will know exactly how many of these non-freeway situations exists on that part of the Hume as it chimes in and out...

 

[cafz]

This and the issue the OP described with the slower lane are both a result of a higher margin of error due to the introduction of Tesla vision. It's frustrating to have gone backwards in order to allow Tesla to build the data set on the back of its customers.

It did the slow-for-crossing-traffic thing back in the radar-enabled days as well. If you think about it, it makes some sense - it's because the car doesn't know that the crossing vehicle isn't going to stop dead in the roadway (and really, the driver doesn't either - we just tend to assume no-one would be that suicidal!).

 

[cafz]

Is the Hume technically a Highway and not a Freeway? (I'm curious, I don't know)

In NSW only the part from Cutler VC Interchange to Berrima which has limited access / grade separated intersections is called the Hume Freeway.

 

[bharathk]

We're 3000km into our tesla experience and have some observations, can I ask.... are any of these a fault or is this just something I need to accept until a software update fixes it?
.
speed control only -
when following (black lead car) in the overtaking lane, if the lead car changes lane our tesla will latch onto a car in the slower lane to 'follow' that (you see it turn black), as these cars are obviously slower this triggers out tesla to brake heavily. our tesla can see the lane lines and is painting them so why latch onto a car that's irrelevant?
this issue is fast losing me WAF points with the missus!
.
cruise acceleration is lumpy without a lead car, i guess the autopilot can only see 100m or so infront so is super chicken. it tends to add 10-20kmh then level off then add another 10-20kmh.
.
if another car turns out of our lane cruise will brake hard until the lane is completely clear. how do you tell autopilot 'you could land a jumbo fkin jet in that gap, just go!' again - disengagement.
.
.
this sounds like a winge but overall it isnt, I absolutely love our new car, it's incredible.
I share this in the hope someone has found a way to smooth out some of these niggles, if not... I excitedly await updates.

Try and changing the distance from car ahead to a bit further specially on freeway, you can do that with clicking right steering wheel button side ways.

I usually change to 4-5 car lengths once I go onto motorways, autopilot is less aggressive that way . I recently did Sydney trip from Brisbane and drove the car pretty much on autopilot, worked pretty well . If I am in left lane if a car is merging if you keep distance further it slows a bit than hard breaking

 

[Onshore]

speed control only -
when following (black lead car) in the overtaking lane, if the lead car changes lane our tesla will latch onto a car in the slower lane to 'follow' that (you see it turn black), as these cars are obviously slower this triggers out tesla to brake heavily. our tesla can see the lane lines and is painting them so why latch onto a car that's irrelevant?

I haven't seen this. What do you have the follow distance set at? More generally, ignoring tesla and cruise control for a moment, is your driving style to maintain a 3 second gap at 100kph?

Also check if the windscreen is clean in the vicinity of the cameras.

cruise acceleration is lumpy without a lead car, i guess the autopilot can only see 100m or so infront so is super chicken. it tends to add 10-20kmh then level off then add another 10-20kmh.

Haven't seen this either?

.

if another car turns out of our lane cruise will brake hard until the lane is completely clear. how do you tell autopilot 'you could land a jumbo fkin jet in that gap, just go!' again - disengagement.

Try a less aggressive follow distance setting, see if that makes a difference?

Also, do you know what setting you are on for Forward Collision Warning? Late, Medium or Early.

 

[Lachlan Smith]

It did the slow-for-crossing-traffic thing back in the radar-enabled days as well. If you think about it, it makes some sense - it's because the car doesn't know that the crossing vehicle isn't going to stop dead in the roadway (and really, the driver doesn't either - we just tend to assume no-one would be that suicidal!).

This is likely the correct answer when applying Asimov's First Law of Robotics.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

This is how a lot of road "accidents" happen, a human has intentionally chosen to drive dangerously, which is fine for a 75 kg human walking at 6 km/h, but not for a 1000+ kg metal box with a velocity in excess of 60 km/h, especially when you have to factor in the worst tyre and road conditions.

Think about how you see people tail gating all the time, but from every dash cam video, it is always these people who crash into the vehicle in front that has come to an abrupt stop to avoid a collision. There is no other method of transportation that is operated so dangerously and recklessly as private automotive (source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/14/the-safest-and-deadliest-ways-to-travel/).

Anticipating tail gating behaviour makes acting early for forward collision much safer than acting late. I don't have numbers for this, but Tesla would, and they would use that to decide how aggressive autopilot should be (the safe answer is it shouldn't be aggressive, and I see people take advantage of that cutting in and autopilot will adjust speed to create a safe gap instead of tail gating).

 

[jonLV]

Thanks for your input everyone.
I have put in a service request as these issues appear to not be normal.
If I'm the only person seeing the 'latching onto the slow lane' behavior I feel there may be some bugs to smash.
I still wouldn't want to be sat in any other car!

 

[bay74]

The "lumpy" acceleration I have observed in more recent software versions. I don't recall this being an issue back in circa 2020 or earlier. Super weird as this should be very simple to do properly, no? Yes I find it dumb too and so I usually keep pressing the accelerator until the set speed is nearly reached.

I've never seen mine highlight in black (denoting "follow this vehicle") a car in an adjacent lane.

To deal with cars turning out of the lane causing over-reaction slow-down, just press the accelerator. No need to disengage AutoPilot (AP). Same to deal with cross-traffic ahead. Sure, it'd be nice to not have to do this but in the meantime this is just part of using AP.

What I want to know is how to disable the stupid auto-wipers from scratching up my windscreen on a sunny day. It wasn't even dirty!

 

[Onshore]

Thanks for your input everyone.
I have put in a service request as these issues appear to not be normal.
If I'm the only person seeing the 'latching onto the slow lane' behavior I feel there may be some bugs to smash.

My gut feel from the info you've given us is that your driving may have a higher risk profile than the cruise control.

I'm concerned about the bit where you say it is latching onto the car in the "left lane",

Be aware that the car in front of you that has started to move over after passing slower traffic, will still be seen as an obstacle under after it has entirely moved back across into the left lane. The whole car and the whole lane, and a bit of space from the lane separator.

If you are getting on the gas preemptively when he's still straddling, the car will not like that. If he slows down as he's pulling across left after the pass, your car will also slow down if you're too close - even if it looks like he's 90% back in the left lane.

All the above is just off the info you've provided. Maybe post some dashcam footage for a better analysis by the forum members.

What is your follow distance setting set to?

 

[doggy1]

I haven't seen this. What do you have the follow distance set at? More generally, ignoring tesla and cruise control for a moment, is your driving style to maintain a 3 second gap at 100kph?

For general interest, 3secs at 100kph is 6 follow lengths. 6.5 for 110km/hr.

 

[Hairyman]

As a slight aside, one of the things I have noticed with TACC in heavy traffic and stopped at lights, is that now, following the car in front as it accelerates is much more smooth. In the past I was fairly bemused that the TACC and torque control in my M3 was so sensitive that I could feel the driver in front changing gears. In the Tesla the sensation felt very nostalgic.

 

[Maximillan]

For general interest, 3secs at 100kph is 6 follow lengths. 6.5 for 110km/hr.

Let's clear up this common misconception, the follow distance does not relate to car lengths but rather to how long it takes for the car to reach the location of the rear bumper of the vehicle ahead.

From the Model Y Owner's Manual, page 83:

Adjust the Following Distance
To adjust the following distance you want to maintain
between Model Y and a vehicle traveling [sic] ahead of you,
press the steering wheel's right scroll button to the left
or right. Each setting corresponds to a time-based
distance that represents how long it takes for Model Y,
from its current location, to reach the location of the
rear bumper of the vehicle ahead of you. Your setting is
retained until you manually change it.
The closest following distance is 2.

 

[doggy1]

For general interest, 3secs at 100kph is 6 follow lengths. 6.5 for 110km/hr.

Okay, I'll edit what I said:
"For general interest, 3secs at 100kph is 6 car-lengths. 6.5 for 110km/hr."

Much like the chevrons used on French (and probably other European) motor ways.

So Maximillian, are you saying that the Tesla following-distance setting scales with speed? So a setting of 2 at 60km/hr is a different distance (but same time to bumper) as a setting of 2 at 110km/hr?

I've always used about 3 around town and 6 or 7 out on the freeway. But maybe that is wrong?