Hold Steering Wheel every 20-25 seconds?

[Marshallo]

Here is my response to the email I received from Tesla after filing a complaint to "escalate to exectutive review"

The generic email that I received back from Tesla is so weak!

I am kind of disappointed in the company.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mr Cohen,

I appreciate your reply to my concern.

However, your reply was very generic and does not really explain what Tesla plans to do about fixing the issue, other than "logging my feedback in the system".

I certainly know that I am not the only one with this issue and that this is not the first time you have received this complaint regarding the autopilot.

Can you refer me to someone at Tesla that can actually answer my question and complaint on when this problem will be solved.

The recent firmware updates of my vehicle have made my autopilot not worth using.

I would have thought that detailed testing would be done before official firmware updates where released to customers that had the ability to make a five thousand dollar feature on their vehicle useless.

Why should I have to apply light resistance as the autopilot steers the vehicle and the vehicle is doing what it should be doing.

My commute is mostly southern California freeways, most of the commute is long straight sections of the freeway.

It is un-natural for me to have to apply light pressure to steer the wheel if the autopilot is keeping the vehicle in the center of the lane.

It is basically defeating the whole purpose of using autopilot in the first place.


Thank you for your help in this matter.


Marshall O


From: Customer Support Tesla [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2018 6:35 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Tesla Account Escalate email - VIN XXXXXXXXXXX


Dear Mr. XXXX

Thank you for reaching out to Tesla Inc.

I am sorry hearing you are disappointed with the changes brought by the recent firmware updates of your vehicle. As you may know, Autosteer detects your hands by recognizing light resistance as the steering wheel turns, or from you manually turning the steering wheel very lightly.

With that said, I have well have logged your feedback in the system in order to bring it to the attention of our engineers.

We rely on the dedication of owners such as yourself to help us perfect and refine our vehicles, and we truly appreciate the input you have provided today. Please continue to keep us informed and be honest with anything that may arise in the future.

Thank you again for your comments and for the trust you place in us.

Kind Regards,

David Cohen | Executive Care
Burgemeester Stramanweg 122 | 1101EN Amsterdam

www.tesla.com

Just and update to my email to Mr David Cohen from Executive Care....

Nothing......

No response from him even acknowledging that he received the email reply from me.

No response that he will look into the problem or that the problem will be looked into by somebody else .....

Maybe there is a holiday in Amsterdam and he has not checked his email in 3 days.

I agree that something needs to be done about this autopilot screw-up from Tesla.

The simple solution is a touch-sensitive steering wheel Tesla!

NOT making the driver fight the autopilot steering (that is doing an excellent job of steering the vehicle) to let the car autopilot know that we are paying attention and have our hands on the wheel! This is just plain CRAZY!

 

[tls]

The simple solution is a touch-sensitive steering wheel Tesla!

Dunno about "simple" . A retrofit into existing steering wheels could be a mess. Though I'm wondering about a capacitive sensor just on the back (windshield side) of the center sections of the wheel, between the seams in the leather. It might even be possible to stick something on, and route the cable via the path for the existing controls.

Personally, I'd be willing to pay about $2000 for an upgrade like that, on my existing car. I bet it'd be cost-effective at that price, and much cheaper as a mod to new cars. If they were willing to really do a heavier redesign of the steering wheel, they could make the entire windshield side touch-sensitive without much trouble at all.

 

[Marshallo]

Dunno about "simple" . A retrofit into existing steering wheels could be a mess. Though I'm wondering about a capacitive sensor just on the back (windshield side) of the center sections of the wheel, between the seams in the leather. It might even be possible to stick something on, and route the cable via the path for the existing controls.

Personally, I'd be willing to pay about $2000 for an upgrade like that, on my existing car. I bet it'd be cost-effective at that price, and much cheaper as a mod to new cars. If they were willing to really do a heavier redesign of the steering wheel, they could make the entire windshield side touch-sensitive without much trouble at all.

TLS, I understand how you feel, but I am not willing to pay to fix something that I paid a 5K fee upgrade for. Heck my vehicle is not even 4 months old. Tesla created this problem with the firmware upgrade change, now they need to fix it!

 

[JohnnyG]

Dunno about "simple" . A retrofit into existing steering wheels could be a mess. Though I'm wondering about a capacitive sensor just on the back (windshield side) of the center sections of the wheel, between the seams in the leather. It might even be possible to stick something on, and route the cable via the path for the existing controls...

I would assume the steering wheel uses a SOC and communicates via CANbus, like most of the components in the car do. If that's the case, a simple steering wheel swap, and firmware upgrade would do the trick. A stick-on retrofit with added cabling would be a nightmare.

 

[tls]

TLS, I understand how you feel, but I am not willing to pay to fix something that I paid a 5K fee upgrade for. Heck my vehicle is not even 4 months old. Tesla created this problem with the firmware upgrade change, now they need to fix it!

I think one thing of which you can be pretty sure is that Tesla won't replace your steering wheel for free.

 

[sorka]

Yes, they reduced the interval (likely due to the amount of accidents). But normally that's no big deal as you should always have one hand on the steering wheel. AP is a "hands-on"-feature

I get the hold the wheel warning every 20 seconds or so even when I'm holding the wheel. I have to yank on the wheel to get the message to go away. AP1 is now dead.

 

[sorka]

Put both hands on the wheel exactly as you would if you were steering the car. When the car turns the wheel it will detect the resistance your hands provide to it turning. There are no sensors in the wheel to detect your hands.

...which means it doesn't work on straight highways when there is no turning.

Add to that since I'm being nagged constantly with my hands on the wheel, I'm constantly being distracted and having my attention divided. In my opinion, this update actually makes AP dangerous.

 

[IchDochNicht]

I agree with the previous posters that this has become really annoying. Not because I don't want to keep my hands on the wheel - I always do. But I need to hold it quite tight to keep the warnings away. This defeats the purpose of the feature, and makes it a lot less pleasant to use.

 

[Jevi_S85D]

I've been using AP for 2 years now and been very happy with it.
Now - every trip I'm taking the "red hands" will show up eventually.
Haven't quite figured out when and why.
The way I grab and hold the wheel has to be adjusted it seems.
I'm certainly not happy with changing the way I have used AP very succesfully for years.
I understand that a couple of drivers have apparently misused AP and have died as the consequence.
Or maybe they had a blackout - fell asleep, got distracted by a phone call or whatever.
Happens all the time - AP or not.
"Red hands" and disabling autosteer is not the way forward.
Autosteer is added safety and should always be available.

 

[rnortman]

I agree with the previous posters that this has become really annoying. Not because I don't want to keep my hands on the wheel - I always do. But I need to hold it quite tight to keep the warnings away. This defeats the purpose of the feature, and makes it a lot less pleasant to use.

Apologies if I'm explaining something you already understand, but just to be really clear, in case you haven't read the various tips in this thread, holding the wheel "tight" has nothing to do with it. You need to provide a gentle turning force (torque) in one direction or the other. The easiest way to do this is to rest one hand on the wheel. Two hands on the wheel doesn't work because the weight of one balances out the weight of the other and the net torque ends up at zero (or close enough to zero that it's just noise to the car). Wiggling the wheel quickly won't work -- you want gentle force in one direction until the nag goes away.

The above is a workaround. Our big complaint is that this is a "safety" feature which requires you to use the less safe driving position of having only one hand on the wheel instead of two. Those who are defending Tesla in this thread counter that one hand is safe enough and we're a bunch of nervous nellies for wanting to have both hands on the wheel. Tesla, not surprisingly, has not responded to repeated requests from myself and others with any kind of solution for this issue. Tesla will also not officially recommend having only one hand on the wheel, from what I've seen, despite that being the only practical way to operate the car with Autosteer enabled.

 

[Rockster]

I get the hold the wheel warning every 20 seconds or so even when I'm holding the wheel. I have to yank on the wheel to get the message to go away. AP1 is now dead.

I shared your opinion until yesterday.

In my AP1 S I greatly reduced the recent nags by following a tip I found elsewhere (I’ll try to find it and post a link later). The tip was to reboot both screens, then use the main screen to power the car off, then wait five minutes without doing anything to awaken the car. After doing that I haven’t seen one nag, even in five hours driving yesterday, whereas in the days previous I had been getting incessant nags as we’ve all been describing here.

 

[rnortman]

In my AP1 S I greatly reduced the recent nags by following a tip I found elsewhere (I’ll try to find it and post a link later). The tip was to reboot both screens, then use the main screen to power the car off, then wait five minutes without doing anything to awaken the car. After doing that I haven’t seen one nag, even in five hours driving yesterday, whereas in the days previous I had been getting incessant nags as we’ve all been describing here.

Do you hold the wheel with one hand or two? Have you tried driving on straight roads? Many of us have tried this and still get nags on straight stretches of highway when holding the wheel with both hands. When holding the wheel with one hand, I rarely get nags (HW2.5).

 

[cwave1]

I shared your opinion until yesterday.

In my AP1 S I greatly reduced the recent nags by following a tip I found elsewhere (I’ll try to find it and post a link later). The tip was to reboot both screens, then use the main screen to power the car off, then wait five minutes without doing anything to awaken the car. After doing that I haven’t seen one nag, even in five hours driving yesterday, whereas in the days previous I had been getting incessant nags as we’ve all been describing here.

This is very interesting. Please do post the link when you can. What firmware version are you on?

 

[GregTexas]

I defeated the nag and took a 900-mile road trip. It was the most relaxed long road trip I ever took. I finally reaped the benefits of AP.

 

[rnortman]

I defeated the nag and took a 900-mile road trip. It was the most relaxed long road trip I ever took. I finally reaped the benefits of AP.

What do you mean by "defeated"? Do you mean you attached some kind of weight to the wheel?

 

[Rockster]

Do you hold the wheel with one hand or two? Have you tried driving on straight roads? Many of us have tried this and still get nags on straight stretches of highway when holding the wheel with both hands. When holding the wheel with one hand, I rarely get nags (HW2.5).

I'm on 2018.21.9 in my AP1 Model S.

Yes, I'm saying that on straight roads, holding the wheel with both hands (the behavior that caused nags every 20 seconds or so last week) resulted in no nags, even when holding the wheel like that for minutes at a time. I can say minutes, not tens of minutes because I didn't do any controlled testing. I just drove as I normally did before: sometimes one handed, two handed if the road and traffic conditions warranted, back to one handed when convenient. In short, I drove "normally," as I did in years past and didn't see a single nag in five hours of driving, 80% of which was on AP.

I need to make a long-ish 100 mile or so drive this evening and I'll try to quantify the behavior better.

BTW, here's the original post containing the reboot suggestion.

 

[ZoomFPV]

What do you mean by "defeated"? Do you mean you attached some kind of weight to the wheel?

"Defeated" is the correct way say it on the internet.... I also have defeated mine..... while still having hands on the wheel...

 

[d-bone]

This has to be a case of cars behaving differently. I am on version 2018.21.9 with AP1. I have driven about 400-500 miles with autopilot, with 200 of those miles in a single trip. I have gotten 3 nags so far. A combination of 1 hand and 2 hands on the wheel, not changing how I hold the wheel at all from normal. For me, it seems to be more sensitive in being able to detect my hands. On straight sections of road the car still corrects ever so slightly left and right that my hands being on the wheel are enough to offer resistance. When turning, I normally follow the turn with my hands on the wheel, but because I am not turning exactly in sync with the car turning the wheel, it can feel my slight resistance. I have read other reports of the same. I don't think the people complaining are whining or making things up like some suggest, I think it has to be a case of the cars behaving differently, and working really well on some cars, and not well at all on others...

 

[Sousagil90D]

I just put a small water bottle at 9 o'clock on the wheel. Works like a charm. No nags at all. This whole "grab the wheel" is just stupid. You can have a normal car and choose to make you whole trip playing with the radio buttons and you're not blaming the radio manufacturer when you have an accident. You're responsible for the way you drive, that's it. Tesla should make you sign a waiver because it's new tech, so you're assuming full responsabily for the way you use it and then go back to the way it was when I bought my car with 7.1 (more or less a nag every 15mins).

 

[rnortman]

I just put a small water bottle at 9 o'clock on the wheel.

Please delete your post. You are publicly advocating something demonstrably unsafe in a public forum. It is posts and behaviors like this that force Tesla to have the nags in the first place and ruin it for the rest of us.