How effective is Collision Avoidance supposed to be?

[RogerHScott]

Under what circumstances is Collision Avoidance expected to -- or not expected to -- avoid a collision?
I was driving in low-speed stop-and-go traffic this morning and was momentarily distracted when the pickup
in front of me stopped. Before I saw him and could stop I bumped into the back of him and his trailer hitch
put a significant dent in the plastic "nose cone" of my car (fortunately, absolutely no damage to his vehicle).
It is bad enough that a Model S has effectively no front bumper, but I guess I kind of expected Collision Avoidance
to slam on the brakes before hitting the car in front of me. Unreasonable/unrealistic?

 

[msnow]

Under what circumstances is Collision Avoidance expected to -- or not expected to -- avoid a collision?
I was driving in low-speed stop-and-go traffic this morning and was momentarily distracted when the pickup
in front of me stopped. Before I saw him and could stop I bumped into the back of him and his trailer hitch
put a significant dent in the plastic "nose cone" of my car (fortunately, absolutely no damage to his vehicle).
It is bad enough that a Model S has effectively no front bumper, but I guess I kind of expected Collision Avoidance
to slam on the brakes before hitting the car in front of me. Unreasonable/unrealistic?

Check your Owners Manual but I think if your under a certain speed it doesn't kick in. It's supposed to slow but not stop.

 

[Maximus8]

I've heard the warning and the red highlight color of the vehicle in front of me...never has it slowed down or stopped. My wife drives a Mazda and it's City Brake Assist works below a certain speed. In on occasion, it stopped the vehicle when a car in front of use quickly pulled into a strip mall.

 

[RogerHScott]

Check your Owners Manual but I think if your under a certain speed it doesn't kick in. It's supposed to slow but not stop.

The manual implies, but does not come right out and say, that between 5MPH and 25MPH it will stop you. It is possible I wasn't even
going 5MPH at the time. It is also quite possible I was very gently accelerating, and the manual says it doesn't engage if you're accelerating (not sure I see the logic in that).

 

[mhan00]

The manual implies, but does not come right out and say, that between 5MPH and 25MPH it will stop you. It is possible I wasn't even
going 5MPH at the time. It is also quite possible I was very gently accelerating, and the manual says it doesn't engage if you're accelerating (not sure I see the logic in that).

The car won't gain say human input because the engineers know the tech isn't at the point where it can detect everything yet. Plus, it would open up the manufacturer to all kinds of liability of the car could override human input and crashed anyway. They assume the human knows something that the car can't detect or that the sensor may have been blocked for whatever reason. Just check the thread where the OP talks about how his autopilot slammed on the brakes for no apparent reason.

Until cars have multiple redundant sensors and CPUs and the software is fully refined, human input should always supersede the car.

 

[RogerHScott]

I can see disengaging the auto-braking if the accelerator is pressed after it engages, but it seems a little less clear when the
accelerator was already pressed at the time the system detected an imminent collision. I understand there are few easy answers here.

 

[kort677]

in the real world the tesla system isn't all that good. use your mirrors and be safe

 

[RogerHScott]

... and don't have your wife call you on your cell phone which is sitting on the passenger seat next to you while you're running
late to meet her in stop-and-go traffic (note: I'm not blaming anyone but myself here)

 

[kevinf311]

Sounds sorta like when I rear-ended a lady (so to speak) trying to get to the Greenville supercharger.

I figured it was because we were at such an oblique angle to each other or because I was starting to press the accelerator from a stop. Perhaps it just isn't designed to trigger at that speed.

Likewise, it was all me to blame in that scenario. I was looking over my left shoulder at cross traffic (like she was). She started to go, I started to move forward and looked back over to my left to see if it was clear for me to join traffic. She stopped, I didn't. Probably a delta of about 1mph, so nothing terrible, but my fault nonetheless