Getting the best out of Autopilot in the UK

[Jeeves]

The cruise control on my Model 3 is somewhat less than impressive. I would dearly love to be able to switch off the traffic awareness part of it and stop it braking all the time.

Besides minimising the distance with the scroll wheel, is there anything else that can be done to make it as useful as bog-standard cruise control that has worked for decades on other cars.

 

[Avendit]

3 options I can think of:

1. No
2. accept your fate and travel behind something else
3. change lane -really- early.

 

[Adopado]

The cruise control on my Model 3 is somewhat less than impressive. I would dearly love to be able to switch off the traffic awareness part of it and stop it braking all the time.

Yes .. it's fun to experiment with the tech from time to time but to be brutally honest most of the roads I drive would work better with dumb cruise most of the time.

 

[pdk42]

Yeah - a case of way too much technology to perform a relatively simple task.

 

[bhav]

Are you using it where it's intended to be used, i.e. dual carriageways and motorways only? As that's what the manual says as far as I'm aware.

Does annoy me a bit when all these YouTubers are demo'ing on city streets with roundabouts and then being surprised that it tries to steer into the curb or whatever. It's not designed for that and clearly says so!

The US is a marginally different story but even there I'm not sure using it on city streets makes much sense.

 

[pow216]

I’m really very pleased with how it behaves.

I wouldn’t want to go back to the constant stop / resume of dumb cruise control.

 

[odyssey96]

Yep, sit on someone taller than you so they can control the pedal and see in front above your head, probably cheaper to hire that person than FSD anyway

Mr rules

1. When on a road with clear lines and no parked cars on the left, I enable autopilot
2. If approaching a bus stop with dotted yellow lines on the road, I disable autopilot as I end up in a 4D cinema experience with some Star wars space battle
3. If approaching cars parked on the left, take over steering and slowly accelerate at the expense of my eardrums perforating from the collision warning
4. If approaching cars parked on the left which bears into a turn, disable everything as thats gonna break hard

Now, it might be placebo, but I enable Autopilot and then take control forcefully from the steering wheel, I think the TACC is much more forgiving, be interesting if anyone esle can confirm or deny this

 

[Adopado]

Are you using it where it's intended to be used, i.e. dual carriageways and motorways only? As that's what the manual says as far as I'm aware.

My own post was commenting on the cruise control ... which in other cars I use on A roads and in lower speed limits roads so that I don't go over the limit. Driving an A road with sections through villages at 30mph for example. This can't be done in the Tesla because the car can't always cope with cars parked at the side of the road or sometimes hits the brakes mid-corner when there's traffic coming the other way (but on the correct side of the road). When I experiment with Autopilot/autosteer on smaller roads I fully expect a few issues but I would like a simple cruise function that just maintains a given speed until or unless I intervene.

 

[AnthonyLR]

My own post was commenting on the cruise control ... which in other cars I use on A roads and in lower speed limits roads so that I don't go over the limit. Driving an A road with sections through villages at 30mph for example. This can't be done in the Tesla because the car can't always cope with cars parked at the side of the road or sometimes hits the brakes mid-corner when there's traffic coming the other way (but on the correct side of the road). When I experiment with Autopilot/autosteer on smaller roads I fully expect a few issues but I would like a simple cruise function that just maintains a given speed until or unless I intervene.

I agree with you totally

 

[bhav]

My own post was commenting on the cruise control ... which in other cars I use on A roads and in lower speed limits roads so that I don't go over the limit. Driving an A road with sections through villages at 30mph for example. This can't be done in the Tesla because the car can't always cope with cars parked at the side of the road or sometimes hits the brakes mid-corner when there's traffic coming the other way (but on the correct side of the road). When I experiment with Autopilot/autosteer on smaller roads I fully expect a few issues but I would like a simple cruise function that just maintains a given speed until or unless I intervene.

Yes I know what you mean having used exactly that on my Audi A3 - the adaptive cruise control and the lane assist sensors were completely independent of each other so you wouldn't get the situation you're describing re: braking if something happens outside of the adaptive cruise control's radar.

I guess theoretically Tesla could just disentangle the two / let you choose but it probably also hampers the data they'd collect.

 

[Jeeves]

Thank you all for your replies. I wasn’t trying to be controversial. I just wanted to know whether I was missing a trick or not.

 

[Adopado]

Thank you all for your replies. I wasn’t trying to be controversial. I just wanted to know whether I was missing a trick or not.

No, not missing a trick! But you are correctly noting an issue!

 

[Battpower]

I wasn’t trying to be controversial.

I find you don't need to try being controversial on TMC. Posts seem to controversialise themselves!