Trip report on 12.3.3. And it's a bit of a doozy: From NJ to Dallas, TX; from there to Southern Indiana, and then back to NJ. Yes, a
lot of highway driving. 2021 AWD LR MY with USS. It got the 2024.3.10/12.3.3 update about two days before we left.
First: A heck of a lot of highway driving.
- No ping-pongs. The car stayed in lane and didn't wander back and forth. Interestingly, before we left, on the advice of some $RANDOM internet page, the car was taken into a local AAA facility and its alignment checked. Turned out that the toe on two wheels, front and rear, was incorrect. The SO and I (this is her daily driver) don't remember hitting any potholes or curbs over the past few years and the car doesn't have any rim rash. So, as delivered? A pothole that we forgot about? Who knows. But no wandering on the road.
- Not sure why, but the car in "Average" FSD mode, but on the highway where supposedly the driving stack is straight out of the EAP that we've had on this car forever, likes to set the initial speed to 10% high. Religiously. Speed limit 65? It sets to 72. Speed limit 70? Set to 77. Speed limit 75 (hello, Texas/Arkansas!), set to 82. That last one gave a little trouble, since, as others have noted, if one is doing TACC/LK at 85, the car gets mad and disables both until one stops and parks somewhere. That happened twice, once with the SO, once with me. In my case it was to speed up to pass two semis; the one in front was going slow and the one behind the slow one wanted the left lane, so, in a fit of Being Nice, sped up so the rear semi wouldn't have to brake hard. Memo: Turn off Autopilot with the shift lever before doing that. The SO's experience was similar. Luckily, in both cases, it was 30 miles or so until the next stop, so no biggie. Except, I guess, that TACC/LK does a superior job keeping the car centered in the presence of cross winds and the like, so it feels less safe without the automatic stuff turned on.
- As delivered, the FSDS on highways really likes the left lane on two forward lanes.
- It very definitely will shift from that left lane to the right lane when someone is coming up from behind, without prompting.
- If one is in the right lane the car, from time to time and, as far as i can tell, spontaneously, will shift to the left lane, with the message, "Shift to avoid merging traffic." That's not a bad idea in principle.. but when it does it five or seven miles before the next interchange, it raises eyeballs.
- If one is in the right lane (typically, by hitting the turn signal and moving there at some point) and one comes up on an intersection, one can often actually see cars on the on-ramp and with good old wet-ware, figure that the left lane would be a better place to be. The car doesn't typically see those on-ramping cars until one is right on top of them, at which point braking, semi-confusion, and all that kick in. So maybe the Tesla guys tried to avoid all that sturm and drang by just hanging out on the left in the first place. Which makes sense, I guess, except it kind of violates the concept of those signs that say, "Left lane for passing only" that one sees periodically.
- Generally, as one is chugging along and there's a vehicle up in front, the car is Very Good about getting into the left lane in plenty of time to pass said vehicle. If there's nobody behind one after doing the pass, then it stays where it is; if there is somebody coming up, then it will shift to the right. I did a lot of manual shifting back to the right lane with the turn signal lever, being that kind of guy.
- Speaking on that last: Say that there's some car up ahead on the right that's going a bit slower than one, and there's somebody behind one that's coming up at a somewhat faster rate of speed. FSDS will definitely shift to the right, slow down a bit so the faster car can get past (and any other cars in train with that car), then shift back to the left and pass the bit slower car. I've seen plenty of humans that aren't that considerate.
- Only real interventions were for the obvious stuff, and only happened a couple of times on the +2000 mile trip. An obvious case: three forward lanes, semis galore in the right lane, car going a mile or two above the speed limit (normal) in the center lane, and an idiot in the left lane, stuck on the left rear corner of that center lane car, resulting in backed-up traffic all over. Sigh. Move into the center lane, move up, intervene, move up far enough so that the idiot is behind, then speed up, move left, and pass at speed. Then get back into the center lane. In the rear view mirror, see idiot wake up, move up, get over, and a plethora of cars chug on down the left lane. Sheesh. How the heck is FSDS going to handle idiots?
Did a fair amount of local road driving in and around Dallas and in Kentucky. Had to intervene from time to time for the nominal reasons, but not as often as 11.4.9. No direct aims at curbs. There was this One Spot where it was three lanes going forward at a light, crossing a four lane (two each direction) that happened to have a wide, grassy, median. So,
in the intersection itself, an additional left-turn-only lane appeared that cars would get into, then turn left with either a green arrow or if traffic cleared. FSDS wouldn't touch that left-turn-only lane the first couple of times I tried it, at which point I started intervening and sending verbal nasty grams to Tesla. I mean, the car
would turn, and smoothly, but blocked following traffic in the left-most, go-straight lane in the process.
Speed limit bug cured: Before 12.3.3, FSDS had trouble with those double speed limit signs. You know, the type that has, on the top, a 50 MPH limit and, below, a little placard that said TRUCKS and a different, lower speed limit. Some certain percentage of the time one would get the truck speed limit inserted into the car instead of the car limit. If one happened to glance at the display when passing such a sign, one would see
two such signs, jittering around rapidly, and the car would, apparently, pick the last one passed. Or something. And pick the wrong one in some proportion. On this trip, whenever encountering one of those signs, there was only
one speed limit sign on the display, not two, and it was (at least for me) the correct, "car" one. So, that appears to be one bug squashed.
Dry wipes. Sigh. The SO's car, which had been running EAP from last year before the 12.3.3 install, had been notably free of dry wipes. I mean, once in a great while, but not as often as my daily driver with $RANDOM FSD(S)'s on it. On the way out to Dallas, going through Rain in all its permutations, started getting dry wipes. I had guessed that the excessive numbers of bugs on the windshield (spring, right?) might have been responsible for that, and cleaned the windshield thoroughly. Followed by much fewer wipes. On the way back, it was Springy April Showers (and thunderbumpers, and deluges, and generalized sprinkles) all the way back, with occasional long stretches of dry weather, but clouds overhead. The dry wipes came back with a vengance.
Interestingly, if it
was raining, the wiping software did a vaguely creditiable job, although at exactly the right level light level it might not start up on its own; below that level, it would start before the window got obscured; above that level, it would start with no problems and keep up.
But if the rain completely stopped, after a couple-ten miles of No Rain, it would start dry wiping. Definitely no insects at this point. So, eventually, would do the right scroll wheel and "Wipers off" and then, when the rain picked up again, "Wipers Auto".
I wonder.. When the sky was sunny, it wouldn't dry wipe. But with all the clouds up there, it would. Hmm. Somewhere at Tesla, there's somebody trying and trying to get this algorithm to work right, and that somebody has ulcers. I suspect that if there's a Sun in the sky, that's a factor in trying to turn off the wipers.
All I can think of at the moment. In case any of you wondered: South of Dallas the weather report was Clouds during the eclipse. There were highish clouds all morning, but they burned off around noon, apparently a common event in those parts. This left rather large fair-weather cumulus clouds with 90% coverage of the sky, with a very rare bit of blue sky. There were supposed to be Major Thunderstorms starting around 5 p.m., not a good sign. Unstable atmosphere, the weatherpeople kept on repeating.
Then, the eclipse started around 12:30. Almost immediately, the clouds started shrinking. By 12:45 it was more like 50/50 coverage and shrinking and, with a pair of eclipse glasses, one could make out the sun with a cut-out with no problems. And then.. starting from the South, all those blame clouds up and disappeared. By 1 p.m., they were almost gone; by 1:15 pm, they
were gone. Look to the East; look to the West: There were clouds out there, far, far away. But none along the path of the eclipse. It got noticeably cooler.
Clear skies and a total eclipse. Notable, as per usual, the solar corona streaming away from that eyeball in the sky. The bottom right quadrant had a red prominance over the edge of the moon: Not an artifact, that sucker
was red.
And the sky stayed clear of clouds for the rest of the day. There was a thunderstorm around 2 a.m., but that was it.
Guess all those weather mavens need to add "eclipse shadow" to their computer models.