Cruise Control vs Auto Pilot

[Jimt29]

I've been driving with both and the smoother more relaxing drive is using cruise control.

If I use Auto Pilot the ride is jerky, hard braking, and sometimes downright dangerous. Sometime when traveling on a twisty, winding road it waits until the last second to make the curve and it is uncomfortable and not smooth at all.

So far when using Auto Pilot the car tried to take an exit off of Route 95 south at 65 miles an hour and another time it wouldn't move to the left when there were traffic cones and a large truck forcing traffic to bear left.

But it's mostly the jerky driving style that spoils it. So I'm not really going to use the Auto Pilot until future updates improve the driving experience.

 

[Johnny Vector]

You need to be clearer with your terminology. Traffic Aware Cruise Control is part of Autopilot, so there is no difference. Do you mean to compare cruise control with Navigate on Autopilot? Or do you mean Autosteer?

 

[Jimt29]

I know of two. Right Stalk: One press = cruise control. Two presses = auto pilot. If you care to make it more complicated than that, I defer to your wisdom.

 

[frankvb]

Autosteer is not recommended to use on winding roads. I believe that's actually mentioned in the user manual. It works perfectly fine on freeways and most divided highways.

As Tesla designates it as 'Beta feature' we can't really complain about it unfortunately. Not ideal but an easy way out for them.

 

[Watts_Up]

I've been driving with both and the smoother more relaxing drive is using cruise control.

If I use Auto Pilot the ride is jerky, hard braking, and sometimes downright dangerous.
Sometime when traveling on a twisty, winding road it waits until the last second to make the curve
and it is uncomfortable and not smooth at all.

So far when using Auto Pilot the car tried to take an exit off of Route 95 south at 65 miles an hour
and another time it wouldn't move to the left when there were traffic cones and a large truck forcing traffic to bear left.

But it's mostly the jerky driving style that spoils it. So I'm not really going to use the Auto Pilot
until future updates improve the driving experience.

From my experience using AutoPilot, for most of the case I let the car handling the steering
but I often prefer to control manually the speed setting using the right button on the steering wheel.

I feel that the car should slow down more progressively before entering into a curve.
May be there should be some kind of setting allowing to choose betting a kind of sport mode and a cruising mode.

A very simple way to drive on curving road, may be not the fastest but more comfortable when you have passengers,
would be to have the car slowing down by just releasing the accelerator and using a little as possible the brakes
until reaching about half of the curve, and then as soon as you can see the end of the curve to start to accelerate.

Note: If I am driving alone and if there is no car in front of me, I would certainly not use AutoPilot on a curving road....

I would be curious to know if Autopilot uses solely information from the camera to control both the steering angle and the speed?
Or if Autopilot combines also GPS information to predict a trajectory based on the map representation of the road,
and also uses prerecorded information about speed to get additional input to the Autopilot?

 

[Johnny Vector]

I know of two. Right Stalk: One press = cruise control. Two presses = auto pilot. If you care to make it more complicated than that, I defer to your wisdom.

What you are calling "Autopilot" is Autosteer. Autopilot is a collection of features, mainly traffic-aware cruise control and autosteer. The terminology is explained in the manual.

 

[Jimt29]

Tesla Model Y manual page 119: Autopilot. Probably a misprint. Why don’t you write and correct them.

 

[Johnny Vector]

Tesla Model Y manual page 119: Autopilot. Probably a misprint. Why don’t you write and correct them.

Nothing to correct; it says exactly what I said above. Autopilot is a collection of features, all of which are listed there.

And I'm out.

 

[outdoors]

@Jimt29

Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability

Autopilot

• Traffic-Aware Cruise Control: Matches the speed of your car to that of the surrounding traffic
• Autosteer: Assists in steering within a clearly marked lane, and uses traffic-aware cruise control

Autosteer
To engage Autosteer in Model S and Model X, pull towards you twice on the cruise control stalk on the left of the steering column. In Model 3 and Model Y, pull down twice on the gear selector stalk on the right of the steering column. A grey steering wheel icon will appear on your display, next to the speedometer, when the system is available to engage. A blue steering wheel icon will appear on your display, next to the speedometer, when Autosteer is engaged.

When Autosteer is in use, it measures the amount of torque that you apply to the steering wheel and, if insufficient torque is applied, an escalating series of audible and visual alerts again reminds you to place your hands on the wheel. This helps ensure you are attentive and trains good driving habits. If you repeatedly ignore these warnings, then you will be locked out from using Autopilot for the duration of that trip