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Is the current NoA helpful or harmful?

Do you agree that current NoA requires significant intervention and is a potential safety risk?

  • Yes

    Votes: 80 45.5%
  • No

    Votes: 96 54.5%

  • Total voters
    176
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Not really sure where CR gets off on saying that this is way worse than normal driving? It easily takes the stress off normal highway driving, especially for longer drives with less traffic. The way I see it, it seems to work great with the following exceptions:
  • If a car is in the 'danger zone' when it initiates a lane change, it tends to brake aggressively.
  • Super heavy traffic, it tends to have trouble if people are too aggressive
  • It likes to pass on the right, which isn't illegal in my state... but can sometimes be dumb
  • Speed-based lane changes (I have mine set on 'Medium', not 'Mad Max') seems somewhat unpredictable? It's unclear what conditions it looks for to make a lane change
If you just let NoA do it's thing, and understand the limitations, it's way easier IMO than driving yourself.
 
I agree with CR’s account of NoA but they should have made it clear that regular Autopilot (lane keeping, TACC, LDW) is best in class and is what is enabled by default.

If I were a casual observer reading the article I’d be under the impression that buying one of these cars means it will just start driving itself into dangerous situations like some sort of suicidal robot.

NoA for me has gone from completely terrifying (November) to scary-and-irritating (January) to a system that’s useful in extremely specific circumstances (today) as long as you’re ready to regain control immediately. You can see where NoA is headed and in the right situation it’s magic, but I think they gave the option for it being on automatically at every Autopilot engagement too soon. It needed more time in the oven.
 
Passing on the right is only required because no one keeps right, passes left.

I don't see any reason that should be called out. The people blocking the left lane are the problem...

I find NoAP more annoying than anything... and really don't use at it's current level. I know it will get better, and in a future update would give it another go.

I would really like to see a user option to disable passing on the right. It’s legal where I am but I really try to avoid such a maneuver as I find it dangerous and uncomfortable.
 
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... How many human driver has caused an accident today vs. how many has NoA caused?
I don't know the answer to that question, but I think it is too early for that answer to provide meaningful conclusion about the safety of NoA. There are around 275 million automobiles on the U.S. roads now. There are perhaps around 150K Teslas with EAP/FSD and we don't know how many of those use the NoA feature. So at this point, there probably isn't much statistical relevance in comparing.

I think the best thing we can do is to answer the question based on our own personal experience with NoA rather than rely on any stats. My 2¢!
 
I think this article is spot on. I very much enjoy the regular Autopilot when driving on a highway, but find NoA extremely iffy. Lane change decisions are often nonsensical and their execution unsafe, and the car often slows down rapidly without any obvious reason (pissing off everyone behind you). The comment that NoA is "nearsighted" hits the nail on the head; it has no real situational awareness. I find it generally more stressful to supervise than the regular AP.
 
It's all about context. Does it require intervention now and then? Yes, Absolutely.

Does it make my commute in traffic safer because it is more attentive than me? Yes, Absolutely.

I'm in this to watch the improvement over time, and experience this once-in-a-lifetime transition to automated driving. As an engineer (unrelated to auto or self driving), I find this whole thing fascinating.
 
Regular AP is better than I am at staying centered, keeping ever vigilant, keeping a constant speed, and is also smoother in a number of braking scenarios (many but not all). It also *always* uses it's turn signals when changing lanes (better than most people).

I'm better than NoA in deciding when to change lanes and at picking the right speed when exiting highways. Both of its main features.

So I currently don't find any benefits to NoA, in fact, for me it's a net-negative because it causes more stress trying to guess what it's going to do next.

However -- I use vanilla AP every day and LOVE it.

[CR basically said this, but in a much more negative way, and (as far as I saw) didn't point out the positives of vanilla AP]
 
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