RogerHScott
Active Member
AP1 or AP2.x?
Since your experience is not just "me too" here it would be really interesting to hear more details.
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Long Commutes: Has autopilot helped?
- Thread starter paulvinh
- Start date
Since your experience is not just "me too" here it would be really interesting to hear more details.
I've got AP2. I don't think AP version would matter much to me, as it generally works flawlessly.
Part of it may just be that I don't find driving to be that stressful. I never found traffic to be "white-knuckling" as @ucmndd put it. Particularly with a Tesla where I can mostly drive with just one foot. I've gone on long road trips using AP the whole time and never found them any less tiring than without it. In fact on my next vacation I'm planning on taking my other Pre-AP Tesla as I value the larger frunk more than the AP.
RogerHScott
Active Member
Well, you mentioned jerkiness. I don't notice that with AP1, so maybe that is a difference.
In my experience, it's all about the following distance setting (though virtually all of my experience is AP1.)
On distance 1, the car is very jerky, especially in braking - it brakes late and it brakes hard. Really, I think is driving inside of its effective reaction time (though in principle it should be capable of a much faster reaction time from the hardware specs.)
A lot of human drivers drive inside these days, and it's really dangerous and the reason for most traffic backups and for all the multicar accidents.
On 2, it feels like the car is near the effective reaction time - it brakes about as hard as the car in front, though still late enough to worry me.
From 3 on up, it behaves much better, since it has time to react properly to the situation.
AP 'helps in stop and go commute' is a huge understatement. Its a life saver, or in my case a job saver, as I would not be continuing to work at this place for the last many years with a round trip of commute of 75 miles every day without AP.
Every day in the stop and go highway traffic during peak commute time I look around and see the bozos driving so intently and so stressed out in their non-AP gas cars and chuckle to myself saying - idiots.
Every day in the stop and go highway traffic during peak commute time I look around and see the bozos driving so intently and so stressed out in their non-AP gas cars and chuckle to myself saying - idiots.
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I'm qualified to answer this one. I drive 120 miles. Each way. I have AP1. I'm quite glad I got it rather than AP2, since I purchased my car in summer 2016 and would have found it pointless to babysit the AP2 development timeline that only just about made parity (I'm not very up to date on the news though) with AP1 from accounts here. I have ~60K miles on my car as of this week. I've driven 80-90% of that with AP enabled.
Back to the question, YES, AP and the CA HOV stickers make all the difference on my commute. Since it's mostly freeway driving, AP makes you more of a strategically minded supervisor keeping situational awareness around you, and less of a tactical operator negotiating every little detail of the actual process. It's an enormous savings in mental energy on such a drive. I'd never do this commute on a regular basis in a regular car. It's simply not tenable.
Back to the question, YES, AP and the CA HOV stickers make all the difference on my commute. Since it's mostly freeway driving, AP makes you more of a strategically minded supervisor keeping situational awareness around you, and less of a tactical operator negotiating every little detail of the actual process. It's an enormous savings in mental energy on such a drive. I'd never do this commute on a regular basis in a regular car. It's simply not tenable.
This is an amazing thread and underscores the reason Tesla gets such high customer sat numbers. Another thing about AP driving is that it changes your driving mood. You are no longer bothered about weaving in and out of traffic, trying to overtake a slow car on the left lane, worried about people cutting in. You just move to the second lane, put it on AP and relax. Sure, you may arrive at your destination 10 mins late, but you will be a much happier person.
TexLaw
Member
I don't have a commute, per se, but I regularly end up in stop-and-go traffic for a good deal of time. I cannot say that I've enjoyed such traffic for the last year in my MS, but I really don't much care about it any longer. From time to time, it is a little fun. Shoot, even if I'm not in the mood to engage AP for that traffic, vehicle hold and regenerative braking is such that there is a lot less pedal switching and wear-and-tear on your driving leg. Tesla excels in both traffic and open roads.
kosarfan
Member
We are taking our family of 6 for spring break (11.5hrs away from home) in our Model S with jump seats for one reason: Auto-pilot.
Sure - saving gas money is nice....but driving that distance in our Honda Odyssey without AP would be agonizing.
I am in traveling sales and use AP all of the time!
Sure - saving gas money is nice....but driving that distance in our Honda Odyssey without AP would be agonizing.
I am in traveling sales and use AP all of the time!
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Exactly what I do. Forget about traffic and all Right most lane, set it to whatever speed. Forget about it.
The only thing I'll say is that it's the adaptive cruise control part of it which is the game changer. That's obviously not necessarily unique to Tesla. Had it in my Volvo S60, 2.5 hr commute to Brooklyn in my Volvo was no big deal. Tesla is nicer with the lane keeping but imo if you can't get a Tesla for a long commute at least get adaptive cruise control.
Disagree. Adaptive cruise is certainly a nice thing to have, and certainly does help - but adding Autosteer makes a much bigger difference to my peace of mind and comfort in faster stop and go traffic than just adaptive cruise did.
(And, of course, not all ACC systems are equal - even this year there are several on the market that don't go all the way to a stop and back up again, and you always have to watch for stopped cars, more with some systems than others. Still, I'd agree with your assessment that if it's an option on a car you're buying this year, you want it, whichever version is available. Of course, everyone should be buying Teslas this year so it doesn't matter, right?
)Thanks for the replies guys! From these replies I am definitely getting a Tesla with autopilot now. It has been a hard decision on me because of the price but if it will save my sanity, to be less stressed when I get home to my wife and family then I believe it is worth it! Right now the traffic gets me so drained that I dont want to talk to anyone when I get home.
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