M3 autosteer glitches, what fun (not!)

[JonB]

(Cross posted from FB group)

Had some Autopilot glitches yesterday in heavy rain, on a dual carriageway. In one incident, the car braked suddenly as there was a pedestrian walking along the side of the road (don't see that often!) and there were three instances of the autosteer trying to take an exit where I had to assert control to avoid an accident. Autosteer is the most basic function of the Autopilot system and I think it's pretty useless / dangerous on our UK roads.

Now, to fix this I wonder if the FSD computer could refer to the satnav and prevent the car erroneously diving into an exit (especially where a route is programmed that means you want to go straight on). Or better still, prioritise the right hand road markings for autosteer, rather than the left, as they are much less likely to have been eroded by tyres, covered by rainwater or missing altogether on an exit.

I tweeted to EM this suggestion - please retweet it so it gets noticed:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1477935387918188550

 

[pgkevet]

Satnavs are slow to update from road works and road changes so I doubt that'd be a good idea. The real point here is how far away we are from using cameras instead of eyes - AI has a long way to go and I expect you were using it on A roads it's not optimised for UK yet.
Those who haven't experienced 'real' phantom braking think it doesn't happen or just slows the car a bit. It may not happen often, but it's bloody dangerous when it does. I've only had a few incidents of the car suddenly deciding to take a wrong side turning at impossible speed and that was 3 years ago and seemed fixed where it happened consistently. Perhaps an update has unfixed it - which would be typical tesla.

 

[hgmichna]

My impression is that a human looks far ahead, sees where the road continues, and steers there, ignoring undesired exits, missing lane markings, etc. With the autopilot I often have the impression that it is simply shortsighted. Or perhaps it puts too little emphasis on the road farther ahead.

 

[pgkevet]

My impression is that a human looks far ahead, sees where the road continues, and steers there, ignoring undesired exits, missing lane markings, etc. With the autopilot I often have the impression that it is simply shortsighted. Or perhaps it puts too little emphasis on the road farther ahead.

Exactly. I have a stretch of road here that I sometimes trial it on when quiet. It goes through a hamlet with 30mph, round a left hand 90deg bend then the limit is back to NSL 60mph with another tight 90-degree corner less than 250yrs ahead. The car keeps accelerating towards that bend, panics and returns control - Stupid. Manually, you'd ease up towards 40mph before lifting off for the regen before the bend, not try to take it at stupid.

 

[Yachtsman]

My impression is that a human looks far ahead, sees where the road continues, and steers there, ignoring undesired exits, missing lane markings, etc. With the autopilot I often have the impression that it is simply shortsighted. Or perhaps it puts too little emphasis on the road farther ahead.

I totally agree, the car doesn’t look far enough ahead. One of my bugbares is driving on the motorway in fairly heavy traffic with speed varying from very slow to 60ish & Using tacc.
A 3 or 4 length gap appears in front due to vehicles changing lanes, the traffic up ahead is virtually/is static but the Tesla races towards them them brakes fairly hard. I assumed artificial intelligence was supposed to be well, intelligent, so why is it not looking ahead like a human does.
Why when in stop start traffic can’t the car stop & start smoothly instead of sharp clunky stops followed by jerky starts.

 

[Timcat]

(Cross posted from FB group)

Had some Autopilot glitches yesterday in heavy rain, on a dual carriageway. In one incident, the car braked suddenly as there was a pedestrian walking along the side of the road (don't see that often!) and there were three instances of the autosteer trying to take an exit where I had to assert control to avoid an accident. Autosteer is the most basic function of the Autopilot system and I think it's pretty useless / dangerous on our UK roads.

Now, to fix this I wonder if the FSD computer could refer to the satnav and prevent the car erroneously diving into an exit (especially where a route is programmed that means you want to go straight on). Or better still, prioritise the right hand road markings for autosteer, rather than the left, as they are much less likely to have been eroded by tyres, covered by rainwater or missing altogether on an exit.

I tweeted to EM this suggestion - please retweet it so it gets noticed:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1477935387918188550

I have experienced exactly the same issues and quite often, both on dual carriageway A roads and motorways. Autopilot doesn't like rain and road spray in typically British grey wether conditions. My M3P tries to take exits off the A303 (if you don't know it, it's like a 2 lane M way) in the rain when it should go straight on. It will also phantom brake and try and take inappropriate evasive action (requiring instant manual intervention) when there is heavy moving traffic in the rain on 4/5 lane M ways like the M25 and M4 near Heathrow. It's basically only usable in good conditions/light traffic and, interestingly, at night in the dry with the headlights on.

When the conditions get more difficult, I just switch to manual control as I assume that, as I understand is the case with aircraft, one should not use autopilot in difficult traffic and weather conditions.

 

[Masklin]

No shortage of cautions, warnings and limitations to be aware of in the manual...

Model 3 Owner's Manual | Tesla

Learn about Autosteer and its specifications.

www.tesla.com

 

[Morhydro]

Other than taking all non-self driving cars off the roads, completely rebuilding the road infrastructure of the whole country down to the last signpost, banning pedestrians, cyclists, over size loads and turning off all the weather so there is no rain, snow, low sun, fog -and fell all the trees so there are no leaves on the road - and have superfast internet in every location - and stick corks in the birds backsides so there is no chance your camera is blocked with 'debris'............there is no chance that even autosteer let alone full self driving will ever work reliably!

 

[NISFAN]

You guys are brave. I only ever use AP on motorways, even then not that often. I generally use cruise control only.

 

[Alistairuk]

I think the problem your describing is due to the car clearly not realising where the lanes are due to water / spray obstructing the cameras forward visibility - in which case it tries to keep to what it can see on the left of the car - where this is a junction and your in the far left lane it can result in the car trying to take the slip road. I’ve only ever had this happen once or twice and always when in the left lane - never in one of the other lanes.

Also be warey of recently finished road works where there was temporary lanes in place - I’ve had the car randomly decide to veer right at one where it had seen the old temporary markings which hadn’t been properly removed and assumed it was the lane markings! Luckily nothing else was around!

If you hit a large puddle unexpected on AP at speed and the car looses grip expect it to freak out, throw back to manual and then fight you as some other safety system kicks in to correct the skid.

 

[JonB]

All very interesting - and aparently at odds with Tesla marketing materials.

 

[Adopado]

All very interesting - and completely at odds with Tesla marketing materials.

Have you got a link to these Tesla marketing materials?

 

[JonB]

I think we have been here before @Adopado

Model 3 | Tesla United Kingdom

Model 3 is designed for electric-powered performance, with quick acceleration, long range and fast charging.

www.tesla.com

..and scroll down to the Autopilot section. Let's just say the experience of using it doesn't measure up to the (implied?) performance shown here. They are long on promise, short on delivery. It is all very glossy - you naturally read it and think it will perform at least as well as its peers. But it doesn't. Even the TACC is weak - my 5 year old Ford did better with its "Intelligent Cruise Control". I could rely on it in all weathers. Not so with Tesla's TACC.

 

[Alistairuk]

I think we have been here before @Adopado

Model 3 | Tesla United Kingdom

Model 3 is designed for electric-powered performance, with quick acceleration, long range and fast charging.

www.tesla.com

..and scroll down to the Autopilot section. Let's just say the experience of using it doesn't measure up to the (implied?) performance shown here. They are long on promise, short on delivery. It is all very glossy - you naturally read it and think it will perform at least as well as its peers. But it doesn't. Even the TACC is weak - my 5 year old Ford did better with its "Intelligent Cruise Control". I could rely on it in all weathers. Not so with Tesla's TACC.

You’ll note they have a sneakily worded paragraph under Full Self Driving (at the end of the section after telling you about FSD); “Every new Model 3 comes standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time.”

Don’t get me wrong - I agree with you - but they’ve covered there arse and the reason I didn’t bother with the FSD is I read the manual before buying!

 

[Adopado]

I think we have been here before @Adopado

Model 3 | Tesla United Kingdom

Model 3 is designed for electric-powered performance, with quick acceleration, long range and fast charging.

www.tesla.com

..and scroll down to the Autopilot section. Let's just say the experience of using it doesn't measure up to the (implied?) performance shown here. They are long on promise, short on delivery. It is all very glossy - you naturally read it and think it will perform at least as well as its peers. But it doesn't. Even the TACC is weak - my 5 year old Ford did better with its "Intelligent Cruise Control". I could rely on it in all weathers. Not so with Tesla's TACC.

All I see in the Autopilot sections is "Autopilot's advanced safety and convenience features are designed to assist you with the most burdensome parts of driving."

I'll add that I'm no great defender of Autopilot functionality! It's the least used feature on my car.

 

[Invesla]

Hi all,
Chiming in here as had both phantom braking and the auto steer beta try and take me off the motorway this morning. I just updated to 2021.44.30 overnight and it seems worse since... I was driving home from London 3 nights ago in heavy rain and had 0 issues for almost 50 miles heading north on the M40, wipers needed at full speed (not on auto..lol) and very dark..the autosteer although nerve-racking was almost flawless.. FF to this morning on the same stretch of motorway in clear skies and good light my M3 tried to exit at a junction and hit the brakes both within 10 miles of each other.. went manual the rest of the way home.. 2 steps forward and 2 back definitely the norm in Europe it seems

 

[phil4]

You're seeing the effect of Sales vs Reality. Tesla would like you to buy their car, and even better pay £6800 for FSD. To do that they'll paint as rosey a picture of AP and FSD as they can. That's the Sales.

The reality is more akin to what you've experienced. I'll not try and defend Tesla, they're big enough to do that themselves, but I will say that behind it is a trained AI/Machine learning system, and I suspect the bulk of the training, testing and tweaking happens in and around California... not the UK in rainy winter. Indeed we can see this with the lack of Roundabout support at all, whereas it'll quite happily manage crossroads and lights at them, ie. the majority of junctions in the US.

So is AP good for the UK... it's ok, but it really is just a fancy name for Cruise with Lane Keep Assist. And compared to the Honda E it does that a bit better (ie. you can let go of the steering wheel, whereas the Honda expects you to drive the car and will nudge you if it thinks you're drifting). But no, it's nowhere near what the Sales people are showing you, and if it's going to work over here it really needs a lot more training. And I doubt that'll come until it's working properly in the US.

 

[JonB]

Luckily, I read up on all of this before buying, and hence didn't specify any of the Autopilot extras as they appear to be of little value in the UK. That said, reading about it is way different to experiencing it. The feeling of loss of control... it's scary.

It rankles that even the basic package is deficient as I did - in effect - pay for it, but I'm still in the honeymoon phase with the car.

 

[kitenski]

as a prospective owner does auto steer come as standard or is it one of the paid extras (which I have no intention of purchasing)

 

[Drew57]

and I suspect the bulk of the training, testing and tweaking happens in and around California... not the UK in rainy winter. Indeed we can see this with the lack of Roundabout support at all, whereas it'll quite happily manage crossroads and lights at them, ie. the majority of junctions in the US.

I think you are correct - before Christmas I was in in Santa Monica and at one stop sign we noticed that out of ~20 cars we could see, only five were not Teslas!

By the way we've used this roundabout in Santa Barbara many times and the 'family' FSD Model X does manage it OK.