My best autopilot commute ever after firmware update

[tstafford]

It does seem to be willing to run right up the rear end of folks and slam on the brakes. It's a smart "enhancement' frankly - if the nag wasn't keeping your attention this sure will.

In all seriousness - AP is amazing and a ton better than when it first came out.

 

[Jool]

Looking forward to trying out the new Autopilot tweaks when I head out of town tomorrow morning! Autosteering has been pretty well-behaved since the last few updates, but I'm curious to see how they've tweaked the TACC.

 

[Todd Burch]

My experience with the 2.17.37 flavor of autopilot (for reference I have my following distance set to 6):

1. For me, on my 36 mile commute, the nags show up at almost *exactly* the same places, so I see zero difference in nagging.
2. Curves seem to be handled more smoothly than before.
3. Based on a few unique routes I've had issues with before, there is a slight improvement to how the car handles lane splits (going from 1 to 2 lanes) and lane merges (going from 2 lanes to 1)...but I don't have conclusive info on that (not enough data).
4. Holding the lane while cresting hills is slightly improved, but still has a ways to go on this front.
5. Staying centered through intersections is slightly improved.

I still would prefer a smoother TACC stop. I almost always disengage to ensure the friction brakes aren't used much.

 

[Saghost]

Maybe they should add different modes for TACC:

1. Conservative
2. Reasonable
3. Audi-style

And the default should not be 3 (which it feels like it is right now)

We were talking about this last year in a few threads, and the conclusion I eventually reached is that separate modes probably aren't particularly necessary or even that useful, I think.

How often are you on the 1 setting but wanting the car to be slow, gentle, and efficient in its changes?

How often are you on 7 but wishing the car followed the car in front exactly, staying at the same exact distance and accelerating/braking hard to do it?

To my mind, adjusting the aggressiveness of TACCs response goes hand in hand with adjusting the following distance, and Tesla just needs to give an adequate range of response across the various options and tune each one to match aggressiveness to the distances (I have very little first hand experience with TACC, so I'm not really sure how far they've gone down this path already...)

 

[rcarpen22]

My TACC calmed down after the 2.17.37 update I got yesterday, but now autosteer is jacked up. For 3/4 of my commute this morning, I got the "autosteer temporarily unavailable" message. This was on interstate highways that are littered with Teslas (easily 5+ Model S sightings per day) with well marked lanes. Not sure if software related or hardware. Windshield was clean and camera unobstructed. As soon as autosteer came back, the TACC lost the car in front of me and was happily accelerating toward it forcing an intervention. Pretty bad AP commute for me this morning.

 

[wcalvin]

Re "Unavailable" for long periods: in my case like yours, it was Valet Mode.

 

[RogerHScott]

Sure, you can have a nice commute in a (Tesla) automobile, but Google has leap-frogged in the area of bicycle commuting:

 

[CHG-ON]

Odd. My AP has been rock solid for quite some time. However, after 2.17.37, it has gotten very confused at times and has also ping ponged quite a bit. I only had that under 7.0. I am hoping that it just needs to relearn my daily route. I'll give it another week before I get a little cranky.

 

[ecarfan]

For the past 3 days I've been driving my father's AP enabled 85D with 2.17.37. It is so much better than it was last year. Really a pleasure to use on the crowded Orange County (California) freeways in this area. Lane change works well, and TACC is awesome. Handles freeway curves pretty well, just had a bit of trouble on the car pool lane flyover going from south on the 55 to north on the 405, I decided to take control even though it wasn't asking me to because the car got to close to the left side barrier for my comfort level. I also noticed that it no longer would unexpectedly take the right side exit lane, it seemed to continue straight based on tracking the left side lane line. However, when in the far left car pool lane northbound on the 55 just before the 5 interchange and coming up to a left side exit lane that I didn't want to take, the car would go left and I would have to take control to keep going in a straight line.

I also noticed that I could leave the car in AP for several miles without touching the wheel and not get a message asking me to touch the wheel. My trips were all relatively short so didn't have a chance to try it in AP for an extended period.

 

[Xminus6]

This morning, I drove with AP using 2.17.37 for the first time on my "lane-keeping torture test" road, which is a major freeway (4 lanes each direction) along a stretch that includes fairly tight, climbing turns and a curving approach into a tunnel. I was impressed. Planted dead-center in the lane through the turns, no overshoot at all, and no jerkiness going into the tunnel, where almost all previous versions of software had issues that had me taking control. (It wandered a bit towards the side of the lane when we exited the tunnel, but it caught itself at the edge and corrected. I am not sure how previous software would have done because I had always given up on AP and gone back to manual control long before that part of the road.) I never had any particular problems with lane-changing, but those worked well too.

Only one data point, but this was the best autosteer performance I've seen yet on this car. Nice job, Tesla engineering!

Traffic was light so I didn't get a chance to test the stop-and-go TACC performance. I was following another car going about the speed limit or slightly over, didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Bruce.

I'm assuming this was highway 24 through the Caldecott Tunnel based on your location, right? If so, that's great news as I might want to upgrade to an AP equipped car soon.

 

[bmah]

I'm assuming this was highway 24 through the Caldecott Tunnel based on your location, right? If so, that's great news as I might want to upgrade to an AP equipped car soon.

Yep! That was Highway 24 east, from before the Highway 13 junction through the Caldecott Tunnel, Bore 2. I've done both directions on that freeway with good results, as long as I'm not driving into the sun (this makes the AP camera not be able to recognize lane markings).

Are you in the Lamorinda area too or just familiar with the roads around here?

Bruce.

 

[BriansBucketList]

I call the acceleration towards a stopped car "passenger terrification mode" and I wish it was adjustable, as mentioned elsewhere. For a while I thought the stopped car was out of radar range, but I see a car ahead in the display. People in the car frequently ask why I'm speeding up. It only does this when there is a significant gap ahead. I'd love to know what the little hamsters in the wheel are thinking. I usually just take over braking, then turn TACC back on so people don't yell at me. Maybe the time to reach set speed could be slow, medium, and fast.

In addition to fiddling with the follow distance setting to abate some of the aggressive acceleration (in either direction) I've also noticed that when in stop and go traffic the car will accelerate more gently if the TACC speed is lowered. Typically I have it set to [REDACTED] on my 55MPH highway I take into work. If the stop and go traffic is only moving at a combined 15MPH with pockets of 0MPH and 30MPH then with the speed set up high (and Follow distance below 3) the car will attempt to obtain the set speed as quickly as possible. I think that was even an update way back when TACC was introduced because folks were unhappy with how slowly the cars were re-obtaining the set speed.

Increasing the follow distance (and inviting lane-hoppers) will give the car more time to establish the 4 or higher cushion before it starts to accelerate. Typically, by the time that cushion is created, Mario Andretti in front of you has had to apply his brakes again for the next squish of the traffic accordion. This means the car will stop accelerating and begin drawing down to diminish the cushion in accordance with the follow distance setting.

Coupling that with cranking down the TACC speed setting means that you have both the follow distance cushion and the lower speed target to acquire working towards the car being smoother in stop and go.

One of my chief complaints with Autopilot is that because the car uses traffic directly in front of you for speed it doesn't bring in the full context of the traffic for its calculus of acceleration curve. Put plainly, if the guy in front of you is driving in traffic aggressively (staying on the tail of the car in front of him, slamming on the brakes when traffic stops) then so will your Tesla. The TACC is only as smooth as the radar target in front of it at speeds below your setting.

 

[Gwgan]

2.17.65 Commute is smoother, less ping-pong and less hugging the yellow line. Braking is still a little too late for my tastes; it's safe relative to the car immediately in front but doesn't have the ability to anticipate what that car will do and plan ahead based on traffic a few cars ahead.
Not specific to this version, I tend to back off from motorcycles more than I do cars and even though TACC recognized I was behind a motorcycle I found follow setting 7 too short.

 

[hsglia]

no change at all in my commute. nagging is just the same and overall behaviour not noticebly different. i drive 100 miles daily, 90 highway with AP engaged almost the entire way. probably about 12-15 nags.

 

[DCGOO]

Previously (last weekend with rain and fog) poor visibility would shut all driver assistance features together, 2.16.something. If it was too foggy for auto-steer, no cruise at all. Not much fun. "driver assistance features temporarily unavailable"

Yesterday on 2.17.37 400 miles round trip, rain and fog. Everything worked flawlessly as I would expect. Often too foggy for auto-steer, so it would not engage. Sometimes auto-steer would work, but would not recognize multiple lanes, so auto lane changing would not work. Multi-lanes would come and go as visibility would change. But I always had TACC even if auto-steer was not available. Behavior I expected!

Now to see if the temporary-blindness-because-I-parked-facing-into-the-sun syndrome is improved (have to wait for the rain and fog to clear, to test).

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Odd. My AP has been rock solid for quite some time. However, after 2.17.37, it has gotten very confused at times and has also ping ponged quite a bit. I only had that under 7.0. I am hoping that it just needs to relearn my daily route. I'll give it another week before I get a little cranky.

I've had the exact same experience under 2.17.37. Major regression in ping ponging, hunting, and diving for exits where previously it did not. It's like it's back at the first 7.0 release. Disappointed.

 

[davidc18]

I've had the exact same experience under 2.17.37. Major regression in ping ponging, hunting, and diving for exits where previously it did not. It's like it's back at the first 7.0 release. Disappointed.

I think it is actually worse than 7.0.

 

[calisnow]

2.17.37 for me is a big improvement in ping ponging and hunting - it's tracking solid on difficult lanes of I-10 where it had trouble as recently as last week in the prior firmware.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

2.17.37 for me is a big improvement in ping ponging and hunting - it's tracking solid on difficult lanes of I-10 where it had trouble as recently as last week in the prior firmware.

Hmmm. Interesting. Maybe the human training set got reset on this release and those of us having bad experiences need to wait until enough people drive our sections of road. Those having good experiences might be driving on more well traveled roads.

 

[Xminus6]

Yep! That was Highway 24 east, from before the Highway 13 junction through the Caldecott Tunnel, Bore 2. I've done both directions on that freeway with good results, as long as I'm not driving into the sun (this makes the AP camera not be able to recognize lane markings).

Are you in the Lamorinda area too or just familiar with the roads around here?

Bruce.

I live in Moraga so I eat in Lafayette pretty much every weekend. Haha. Have a pre-AP Model S but considering trading it in on a Model X soon.