EAP HW2 - my experience thus far... [DJ Harry]

[chillaban]

Certainly the former. Learning to let go.

Man. I had a 2024 Audi A6 before this with an ACC system that literally only understands "start braking at 5 car distances away and freak out at 1 car distance away"

I think I might've lost a year or two off my lifespan the first few times I used it in heavy traffic


Supervising a semiautonomous car gets some getting used to. It's pretty much like teaching a teenager how to drive.

 

[brkaus]

Man. I had a 2024 Audi A6 before this with an ACC system that literally only understands "start braking at 5 car distances away and freak out at 1 car distance away"

I think I might've lost a year or two off my lifespan the first few times I used it in heavy traffic


Supervising a semiautonomous car gets some getting used to. It's pretty much like teaching a teenager how to drive.

I would have thought the 2024 models would finally do everything correctly!

(sorry, couldn't resist)

 

[alapd]

Man. I had a 2024 Audi A6 before this with an ACC system that literally only understands "start braking at 5 car distances away and freak out at 1 car distance away"

Where did you buy this future car, time traveler man?!?

 

[Deans]

Man. I had a 2024 Audi A6 before this with an ACC system that literally only understands "start braking at 5 car distances away and freak out at 1 car distance away"

I think I might've lost a year or two off my lifespan the first few times I used it in heavy traffic


Supervising a semiautonomous car gets some getting used to. It's pretty much like teaching a teenager how to drive.

I had a 2013 A7 and found out that in heavy stop and go highway traffic, the ACC works much better if the following distance setting is increased to the max. Otherwise, it waits way to long to slow down when traffic is stopped ahead.

 

[chillaban]

Where did you buy this future car, time traveler man?!?

It's not my fault Audi meets their delivery deadlines!! (kidding)

I had a 2013 A7 and found out that in heavy stop and go highway traffic, the ACC works much better if the following distance setting is increased to the max. Otherwise, it waits way to long to slow down when traffic is stopped ahead.

Yeah, setting it to the max distance setting is basically the only way to use it in stop-and-go without having heart attacks every 5 minutes. But unfortunately at that setting it's also much too slow to follow traffic that started moving, leading to a lot of cut-ins in the bay area.

There's something to be said about Tesla's implementation of TACC. It really is well-tuned compared to the competition.

 

[Deans]

It's not my fault Audi meets their delivery deadlines!! (kidding)

There's something to be said about Tesla's implementation of TACC. It really is well-tuned compared to the competition.

Yeah, I just hope I get to experience someday.

 

[brkaus]

There's something to be said about Tesla's implementation of TACC. It really is well-tuned compared to the competition.

I would think the electric drive makes it easier. Much more predictable system to control.

 

[DJ 240V]

Just got another update on my HW2 MS. Same release notes as the previous one just a new rel # hopefully with EAP improvments. V8.0(2.50.201)

 

[MXWing]

Auto steer still at 35mph?

This might be the wider rollout if all the notes are the same.

 

[DJ 240V]

Auto steer still at 35mph?

This might be the wider rollout if all the notes are the same.

Yep

 

[DJ 240V]

Yep

 

[MXWing]

Do you know if TACC is detecting idle objects? Before, if you were TACCing and came across a red light with a stopped car, you would plow into it.

Or have you noticed any other improvements? Seems the 'features' have not chanted from the previous firmware update but hope reliability and safety has been enhanced.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

Do you know if TACC is detecting idle objects? Before, if you were TACCing and came across a red light with a stopped car, you would plow into it.

Or have you noticed any other improvements? Seems the 'features' have not chanted from the previous firmware update but hope reliability and safety has been enhanced.

I've seen it stop for a car it never saw moving at a light, but I'm reluctant to trust regularly it because it gets a little too close for my liking before "seeing" it.

 

[MXWing]

I've seen it stop for a car it never saw moving at a light, but I'm reluctant to trust regularly it because it gets a little too close for my liking before "seeing" it.

My theory is if it "sees" the stopped car, it should slow down to maintain the same following distance (1 through 7) as if the car was previously moving.

 

[Saghost]

My theory is if it "sees" the stopped car, it should slow down to maintain the same following distance (1 through 7) as if the car was previously moving.

As has been discussed a bunch of times on TMC lately (including here on this thread, I believe,) "seeing" a stopped car is a non-trivial challenge for an adaptive cruise control system, and while AP1 has gotten to be pretty good at it some of that depends on Mobileye's object recognition, which AP2 doesn't have (Tesla is developing their own version - that's the whole reason AP2 cars are limited at the moment.)

Certainly the correct reaction to a stopped car in the lane is to stop for it, but even AP1 has a tendency to not see the car until rather later than I would prefer. I don't think literally stopping at the standard following distance would be ideal - that'd leave several empty car lengths at the light and really annoy the drivers behind you.

 

[MXWing]

As has been discussed a bunch of times on TMC lately (including here on this thread, I believe,) "seeing" a stopped car is a non-trivial challenge for an adaptive cruise control system, and while AP1 has gotten to be pretty good at it some of that depends on Mobileye's object recognition, which AP2 doesn't have (Tesla is developing their own version - that's the whole reason AP2 cars are limited at the moment.)

Certainly the correct reaction to a stopped car in the lane is to stop for it, but even AP1 has a tendency to not see the car until rather later than I would prefer. I don't think literally stopping at the standard following distance would be ideal - that'd leave several empty car lengths at the light and really annoy the drivers behind you.

I didn't mean hard stop 5 car lengths away. But just letting off the gas and slowing down would instill huge confidence in not worrying about rear ends. This is the behavior of a human driver.

 

[Saghost]

I didn't mean hard stop 5 car lengths away. But just letting off the gas and slowing down would instill huge confidence in not worrying about rear ends. This is the behavior of a human driver.

Agreed. My assumption is that the reason AP1 doesn't do this until disturbingly close most times is that it isn't confident that there is a stopped car (or maybe of the exact location of the stopped car?) until it gets that close.

 

[chillaban]

Agreed. My assumption is that the reason AP1 doesn't do this until disturbingly close most times is that it isn't confident that there is a stopped car (or maybe of the exact location of the stopped car?) until it gets that close.

AP1 (at least until very recently) still required camera confirmation of a car to recognize it as such and stop gracefully. In 8.0 it will progressively slow down to a large radar object but nobody has documented what happens if they don't take over. I bet it will be a FCW warning at best.

And the MobilEye lens won't recognize a car from too far away. I actually find that while approaching a stopped car, looking at the instrument cluster is the earliest hint whether or not the car is going to recognize it. The energy graph will show rapid regen and then the car will appear on the screen. It's maybe a second or two later that you can actually feel the slowdown.

 

[DJ 240V]

Update:

I have been driving around back and forth with TACC and AP, however last weekend I got a do a 500 mile road trip.
TACC 90+% of the time. Basically all freeway driving ( a lane to the right of carpool) . Did not use TACC on surface streets or changing lanes coz I know its not "smart" to do that yet.

So here is my experience, start with TACC :
1) TACC is awesome.. like I said 450+ miles without touching the accelerator or brake is awesome!
2) I don't hover my foot over the brake pedal anymore. Keep it firmly planted next to the brake and now know what to expect.
3) I always use 6-7 car length at speeds greater than 65mph..only when traffic gets heavy or slow would I use 5-2 car setting depending on the speed of traffic.. this basically determines how aggressively your TACC responds and now I'm convinced you don't need a separate setting. This works really well and I have found a good spot that works with my confidence level.
4) 2 or 3 times it slowed down (suddenly) - and twice I recall it happened under a fly over. Not sure if it suddenly picked up going from bright sunshine to shadow under the bridge as a "obstacle" ..
5) When a car cuts in closely - TACC follows closely without any apparent sign of slow down...I let it do it twice - but I would have expected it to show signs of slowing down as soon


Also got to use Autosteer for about 20 mins during the 8 hours of driving and my confidence is growing :
- however still cant get used to the constant steering adjustment at low speeds . Doesnt visibly move the car , but its tiring on your hands.
- center lane justification means you are sometimes too close to the traffic on the right ...
- without good lane markers its seems lost at the moment. ( long way to go for self driving as relying on lanes wont work)
- Also noticed a new behavior, occasionally a message pops-up asking you to press the accelerator to get you going from a full stop. ( perhaps checking if you have fallen asleep with your hands on the wheel?)


After about 400 miles I got a message saying EAP is disabled - but cleaning the cameras made it go away. ( bird dropping on the windshield obstructing one of the camera, so now I carry a small spray to clean if needed).

Few questions to the experts..
1) With TACC engaged and the car rapidly slows down in an emergency , does it account for the car behind you at all? Any move to avoid being rear-ended?

2) Can Autosteer spot/register motorbikes speeding b/w the lanes? There was this one-time where a motorcycle zipped past me and I only noticed him after but made me extremely nervous.

3) Does TACC do anything when a car in the adjacent lane turn on their indicator?

 

[Saghost]

Few questions to the experts..
1) With TACC engaged and the car rapidly slows down in an emergency , does it account for the car behind you at all? Any move to avoid being rear-ended?

2) Can Autosteer spot/register motorbikes speeding b/w the lanes? There was this one-time where a motorcycle zipped past me and I only noticed him after but made me extremely nervous.

3) Does TACC do anything when a car in the adjacent lane turn on their indicator?

The computers in AP1 cars have no information about cars behind you more than 16 feet. Therefore, TACC has never changed it's behavior based on that.

AP2 still won't know much about cars back there - under FSDC it's processing the information from the rear view camera, but that's a fisheye, so any car that isn't close will be a very small image, and it'll have to do time based analysis of the size change to develop any sort of speed information, which means it'll both be unreliable and slow to develop. I think the car's body blocks the two rear/side cameras from seeing a car directly behind.

AP1 does recognize motorcycles at any point in front of the car; I expect that the rear/side cameras will eventually learn to recognize the bike in your scenario in enough time to prevent an incident - not sure when that will be implemented.

We were promised that 8.0 (or was it 8.1?) would use information from turn signals of cars in front of us to smooth merges for AP1 (and presumably AP2 at some point,) but my experience hasn't changed in this regard so far.