fcastrillo86
Member
I should clarify from my last post that you absolutely need to be aware of your surroundings when engaging and using AP. If AP is accelerating too much to where it might brake check itself for approaching another car too fast, lane merges with nearby cars, etc., then I will always take over. Usually it's enough for me to temporarily steer and re-engage AP. But sometimes, like in the case of sudden slow/stopped traffic, I'll disengage and manually brake early so that I don't have to deal with feeling the hard braking.Although AP prevents from dinging but I wouldn't trust it to risk my life.. I used to activate AP when onramp, but this proves to be dangerous and can be deadly. Once I activated AP, it speeds up to 70 rapidly but without the ability to see ahead, what's coming behind from the highway traffic, many times I have to brake or usually AP disengage, once I almost hit by a huge 18 wheelers traveling at 80mph. Having to avoid getting dinged F2C, merge into fast traffic, watching front, back, left, and watch for AP behavior at the same time is just too much. Now, I just try to go out at slower traffic time, find another longer onramp, stay below 50, merge and then activate AP.
On the highway, I constantly have to adjust AP speed to avoid having to use the brake ... far too many times when traffic slows down to 20mph, jerks will suddenly merge into the slightly faster lane, and it's not comfortable to wait/trust AP for serious hard brake... this is just so stressful and certainly not enjoyable. On the city street, I just don't trust AP reacts fast enough ... street is not always straight and flat, I got quite a few HB because to avoid hitting the "stop half of the head out on the street", "dash to make a left turn or stop halfway in the middle", no to mention the aggressive turns for just tiny faster left turn on flashing yellow signal.
Although I maintained a 100 SS and Tesla insurance saved me lots of money, sometimes I doubt whether this is all worth the stress.
That said, it's helped me immensely to just know that AP in its current (and probably future) iterations is a driver assistance tool. Knowing its limitations and where it'll do well vs. freak out is key in using AP comfortably for me. If NoA wants to switch lanes, but I see another car rapidly approaching, I'll wait til the car passes to clear the wheel nag/confirmation so that I don't have to deal with potential swerving behavior. Or in the rare case that it feels like the car isn't going to stop at the line, I'll finish braking myself, knowing that I will most likely avoid a hard braking safety score event because of the 3-second dead time after AP is disengaged.