I was a bit surprised by my Tesla's lack of reaction

[Pruitt]

Yesterday I was driving down Highway 17A in the right lane in Summerville SC, when some jackass in a white car decided they wanted my lane, even though I was already there. Their right rear wheel was about even with my front left wheel.

They started moving over into my lane, so I honked the horn. They kept coming. I hit the brakes and they missed me by maybe six inches.

I was a bit surprised that my S didn't hit the brakes before I did. The left forward ultrasonics must have sensed the car, but there was no emergency braking or attempt to avoid the collision on the part of my car.

I didn't wait for my car to react; I did as I always would have in the past. I didn't even think about the car reacting to the potential accident until some time later. Shouldn't it have detected the issue and activated the AEB system?

 

[GSP]

You did the right thing to not wait and see what AP or AEB would do. AEB can assist for some events, but there will be lots of times where it is totally up to the driver. AEB is just a backup that will reduce the number and severity of collisions in the overall fleet.

I think the above applies to AEB systems from all of the automakers.

In the future I expect AEB will improve, but it is very worthwhile to get the existing state of the art in production vehicles ASAP to help with overall fleet statistics. This is not only my opinion, but in the US, NHTSA has stated so as well and decided to delay regulations on AEB performance until automakers get the systems they currently have in development into production vehicles. In return, automakers agreed to get their AEB systems in production cars ASAP.

GSP

 

[Mr So Chill]

The car was coming from the side and not the front. AEB does not activate in that scenario. AEB does not utilize the ultra-sonic sensors. According to the manual... "The forward looking camera and the radar sensor are designed to determine the distance from any object (vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle, or pedestrian) traveling in front of Model S. When a frontal collision is considered unavoidable, Automatic Emergency Braking is designed to automatically apply the brakes to reduce the severity of the impact."

 

[Pruitt]

You did the right thing to not wait and see what AP or AEB would do. AEB can assist for some events, but there will be lots of times where it is totally up to the driver.

The car was coming from the side and not the front. AEB does not activate in that scenario. AEB does not utilize the ultra-sonic sensors.

Thanks for the replies, GSP and Mr So Chill.

I'll NEVER wait on the car to react in a potentially hazardous situation. I'm not at all interested in being a Darwin Award contestant!

I've read a couple of threads where folks have talked about their cars attempting to swerve to avoid side collisions, but that may be A/P functionality coming into play, or even misperceptions that the car reacted.

 

[dedicatedtek]

out of curiosity, I'd like to know did your instrument cluster show an image of the vehicle ?

 

[Pruitt]

out of curiosity, I'd like to know did your instrument cluster show an image of the vehicle ?

I don't honestly know. I didn't look at the IC right then - I was watching the moron on the road.
I didn't hear any sort of audible warning.

 

[chillaban]

I think there was likely a bigger gap than you thought, or he wasn't closing in on your quickly enough.

When AP/TACC is not active, AEB/FCW is meant to react at the very last second before it's no longer possible to avoid a collision. That means if he's 20 inches away from you and approaching you at 1 inch per second, AEB will likely not activate until 19 seconds later in this scenario.


While this situation is scary to a human, I don't think the car would've thought it's an emergency braking worthy event, not unless he suddenly started slowing down or something.