Dangerous Freeway Autopilot Slowdown

[Tam]

...BUT, it is weird that you kept pushing the accelerator instead of disengaging. That is a dangerous response and should be discouraged...

This is the first time I've heard. I've got my right foot ready to punch the accelerator in cases like this.

Once the situation is controlled, then it'll be time to evaluate should I continue to run FSD on that stretch of the road.

For me, driving manually for this particular location is impractical because phantom brakes or "False Slowdowns" don't just happen at 1 location but numerous locations.

 

[EVNow]

This is the first time I've heard. I've got my right foot ready to punch the accelerator in cases like this.

Once the situation is controlled, then it'll be time to evaluate should I continue to run FSD on that stretch of the road.

For me, driving manually for this particular location is impractical because phantom brakes or "False Slowdowns" don't just happen at 1 location but numerous locations.

Usually when it’s a phantom braking because of non-speed related things, it’s fine to push accelerator - since it’s momentary. But if there is some kind of sudden speed limit change its better to disengage, esp. if you see that pushing the accelerator is not fixing the issue.

 

[linux-works]

If Elon wants he can easily get companies manufacturing high precision gps in volume. ESP. Public companies would find it highly desirable to be associated with Tesla …

they are using 'good' gps, but dead reckoning has always been problematic with some vendors and chipsets. there are custom vendor drivers and its never the oem that writes that (the internals of gps are never public; you get nmea and binary interfaces) but you have zero control over its internal firmware.

there are things the oem can do and do wrong but the chipset vendor has more effect and I can tell you that firmware updates are happening all the time on the gps and wifi/lte chipsets.

most people dont know but to deal with these buggy chipsets, most oems have ways to power-gate or remove power on program control to the chipsets in order to reboot them. not kidding. and this can even happen when you are driving!

gps is a lot of black magic and the vendor controls most of it. and its still not quite 'there' yet and might take even more years before its perfect. and guess what, there will be new versions of those chipsets and the industry will start all over again.

a lot of what you see as bad gps performance is actually a crash and reboot inside that you never see. either inside the chip itself or the board and os that drives it.

 

[gaspi101]

Mod changed the title - if you had started with this title, hardly anyone would argue with you. Nobody is saying it’s not a bug .. and Phantom braking is the top bug Tesla is dealing with anyway.

BUT, it is weird that you kept pushing the accelerator instead of disengaging. That is a dangerous response and should be discouraged.

It is not obviously wrong to point it out. Also as you can see we are discussing what Tesla can do to correct it.

We are mostly a bunch of nerds here - this is what you would expect from nerds

ps : Thanks for coming back and responding here unlike some who practice hit&run.

I understand, thank you for explaining. And thank you Mod for changing the tile, I clearly did not know what I was doing! Haha

 

[zigmeister]

As others have chimes in already, clearly not heavy traffic at all in fact somewhat of a ghost town for roads where I live due to Holiday traffic.

Anyway, yes this is NOT good when the GPS somehow determined that it was on a side road and actually on a highway and wanted to slow down in the left lane. No debating or thumbs down about that people. Deal with the fact we won’t have self driving technology you can safely rely upon for decades at best.

With that said TS shouldn’t be filming with hands off the wheel but I know people do this.

Get a mount if you want to capture FSD beta stuff like others.

Also, simply always being ready to up the right lever quickly to disengage AP and have steering wheel and accelerator and or brake control is important. This is spelled out on all of those Yes /Agree dialogue you got and get ever this time you turn it on and off FSD beta or other safety features.

There is a good reason I personally cancelled my FSD subscription recently and don’t want anything to do with Beta anymore. The thing is still too immature and dangerous. It makes driving a distraction and not fun at all.

 

[sjg98]

If the car is this reliant on perfect GPS, then there needs to be a serious rethink.
In addition to hard deceleration when GPS "jumps" I've seen many, many GPS anomalies in this car.

When exiting my house attached garage, the handover from Wi-Fi to LTE, the car 80% of the time has no idea where I am and 50% of the timedrops the GPS pin 1/4 mi away into the bay (water).

In Manhattan (and often Brooklyn), most often I am parked in sub level parking garages.. so when I exit with my car it often has zero signal as I exit and turn onto the street. As the car slowly acquires signal, it frequently hops around multiple city blocks and I just ignore its direction attempts and make my way along my route myself until the GPS pin & directions match the reality of the street/avenue I know I am on.

In addition to concerns around camera HW and processor HW being up to snuff, it does raise questions about the GPS & cellular connections.
Does the car need more antenna redundancy to ever actually achieve FSD?

If simple TACC/Lane keeping AP are failing on the reality of flakey GPS then how is FSD ever going to work?

 

[Matias]

When using AP, you must be alert with both hands on the wheel, with a foot covering the accelerator or brake, as appropriate. I don't recommend using your phone to film, it's far too dangerous.

Shouldn’t feet be covering both accelerator and brake, since it may be necessary to press either one of those.

 

[Matias]

With all its processing power and code car should think “this doesn’t look like residential street “

 

[Tam]

...If simple TACC/Lane keeping AP are failing on the reality of flakey GPS then how is FSD ever going to work?...

With all its processing power and code car should think “this doesn’t look like residential street “

I guess that's why Tesla hates fusion. What to do when there's a discrepancy between radar and camera? Go Pure Vision starting from 2021.

So, now the next question: What to do when there's a discrepancy between GPS and camera? Currently, the system would prioritize the GPS rather than the camera.

I think that's the same problem when the camera clearly sees a stop sign but the system would still blow through the stop sign due to the missing GPS info.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1453135550643412993

How does our driving help refine FSD?

I'm trying to understand how the Beta test program works. I understand the snap shot communication but can someone explain how the development team "learns" from the driving experiences of all of the beta testers out there? Are they notified every time we take over and disengage FSD, with...

teslamotorsclub.com

That's why Tesla does not like pre-mapping with LIDAR that Waymo, GM Supercruise... are doing. Because fusion is difficult.

 

[gaspi101]

With all its processing power and code car should think “this doesn’t look like residential street “

Exactly! I don’t understand why a GPS point is the only data autopilot uses to make such sudden maneuvers.

until they fix this issue, why is it not possible to have an option to never have the car automatically decelerate if it detects a speed limit change. Maybe just beep saying that the speed limit has changed, but don’t automatically slow down the car while on auto pilot. If I’m driving at 70 miles an hour and the speed limit goes to 30, stay at 70 miles an hour and alert me to the speed change, but for the love of God, don’t slam on the brakes to reduce down to 30.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Shouldn’t feet be covering both accelerator and brake, since it may be necessary to press either one of those.

Nah, it’s easy enough to swap and using both feet seems confusing. Just cover what seems appropriate based on the situation. Yes, unexpected braking could result in some slowing but a quick adjustment should make it not too bad.

I’d tend to turn off Autosteer entirely if someone were tailgating - or cover the accelerator well (and even override it), if traffic conditions ahead allow.

 

[gaspi101]

Is there a way to disable the whole GPS/navigation system and still use regular AP with TACC? At this point, I’m really nostalgic for a 2016-era AP system for the highway.

 

[Tam]

Is there a way to disable the whole GPS/navigation system and still use regular AP with TACC? At this point, I’m really nostalgic for a 2016-era AP system for the highway.

I haven't tried but it's logical that it should work.

Try this first:

1) Don't enter your destination in your navigation, that means no routing program will be generated, so your automation system will only use a camera and it will not have to make a choice between GPS and camera.

If the above works then try the next level:

2) Enter your destination in your navigation, which means a routing program will be generated, but since you don't use Navigation on Autopilot, it should ignore routing direction in theory. However, I am not sure in practice. It might still use the routing program and although it does not automatically steer into an exit, it might decelerate drastically to remind you to manually turn into a missed exit.

In summary, I don't know how the program works, so you might need to try it out.

 

[EVNow]

Is there a way to disable the whole GPS/navigation system and still use regular AP with TACC? At this point, I’m really nostalgic for a 2016-era AP system for the highway.

I use just AP on freeways, not NOA. Set your own speed, it should just maintain it irrespective of speed limit.

BUT, the car needs to know whether it’s driving on freeways or city streets for which it uses GPS. If that gets messed up - I don’t think there is any other option than disengaging.

How many miles have you driven and how many times has it happened to you ? Fortunately, this has not happened to me in 3+ years, so it’s very rare. If it happens to you frequently then you have faulty hardware.

 

[Sporty]

I use just AP on freeways, not NOA. Set your own speed, it should just maintain it irrespective of speed limit.

BUT, the car needs to know whether it’s driving on freeways or city streets for which it uses GPS. If that gets messed up - I don’t think there is any other option than disengaging.

How many miles have you driven and how many times has it happened to you ? Fortunately, this has not happened to me in 3+ years, so it’s very rare. If it happens to you frequently then you have faulty hardware.

AP will abruptly slow down occasionally. Not often for me, but as the driver it’s a bit nerve wracking when it does occur. And judging by the freakout my wife (passenger) has, it’s even more so when your not in the driver seat holding the steering wheel. Followed by a lot of “are you driving or is it car” for the rest of the trip.

AP has been demoted to stop & go traffic. It’s great for that. And empty highways during the day time. Definitely it at dusk. And then I grip the wheel everyone it goes under bridge.

If I’m driving alone I’ll use a bit more often.

 

[EVNow]

AP will abruptly slow down occasionally.

That is the dreaded Phantom braking .. but is usually temporary and pushing on the accelerator fixes it.

OP is talking about GPS error that places the car in a city street instead of freeway.

 

[Tam]

Is there a way to disable the whole GPS/navigation system and still use regular AP with TACC? At this point, I’m really nostalgic for a 2016-era AP system for the highway.

Now that I think some more, I guess you can avoid the GPS false slowdowns by using dumb cruise but it no longer exists for newer Tesla. You'll have to get an older, classic Tesla for this purpose.

When you use TACC/Autopilot, the system prioritizes GPS over cameras.

So in cases that the GPS hardware/software are fine on highway speed , but the quality of imported data is obsolete or wrong then your TACC/Autopilot would decelerate to the wrong low speed data.

 

[Sporty]

That is the dreaded Phantom braking .. but is usually temporary and pushing on the accelerator fixes it.

OP is talking about GPS error that places the car in a city street instead of freeway.

I would call it more of a work-around as opposed to a fix. In any case it’s still not great.

 

[gaspi101]

I haven't tried but it's logical that it should work.

Try this first:

1) Don't enter your destination in your navigation, that means no routing program will be generated, so your automation system will only use a camera and it will not have to make a choice between GPS and camera.

If the above works then try the next level:

2) Enter your destination in your navigation, which means a routing program will be generated, but since you don't use Navigation on Autopilot, it should ignore routing direction in theory. However, I am not sure in practice. It might still use the routing program and although it does not automatically steer into an exit, it might decelerate drastically to remind you to manually turn into a missed exit.

In summary, I don't know how the program works, so you might need to try it out.

good tips! Unfortunately, it seems route navigation is entirely separate from the gps data feeding speed limit info to the car…it still responds to changes in speed limits.

 

[gaspi101]

I use just AP on freeways, not NOA. Set your own speed, it should just maintain it irrespective of speed limit.

BUT, the car needs to know whether it’s driving on freeways or city streets for which it uses GPS. If that gets messed up - I don’t think there is any other option than disengaging.

How many miles have you driven and how many times has it happened to you ? Fortunately, this has not happened to me in 3+ years, so it’s very rare. If it happens to you frequently then you have faulty hardware.

the gps acting crazy has happened a few times, Tesla service said to wait for the next update and it should fix it…same old story…but this is the first time it slams the brakes at highway speeds…