I hate Navigate on Autopilot

[arroyobass]

We got our model 3 about a month ago and navigate on autopilot was the number one feature I was excited about in the car!

We have done about 1800 miles in the last month almost completely on the highway around southern California.

Navigate on autopilot is a terrible driver. The auto lane changes take so long that drivers in the new lane close the gap before the car moves over. It doesn't seem to have any awareness of the speed of cars behind and in front of you. It'll change lanes when the car in front of you slows down by about 1 mph, but it will change lanes into a much faster lane cutting off cars coming up behind you.

It takes so long to change lanes that it almost always fails to actually make the change. I have to disengage for probably 80% of lane changes and exits. For off ramps it slows down about 200 yards before the actual exit which causes cars behind you to almost hit you.

Many of the roads (not primary highways) around me are 55-65mph but the maps don't have the speed limit data so it maxes out at 50mph which is an unsafe speed on these roads.

Autopilot even drives like it's drunk on about half of my commute. There's a ramp about every mile, but the lanes are a long merge area and the car tries to center itself in the two merging lanes. This happens every mile for about 15 miles of my drive. It makes passengers sick from the constant weaving in the lanes.

There have been many times when the car thinks it needs to change lanes to follow the route but it is completely wrong. I cancel the change and 2 seconds later it tries to change lanes again. Repeat over and over.

I've got to the point where I never use navigate on autopilot and I'm only using autopilot on straight open roads with little traffic.

Autopark is completely useless. I've tried it out in a controlled parking lot in a lot of different parking setups, parallel parking, garages, and lots of other places and it never has once successfully parked.

Navigate on autopilot is making more work for me as a driver to correct all of it's issues.

We bought into navigate on autopilot with the dreams that someday it'll make my commute totally autonomously, but I don't see that happening for many years if ever with this sensor suite.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Wow, I am puzzled. I have had a completely 100% opposite experience. I am wondering if we have different software or some else different. I don't use auto-park, so I can't comment on that, but everything else has been great for me. It seems it is great for some people and not good for others. I don't understand.

When wife is in the car, she will often say "please put it in auto-pilot". I guess she thinks the car either drives better than me, or thinks I'll fall asleep.

Oh and to add..... when I manually click lane change, it does it super fast right after I click the signal. Almost as if it is constantly checking the lane and is ready to do it when I ask. That wasn't the case in recent software versions. It was slow to respond like you mention.

 

[Az_Rael]

Sorry your experiences with NoA are poor. I also don't use it for similar reasons, I think you need pretty light traffic for it to work OK, which is hard to come by in So Cal.

The autopilot lane weaving at entrance ramps has been much improved for me in the Christmas update (offset by increased lane weaving during other times, tho). I have memorized which lanes are AP friendly for my commute and try to stick there.

 

[flyingowl]

That escalated quickly

 

[jdcollins5]

You must be on earlier software version. What version? 2019.XX.XX.X

NoA has continued to improve with each software update. Have you bothered to go through the NoA settings and try different settings?

I just used AutoPark the other day between two cars and it worked perfectly.

 

[arroyobass]

You must be on earlier software version. What version? 2019.XX.XX.X

NoA has continued to improve with each software update. Have you bothered to go through the NoA settings and try different settings?

I just used AutoPark the other day between two cars and it worked perfectly.

We're on 2019.40.50.7. We installed 2019.40.50.5 the day we got the car so I haven't really had any personal experience with older versions to see any upgrades.

I run NoA on Mad Max without lane change confirmation, and I would hope it would give me lane changes that are fast enough, but so far not so much. I'm still really hoping to see some improvements in the future!

 

[ElectricIAC]

We got our model 3 about a month ago and navigate on autopilot was the number one feature I was excited about in the car!

We have done about 1800 miles in the last month almost completely on the highway around southern California.

Navigate on autopilot is a terrible driver. The auto lane changes take so long that drivers in the new lane close the gap before the car moves over. It doesn't seem to have any awareness of the speed of cars behind and in front of you. It'll change lanes when the car in front of you slows down by about 1 mph, but it will change lanes into a much faster lane cutting off cars coming up behind you.

It takes so long to change lanes that it almost always fails to actually make the change. I have to disengage for probably 80% of lane changes and exits. For off ramps it slows down about 200 yards before the actual exit which causes cars behind you to almost hit you.

Many of the roads (not primary highways) around me are 55-65mph but the maps don't have the speed limit data so it maxes out at 50mph which is an unsafe speed on these roads.

Autopilot even drives like it's drunk on about half of my commute. There's a ramp about every mile, but the lanes are a long merge area and the car tries to center itself in the two merging lanes. This happens every mile for about 15 miles of my drive. It makes passengers sick from the constant weaving in the lanes.

There have been many times when the car thinks it needs to change lanes to follow the route but it is completely wrong. I cancel the change and 2 seconds later it tries to change lanes again. Repeat over and over.

I've got to the point where I never use navigate on autopilot and I'm only using autopilot on straight open roads with little traffic.

Autopark is completely useless. I've tried it out in a controlled parking lot in a lot of different parking setups, parallel parking, garages, and lots of other places and it never has once successfully parked.

Navigate on autopilot is making more work for me as a driver to correct all of it's issues.

We bought into navigate on autopilot with the dreams that someday it'll make my commute totally autonomously, but I don't see that happening for many years if ever with this sensor suite.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Makes me wonder if this is why the car likes to camp in the left lane now on HW2.5 because at least on merges with entrances and exits I see the same behaviors.

 

[ewoodrick]

We got our model 3 about a month ago and navigate on autopilot was the number one feature I was excited about in the car!

We have done about 1800 miles in the last month almost completely on the highway around southern California.

Navigate on autopilot is a terrible driver. The auto lane changes take so long that drivers in the new lane close the gap before the car moves over. It doesn't seem to have any awareness of the speed of cars behind and in front of you. It'll change lanes when the car in front of you slows down by about 1 mph, but it will change lanes into a much faster lane cutting off cars coming up behind you.

Oh, you so you are saying that the NoP is as-good, if not better than 90% of the other drivers on SoCal roads?

And lane change was updated a few releases ago so that it starts within a second now. But it does require a bigger gap than most drivers would. That's what Mad Max is for.

 

[ilyak]

We're on 2019.40.50.7. We installed 2019.40.50.5 the day we got the car so I haven't really had any personal experience with older versions to see any upgrades.

I run NoA on Mad Max without lane change confirmation, and I would hope it would give me lane changes that are fast enough, but so far not so much. I'm still really hoping to see some improvements in the future!

As an FYI, speed-dependent lane change settings don’t affect how long it takes to complete an auto lane change, just how often the car will initiate one. I find Mad Max to actually produce less consistent results than the level below it when used without confirmation. If the lane changes are not quick enough for your driving situation, the I think the best setting would be to require confirmation - manually initiated auto lane changes are much faster. On a side note, lane changes initiated by NoA were actually a bit faster until V10, when they added a couple of extra blinker cycles to them.

 

[ewoodrick]

We're on 2019.40.50.7. We installed 2019.40.50.5 the day we got the car so I haven't really had any personal experience with older versions to see any upgrades.

I run NoA on Mad Max without lane change confirmation, and I would hope it would give me lane changes that are fast enough, but so far not so much. I'm still really hoping to see some improvements in the future!

BTW, you do know that you still have to confirm a lane change by having torque on the wheel?
You don't have to confirm with the stalk, but you absolutely have to make sure that there is torque on the wheel or it will not change lanes. That sounds like what may be happening.

 

[Daniel in SD]

It doesn't really work in Southern California traffic (yet?). I love it on road trips though!
I feel like many people don't understand what it's like to drive around here. haha.

Oh, you so you are saying that the NoP is as-good, if not better than 90% of the other drivers on SoCal roads?

It's much worse than 90% of the drivers around here at changing lanes. Sometimes I wonder if drivers are just really bad in other parts of the country?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Boy oh boy, if you dislike it now, you would have hated it before. It is actually a fair amount better than it was before, I think. Specifically, the jerking has improved a fair amount and lane changes are better.

I run NoA on Mad Max without lane change confirmation,

I recommend turning this off (the unconfirmed lane change); it's basically useless. It also gets rid of aggressive torque checking for the lane change (you still have to keep your hands on the wheel with torque applied of course). Just request lane changes yourself at appropriate times, and let it complete them, and do not expect the car to "find the gap." Just pick the gap for it, and learn how much space it needs to make the lane changes reliably. As I said, it's actually much better at changing lanes than it was before, but it is not going to work in very heavy traffic - it will be jerky and dangerous and open you up to the possibility of being rear ended. As always, watch your blind spots and other vehicles changing lanes when using it this way. Do not trust the car to not hit other vehicles.

I run it this way, and I find it to be fairly usable. I'm still a much better driver than it is, and much smoother, but it is acceptable when used this way.

Generally, there is a learning curve (you have to figure out all the ways that Autopilot can fail and endanger you and others), and part of that curve is learning when it is hopeless to use NoA. But after getting through that there are quite a few situations where it is very nice to have.

 

[ewoodrick]

It doesn't really work in Southern California traffic (yet?). I love it on road trips though!
I feel like many people don't understand what it's like to drive around here. haha.

It's much worse than 90% of the drivers around here at changing lanes. Sometimes I wonder if drivers are just really bad in other parts of the country?

One would question if changing lanes into a position that does not have an adequate safety barrier is a good or bad thing.
It changes lanes perfectly fine. It does it in a quite reasonable timeframe now. But you do indeed need a hole big enough for it to determine "safe"
Rush hour LA traffic isn't filled with a lot of safe holes to change lanes into. Sure, an aggressive driver can easily get into it. But there are a lot who stay over in the right side of the road because of this.

 

[AZjohnInCA]

I'm with you @arroyobass,
In the bay area freeways there is no wide open spot to change lanes and never will be.
The other reason I don't use AP is the unexpected braking when I do want to change lanes.

As a old mentor told me long ago, it's fine if someone wants to jump ahead of you. What's not OK is when they do they hit the breaks.

I'm good with the adaptive cruise control, I just learned to turn it off changing lanes or taking exits.

Have hope AP will get better down the road

 

[Silicon Desert]

It doesn't really work in Southern California traffic (yet?). I love it on road trips though!
I feel like many people don't understand what it's like to drive around here. haha.
It's much worse than 90% of the drivers around here at changing lanes. Sometimes I wonder if drivers are just really bad in other parts of the country?

You are right about that from my opinion. I see WIDE variances in how aggressive people are in various parts of the US. Your area is a bit scary to me when I visit the Tesla SC down there, and I am more on guard as some drivers are very aggressive. I also don't use any driving features there. As for Los Angeles and New York, I am afraid to drive there at all. I just park the car and use Lyft People in those busy cities are probably used to it, think nothing of it, and drive better than I do I don't know about other folks, but my most fearful area is China. I just get in the back seat of a taxi, close my eyes, and pray until they tell me we arrived

So bottom line for me, I use AP all the time up here and in areas where I am familiar, and interstate trips, otherwise I don't use it.

 

[Daniel in SD]

You are right about that from my opinion. I see WIDE variances in how aggressive people are in various parts of the US. Your area is a bit scary to me when I visit the Tesla SC down there, and I am more on guard as some drivers are very aggressive. I also don't use any driving features there. As for Los Angeles and New York, I am afraid to drive there at all. I just park the car and use Lyft People in those busy cities are probably used to it, think nothing of it, and drive better than I do I don't know about other folks, but my most fearful area is China. I just get in the back seat of a taxi, close my eyes, and pray until they tell me we arrived

So bottom line for me, I use AP all the time up here and in areas where I am familiar, and interstate trips, otherwise I don't use it.

Yeah, I learned to drive in LA so around here I feel like I'm the aggressive driver. In terms of lane changes people around here generally don't signal to indicate that they want to change lanes they indicate that they're going to change lanes. A gap is not going to open up if you sit there with your blinker on, if anything it will disappear!

 

[arroyobass]

BTW, you do know that you still have to confirm a lane change by having torque on the wheel?
You don't have to confirm with the stalk, but you absolutely have to make sure that there is torque on the wheel or it will not change lanes. That sounds like what may be happening.

Yep! I figured this out after the first lane change didn't work. It's not only that your hand has been recently on it, but it requires a new torque on the wheel before it'll lane change. Not ideal, but I do understand why they do it that way.

 

[arroyobass]

Yeah, I learned to drive in LA so around here I feel like I'm the aggressive driver. In terms of lane changes people around here generally don't signal to indicate that they want to change lanes they indicate that they're going to change lanes. A gap is not going to open up if you sit there with your blinker on, if anything it will disappear!

Great description! Socal really requires a weird aggressive defense driving style. You're going to get run off the road if you follow normal defensive driving rules.

I'm betting that's a lot of the issue with the car too. Socal traffic is a corner case compared to so many other areas that it's hard to teach the car how to drive here.

 

[Rockster]

My experience used to be like OP's but a recent software update dramatically improved the speed of NoA's lane changes. NoA now changes lanes swiftly and efficiently. I love it now.

 

[MasterC17]

Hmm, surprised to hear your negative experience. I've been quite happy with NoA. Given, our traffic is not as bad as yours, but for long road trips I find it to make my life considerably easier.

As others have stated, it has improved drastically since first released and it should continue to improve. AP certainly has a learning curve but as you get more comfortable with it you can anticipate its actions which makes it a lot easier to trust.

I've put roughly 40,000 miles on AutoPilot from the old days when AP1 was first introduced, and the progression from AP1 when it was first released to AP2, to AP2.5, and now to AP3 has been drastic and it has continued to get better.