First long drive using autopilot

[jsteele]

Hi all, I did my first long drive using autopilot, 6hrs from Aberdeen to Chester in my AP2.0 Model S.

This was my first chance to really test the system. Overall AP was really good to have and felt like the journey was less tiring, but outside of the obvious limitations there were a few "issues" I noticed -

1.) About 5-6 times on the trip while driving on what looked like clearly marked lanes with excellent weather / visibility, I would suddenly get the message "Cruise not available" and autopilot would disable.

2.) The car hugs the left side of the lanes, this is visible in the mirrors and on the picture of the car on the display. Its not at the point where its touching the line but feels quite uncomfortably close especially when overtaking trucks.

3.) Phantom braking at bottom of hills / dips in the road. On quiet stretches of motorway with no cars in front at all, the car would slow down near the bottom of dips in the road, this was reproducable quite a few times. It was almost as if the radar was detecting the upwards slope of the road in front and slowing in case it was an object in front.

Im wondering if these are normal or not and if others have experienced these? Thanks!

 

[Tam]

...Im wondering if these are normal or not and if others have experienced these? Thanks!

Yes. Not normal but expected because Tesla is still working on the solutions.

 

[jsteele]

Yes. Not normal but expected because Tesla is still working on the solutions.

Fully appreciate its an improving system, the beauty of it is that hopefully it will keep getting better and better!

In particular I was wondering if other owners notice if the car normally sits in the centre of the lane on motorways or not? I remember reading one thread a while back which mentioned the autopilot sensors might require a calibration of some sort if the car sits to one side.... does anyone have any experience of this or notice if their cars often sit slightly to one side of the lane?

 

[stigmeister]

Fully appreciate its an improving system, the beauty of it is that hopefully it will keep getting better and better!

In particular I was wondering if other owners notice if the car normally sits in the centre of the lane on motorways or not? I remember reading one thread a while back which mentioned the autopilot sensors might require a calibration of some sort if the car sits to one side.... does anyone have any experience of this or notice if their cars often sit slightly to one side of the lane?

I have a 2017 Model S and have not experienced the "cruise not available" issue in 30k miles and lots of it on AP, certainly not if road markings are good.

I did have the car not centre aligned in early versions of the software, but these days it's pretty central, nearly all of the time. I'd see how it plays out over the next month. As when I have had an issue, it's been all on one drive and then different the next day.

Phantom breaking. Yep, this is an issue that seems to get better, then new software releases take it backwards. It used to be a real problem back in 2017, but until recently had pretty much gone away. 2019.X releases seem to have introduced the problem again, or certainly made it more frequent.

Which pretty much sums up AP. In general it improves, but in many cases new issues are introduced or old ones come back. Certainly a challenge as the NN takes on more of what the Heuristics (coded rules) did previously in it's control of the car.

 

[Fellsteruk]

I’m also just back from a. Round trip Liverpool - Edinburgh - Liverpool and spent most of it on AP.

I have to say I found it much better than my normal daily driving up and down the M62 but I still had some degree of the issues you saw.

 

[Silicon Desert]

OP, would be helpful in the future to also mention what firmware version is running in the car when posting about issues. As you probably know, users with different firmware will have different experiences.

 

[jsteele]

OP, would be helpful in the future to also mention what firmware version is running in the car when posting about issues. As you probably know, users with different firmware will have different experiences.

Good point, thanks - I'm on 2019.8.6

 

[Dre78]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Are you using Navigate on Autopilot (NoAP)?

"Cruise not available" and autopilot would disable.

Does TACC remain? I've had situations where NoAP disables but AP still enabled. On few occasions while on motorways (what we American knobs call freeways or highways) AP will warn and disable because a turn is too tight, too fast for system to steer through (there's a chicane on Chicago's Lakeshore Drive where it has trouble at speed); or typical traffic patterns too unpredictable (near entrance ramps).

2.) The car hugs the left side of the lanes, this is visible in the mirrors and on the picture of the car on the display. Its not at the point where its touching the line but feels quite uncomfortably close especially when overtaking trucks.

Kind of... I'm still not 100% certain but do feel others are correct that the car is centered, but our perception is the car hugs the left (right for those of us driving on the wrong side of the road). Especially when majority of vehicles are still driving without autopilot: they are therefore a bit right of center. Why isn't everyone driving a Tesla, yet!? Yes. Passing trucks can be quite unnerving. I sometimes feel like my mirror is going to touch!

I can't comment on phantom braking as there are essentially no hills or dips in this flat region: Chicago.

 

[Terry_B58]

Are you using Navigate on Autopilot (NoAP)?

This is the UK & Ireland section, we do not have Navigate on Autopilot

Maybe one day . . . .