The Autopilot that you turn on or off (by depressing or lifting the right-hand stalk) is Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer. The cars also have Active Safety Features which are always on (though you can disable some of them).
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Has Basic Autopilot improved (and phantom braking decreased) since radar was removed? (About to buy!)
- Thread starter MonoPoly307
- Start date
LadyOnikara
Member
Ah, okay. Yeah I haven't had much problem with using the cruise control. Haven't tried the Auto Steer yet.The Autopilot that you turn on or off (by depressing or lifting the right-hand stalk) is Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer. The cars also have Active Safety Features which are always on (though you can disable some of them).
Autosteer works well almost all of the time. There isn't any "phantom swerving". The errors come with bad maps and navigate on autopilot. If you want to go straight (without NoA), and you keep out out of the right most lane on highways, autosteer gives little problem. It's the acceleration/deceleration model (TACC) which is more problematic, especially on lightly driven roads (seeing cars ahead stabilizes its behavior).
Drove my wife in the M3P for the first time on a longer trip (~200 miles) yesterday. Two phantom braking events and the cruise was off for the rest of the trip. I like your pilot comparison - makes sense.
Good thought about stop and go traffic. I used it several times with radar. Without radar I also experienced hard braking and acceleration. It is better if I turn the max speed down to 15 mph and the distance at 5-7, although that invites lane swappers.
Funny, I'd say the stop-and-go behavior of my car is probably a bit better than it was when my radar was still active. It really does seem like owners' experiences - and perhaps their cars - are all somewhat different.
Go Noles !
Smoothness on stop and go traffic on the FSD highway has much improved too. Most people here will be much happier!
I'm not sure how smooth the car was with radar, but it really is pretty good now. I was in a 30min long highway stop and go traffic on Sunday in Toronto, and was talking about this to my wife, saying how much better it is compare to a year ago.
I'm not sure how smooth the car was with radar, but it really is pretty good now. I was in a 30min long highway stop and go traffic on Sunday in Toronto, and was talking about this to my wife, saying how much better it is compare to a year ago.
sandman1330
Member
This is true. FSD actually handles gridlock, or even well flowing stop and go traffic, very well.
My biggest gripe is with auto speed-limit changes. It will deterministically decide to reduce the speed while I'm on the highway to far below where I had it set, causing the car to start slowing down rapidly. These feel like phantom brakes but they always happen in the same place, and when I look it's because it reset the speed I had set. Sometimes it sets a limit of 40 km/h on the highway and I can't even undo that with the wheel button. I hate this behavior and it's an unnecessary source of stress when using TACC or auto steer (it seems to do it more often when using auto-steer, but it also happens even with TACC).
sandman1330
Member
Sounds like you are not on FSD Beta, as you can't adjust the speed higher than +10 of the (often incorrectly) assessed speed limit?
IIRC (as I've been on beta for the last year so my options are different), you can disable that behaviour in the TACC settings. Something along the lines of "automatically adjust set speed for speed limit changes." I might be wrong though, but I thought that could be adjusted.
Without FSDb, though, autosteer will always be limited to the +10 over what the system thinks the speed limit is. It's one of the main reasons I jumped to beta, as my commute is done 75% of the way with incorrect speed limits. You'll have to step down just to TACC, or get beta to get autosteer to work.
This is so bizarre.
I have 2019 Model 3 (apparently with radar, US sensors but May be software disabled?!). I have Y on delivery later this month so very interested in recent experiences. I’ve had sporadic phantom braking (may be 1 or 2 times a year). When it happens, it’s invariably concerning and scary (esp back passengers). I drove yesterday in heavy traffic (about 6-7 yrs, tri state/NYC area) and it never gave me any phantom braking. This was about 90% of drive using AP.
I’m just wondering if this randomness in who/when you experience this is more related to how camera/other sensors are calibrated in particular car? (than just bad software?)
Very well observed. My model 3 on long drive in heavy traffic around NY Tri State area (nasty roads, old bridge/merging lanes, weird lane markings) - and extensively relying on AP… I had very similar experience (suddenness in stop and go, much more than typically what you’d experience). I usually keep max (7) as following distance.
LadyOnikara
Member
Okay, yesterday I finally experienced the car braking on his own in cruise control yesterday. I understand it in that case though because a car coming the other way was a little too close to the yellow line and Casper got nervous about it.
Normally I can, but there’s strange dead zones where I can’t even adjust it 1 km/h past the wrongly-assessed limit (like the 40 km/h on the highway one). I can otherwise set auto steer at 30 km/h past the limit no issues (we have places where prevailing speed is up to 40-50 km/h past the official speed limit and usually never less than 25-30, which is what happens when you put a limit of 70 km/h on a modern highway). I have to double check but I have it set to fixed speed but this still happens, They’re deterministic so I don’t think it’s a phantom so much as bad map data or just annoying behavior. It happens near flyovers and exits but also at a few random places, and often even with just TACC.
it happens less often on 100 km/h highways so maybe these highways just aren’t a good fit for it. Still, my dumb cruise control never had these issues.
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sandman1330
Member
IIRC, if you are on navigate on autopilot (you'll have a single "tentacle" showing your car's path in your visualization), you can adjust more than +10. This is for what they call "restricted access highways" only, basically freeways where there are no intersections, just interchanges / overpasses. Mine used to jump between the two on some highways, as you approach a surface intersection (stop sign or light), it would revert to just autosteer, then past the intersection it would go back into navigate on autopilot.
On non-controlled access highways, you'll just get autosteer, which is the two blue lines each side on the visualization. That's when you're restricted to +10 over.
This is all if I remember how it worked correctly.... I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to adjust even +1 though.
I agree on the dumb cruise control. I still and will always advocate for an option / toggle for us to disable TACC and just have normal dumb cruise for situations like this....
So I was one of the people with a radar version holding out on updating my software until it seemed like phantom breaking was better. I finally gave in because there were so many new features I was missing out on. After many months I have to say that the phantom breaking is a lot worse than when my car was using radar. Previously I may run into it on a long road trip but rarely during my 50mi commute. Now it happens at least once every time pretty consistently. Also I didn’t really understand why it was so bad before but now it will go from 65 down to 45 very suddenly and I’m always afraid a car will rear end me. I love all the new features but for anyone who hasn’t updated because they don’t want the phantom breaking, I’d say it definitely worse in my case. I really wanted it to not be noticeable but it’s impossible to ignore that it needs a lot more improvement. I use my autopilot less now which is a huge bummer.
sandman1330
Member
Just got the 11.4.2 FSDb update. I am cautiously optimistic, in my limited driving today I did not get phantom braking in the usual spots. Up to now, to almost 100% certainty, I would get it in certain spots (overhead wires were a big trigger). Made it the whole way today with no issues.
There was mention of improvements specifically to phantom braking in the release notes. Again, I haven’t driven much yet, but this update does seem better.
There was mention of improvements specifically to phantom braking in the release notes. Again, I haven’t driven much yet, but this update does seem better.
From a recent owner- I would love this option. I just took delivery, and after my first trip, I just wanted to return the car and get my money back. These braking event are very, very dangerous and I can not ever see using autopilot as is.
A third the option to have dumb cruise control. I almost got in a serious accident on a Toll road here in Socal. While driving along centered perfectly in the slow lane, TACC slammed on the brakes, decelerating the vehicle from 65mph to about 35mph, and were it not for me hitting the accelerator pedal hard and fast we would have been rear ended, with my three small children in the back seat. Needless to say it was one of the scariest moments in the last 250,000 miles of my driving career, and I am scared to use cruise control, let alone AP any longer. I regret my purchase of the Y, especially considering this is our 3 that we owned for 5 1/2 years never had any issues. My Y is a Texas build without radar so I imagine it is relying completely on vision.
I'm not sure if this is a hardware or software problem, but I took the car into the local service center and without even troubleshooting it by replacing hardware, running a diagnostic, or even test driving the vehicle, they sent us away saying there is nothing they can do.
I'm not sure if this is a hardware or software problem, but I took the car into the local service center and without even troubleshooting it by replacing hardware, running a diagnostic, or even test driving the vehicle, they sent us away saying there is nothing they can do.
It's usually the terrain, though reformatting the USB camera drive and full power-off reset might help clear up software.
Problems are on non-divided two-way highways over rolling terrain (as said before) with small hills---or very straight and flat with heat mirages---cause the vision to freak out. On the hills it's when there's an intermediate dip that it can't see and then the road continues later behind, so from the camera's view there is a gap that it doesn't understand, it freaks that there might be a phantom car in that gap. Humans remember that nothing drove into it before but it doesn't have any memory.
Mirages are probably even harder as they're unpredictable and make phantom images, but mirages + an incoming car freak it out.
I am always driving in crowded SoCal traffic---when it sees cars ahead it's safe---so these never happen to me but in other areas they do.
Also, the base AP/TACC software hasn't been substantially updated in a long time--effort is on FSDb only. The FSDb highway performance is substantially superior to the base AP/TACC performance, so when that code gets merged to the mainline there will be a general improvement.
FSDb on divided highways works great for me other than the continually changing and false speed limits, like many 55 mph work zones with nobody working for the last two months.
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