Nag on UK cars?

[Big Bad Ben]

Hi all, apologies if this has been asked before - I’ve done a search and I can’t find anything specifically about UK cars...

I’ve got a Model S with FSD but the autopilot “apply steering force” nag is driving me insane! It nags me literally every 15 seconds (I’ve timed it repeatedly on a recent long road trip). It doesn’t matter if I’m stuck in traffic doing 2mph or on an empty motorway at 2am doing 70mph - every 15 seconds I get the nag!

I appreciate I should keep my hands on the wheel AT ALL TIMES, but it makes a mockery of the so called “full self driving” capability of the car...

Is this the same for all UK Tesla owners or have I got a dodgy one?

Thanks very much in advance for your help!

 

[Mark_T]

FSD is not yet ready for hands-off driving so no, it doesn't 'make a mockery' of it as it isn't supposed to be used that way yet.

All it takes is one hand on the wheel applying slight pressure and there will be no more nags.

If you were expecting to drive with no hands on the wheel then you were misinformed...

 

[Roy W.]

Hi all, apologies if this has been asked before - I’ve done a search and I can’t find anything specifically about UK cars...

I’ve got a Model S with FSD but the autopilot “apply steering force” nag is driving me insane! It nags me literally every 15 seconds (I’ve timed it repeatedly on a recent long road trip). It doesn’t matter if I’m stuck in traffic doing 2mph or on an empty motorway at 2am doing 70mph - every 15 seconds I get the nag!

I appreciate I should keep my hands on the wheel AT ALL TIMES, but it makes a mockery of the so called “full self driving” capability of the car...

Is this the same for all UK Tesla owners or have I got a dodgy one?

Thanks very much in advance for your help!

It sounds right. I get the Nag after 15 seconds on my M3. I get the Nag a lot even when I am holding the wheel. The car needs to detect a slight turning force on the wheel.

I’ve been trying to find a way of holding the wheel to minimise it, because it is very annoying!

 

[ivangr]

Arm rested on door, index finger middle of steering. Works fine for me.

 

[Mark_T]

I'm sure it gets boring, but I'm still on zero nags here.

Must be good luck that my normal way of holding the wheel gets the job done.

 

[MrBadger]

I tried autopilot and NOA for first time last night. I was not nagged once and managed to go around a few curves so AP was definitely on. I held hands in my normal driving position so felt almost natural.

 

[ME_UK]

Raise right knee to gently brush steering wheel, or rest hand on bottom of wheel.

However much I love the AP though, there are times on every journey when I have to take back control properly - particularly on the Motorway if a truck on the inside lane drifts slightly towards the edge, or when traffic jam creeping and there are parked cars at the side of the road.

 

[LukeT]

I get the nag a fair bit and my hand is on the wheel at all times. I think some folk just hold the wheel naturally in such a way that very little rotational force is registered, others quite the opposite.

I have had the full Angry Mum "Right, I'm in charge here and I'm taking your toys away" removal of autosteer for rest of journey because I was paying attention to road rather than screen, and my hands were on the wheel throughout. You don't have to get to full shouty nag for that, just the first nag and white border a few times in a journey I think.

 

[Big Bad Ben]

Thanks everyone for your helpful replies!

FSD is not yet ready for hands-off driving so no, it doesn't 'make a mockery' of it as it isn't supposed to be used that way yet.

Sorry if I insulted you, Mark, but in that case “Full Self Driving” is a bit of a misleading description, wouldn’t you agree? I first test drove a Model S in Arizona where it genuinely drove itself from A to B with no hand or foot input needed from me. That’s truly “Full Self Driving”, in the literal sense.

It seems that we have a significantly toned down version here in Europe. Maybe “Driving Assistance” or “Lane Maintenance” would be a better title for the £6k premium...

Raise right knee to gently brush steering wheel, or rest hand on bottom of wheel.

However much I love the AP though, there are times on every journey when I have to take back control properly...

Same here! I’m happy to take control for safety or in an ambiguous situation. It’s just a bit of a ballache when I’m sat in lane 1 for hours and I have to keep wiggling the steering wheel.

Ahh, how easy must life be when these are worst things to have to worry about?!

 

[Mark_T]

Sorry if I insulted you, Mark, but in that case “Full Self Driving” is a bit of a misleading description, wouldn’t you agree? I first test drove a Model S in Arizona where it genuinely drove itself from A to B with no hand or foot input needed from me. That’s truly “Full Self Driving”, in the literal sense.

It seems that we have a significantly toned down version here in Europe. Maybe “Driving Assistance” or “Lane Maintenance” would be a better title for the £6k premium...

Not insulted, but you seem to have missed the last few years of news on the 'nags' as this system has been in place at varying levels of frequency for about 3 years now, including in the USA, so this isn't specifically an EU thing.

Even on your original test drive, the system was still not rated for the sort of autonomy you seem to be expecting.

 

[Big Bad Ben]

I'm sure it gets boring, but I'm still on zero nags here.

Must be good luck that my normal way of holding the wheel gets the job done.

This is a genuine question, so please don’t think I’m being facetious, but...

If you or I are holding the steering wheel just as we would in any other car...what’s the point of autopilot/FSD? If my hands are on the wheel, I can keep the car in its lane or steer it round a bend; if I need autopilot to help me with that sort of thing, then perhaps I shouldn’t have a drivers licence?

Maybe there’s an element of the autopilot experience that’s too subtle for me to notice!

 

[Big Bad Ben]

...varying levels of frequency...

This is the crucial bit for me! It isn’t varying. It’s every 15 seconds, regardless of time of day, road conditions, speed, anything.

 

[MrBadger]

Sorry if I insulted you, Mark, but in that case “Full Self Driving” is a bit of a misleading description, wouldn’t you agree? I first test drove a Model S in Arizona where it genuinely drove itself from A to B with no hand or foot input needed from me. That’s truly “Full Self Driving”, in the literal sense.

It seems that we have a significantly toned down version here in Europe. Maybe “Driving Assistance” or “Lane Maintenance” would be a better title for the £6k premium...

Yes, full self drive is misleading of its current implementation but website does mostly state that its future development and subject to regulatory approval. In Europe, summon is severely limited, lane change must be acknowledged and may abort if not completed within strict time limits and there are restrictions on lateral forces when cornering et al.. Its all beta and work in progress, regulations and AP implementation will change over time. But currently AP and FSD is well and truly Level 2 autonomy - the levels are as much to do with where responsibility lies rather than features. There is no definition of what FSD actually is, and if you asked a group of people, you will probably get a range of answers ranging from Level 3 to Level 5. At the moment, Navigate on autopilot between on ramp and off ramp of a major contiguous road, is where we (in Europe and America) are at. The only difference between US and us, is auto lane change etc as mentioned above.

I don't know when you drove this and what version, but these nags have been added as a result of the American NHTSA investigating various autopilot accidents where people were driving their vehicles outside the use case of Autopilot. Autopilot never was officially hands free driving, but there is widespread haze over this fact - easy to miss the modal warnings when enabling AP and NOA. Tesla are trying to clear this haze and nags are in to stay ahead from fallout of any NHTSA probes.

It doesn't help that there is much mis information out there about what Autopilot is.

 

[Mark_T]

This is the crucial bit for me! It isn’t varying. It’s every 15 seconds, regardless of time of day, road conditions, speed, anything.

The point remains that your hands are not supposed to be off the wheel at all, at the current level of autonomy we should have no expectation of hands-free driving.

Once you accept that, the problems with the nag mostly come from the way the hands are being detected as it requires a light turning force on the wheel which some do find harder to achieve than others.

 

[Big Bad Ben]

If your hands are on the wheel, then what is the purpose of autosteer? Isn’t that like having cruise control but having to keep your foot on the accelerator?

 

[Mark_T]

If your hands are on the wheel, then what is the purpose of autosteer? Isn’t that like having cruise control but having to keep your foot on the accelerator?

There is a huge difference between holding the wheel and actually steering and the degree to which this reduces fatigue is considerable in my experience.

Once again, if you believed that you were buying a car that would let you keep your hands off the wheel you were misinformed.

Tesla is at level 2 autonomy right now and they have had to add the nags in recent years to make sure drivers remain able to take control at any point, in line with the current level of automation.

... believing you could let the car do all the work caused accidents when people believed, as you apparently do, that they did not need to be in control at all times.

Things have changed from the early days of Tesla and safety is more clearly enforced than used to be the case.

 

[Big Bad Ben]

Maybe there’s an element of the autopilot experience that’s too subtle for me to notice!

There is a huge difference between holding the wheel and actually steering and the degree to which this reduces fatigue is considerable in my experience.

This is the subtlety then. For me there's no difference to the amount of attention I would pay to driving, whether I'm "holding the wheel" or "steering".

This guy goes for minutes on end without touching the wheel (unless he's touching it out of sight):

 

[MrBadger]

Thats Autopilot 2018.48.12 so early V9 pretty much from end of 2018. And obviously not using AP in the method that Tesla intended. NTSA associated some cause to peoples ability to use AP in ways not intended. So the nags are a way to drive that message home. As releases have gone by, restrictions had apparently got tougher. Hopefully they will start to relax again soon as technology and regulations start heading in same direction.

 

[Rooster6655]

Sorry if I insulted you, Mark, but in that case “Full Self Driving” is a bit of a misleading description, wouldn’t you agree?

What you are describing in your car is not FSD it is AP, FSD is a feature set still in development, your FSD features at present are limited to lane changing, summon and I think auto park.

I first test drove a Model S in Arizona where it genuinely drove itself from A to B with no hand or foot input needed from me. That’s truly “Full Self Driving”, in the literal sense.

Can't comment on this but as FSD is not a finished product not sure what situation you were in perhaps it was just AP and you got lucky!

 

[pdk42]

If you dangle a weight off one side of the steering wheel it'll fool it:

Not for me personally, use at your own risk etc!