Navigation on Autopilot is incredible

[artsci]

Drove from Baltimore to mid-town Manhattan today, with Nav on Autopilot turned on most of the time. It’s pretty much a straight shot north on I-95 but a few places are a bit tricky: in Delaware where one diverts from I-95 to take the NJ Turnpike and the turnpike approach to the Holland tunnel. Nav on EAP handle it all with ablomb, with no alarming errors or diversions. Having driven for 4 hours and 200 miles on EAP I’m now convinced it was worth every penny.

I was a skeptic at first but now I’m an advocate. It’s far more relaxing with much less stress when the car pretty much drives itself, which is the case with EAP. Of course, one has to pay attention to what’s going on around the car, but lane changes are easy to do and much safer.

The car followed my desired settings (speed and following distance) to a T. I very pleased I invested in EAP: it will only get better with time.

 

[jlghertner]

Drove from Baltimore to mid-town Manhattan today, with Nav on Autopilot turned on most of the time. It’s pretty much a straight shot north on I-95 but a few places are a bit tricky: in Delaware where one diverts from I-95 to take the NJ Turnpike and the turnpike approach to the Holland tunnel. Nav on EAP handle it all with ablomb, with no alarming errors or diversions. Having driven for 4 hours and 200 miles on EAP I’m now convinced it was worth every penny.

I was a skeptic at first but now I’m an advocate. It’s far more relaxing with much less stress when the car pretty much drives itself, which is the case with EAP. Of course, one has to pay attention to what’s going on around the car, but lane changes are easy to do and much safer.

The car followed my desired settings (speed and following distance) to a T. I very pleased I invested in EAP: it will only get better with time.

I agree whole heartedly. On a longer drive but I used NOA from Harrisburg through heavy traffic there and then through the Baltimore madhouse of stop and go traffic into Silver Spring touching the wheel once other than keeping the autopilot engaged.

Even while being alert, my personal endurance improved dramatically. The car behaved miraculously. I am an accolate.

 

[SCW-Greg]

My urban daily commute crosses 5 highway/freeways (West suberbs of Portland OR ,to East Vancouver Wa). Taking Highway 217 N, to Hwy 26 E, to I405 N, to I5 N, to SR500 E. About 25 miles in total. And while, for the most part, Nav on Autopilot is great — knowing all the lanes you’re in, which ones you need to be in, and notifying you to make changes and taking the exits properly — it has a very difficult time making lane changes if it is crowded, or the lane markings are a bit confusing during exiting and on-ramping from one to another. Today, I had to take abrupt and immediate control on 3 occasions. Very frustrating!

It has even “brake checked” the driver behind me on two occasions, because the car in front of me, got out of my lane... leaving several hundred yards now open in front me, but somehow it thought the car in front was still in the same lane, and it thought the other car was perhaps slamming on it’s brakes. To the driver behind me, it appears as if I’m being a jerk to him/her, by slamming on my brakes for no apparent reason. Pissed me off really. I don’t want to be ”that” guy.

I have come to the conclusion, that I will do the exiting, the on-ramping, the lane changes (unless totally clear), and let just regular Autopilot do the single lane driving.

However I will add... on single long freeway/highway runs, particularly over an hour or more... it is fantastic. Takes the edge off longer trips. And tho I’m coming to expect it now, as a feature... for me and my daily use, it’s simply not worth $5500 (due at the end of the 30 day trial period - I’m halfway thru). Maybe in a year or two it will be.

 

[artsci]

Re @SCW-Greg’s comments. Brake applications on autopilot could certainly be less abrupt and lane changes are quite conservative — if a car is trailing maybe 50 yards behind on the lane you want to change to it won’t make the change. So those you have to do manually. But I excpect these things to change for the better as it evolves.

On balance however, I’m still very glad I bought it with the car.

 

[Msjulie]

Very interesting feedback from owners - I have found that auto pilot with and w/o navigating makes me more anxious than just driving the car myself. Probably the 'where' of driving locations; it wants to wander too far right when there is a right-side merge with less than perfect paint, it sometimes brakes for nothing in front, even in mad max mode it is way too deliberate/slow to respond, stuff like that.

My biggest issue is that the car doesn't look far enough ahead/can't plan as well as I might want so it isn't as smooth or predictable as I need it to be to make me comfortable. I do keep using it where possible, hoping I'm adding to it's training..

 

[trmmcd]

I find NOA completely unusable. I have an AP1 Model X with an estimate 30k miles of AP1 driving. I have been trying NOA on my wife’s Model 3. In moderately heavy traffic - the auto lane change was not at all effective - I had to take over the lane change every time. It successfully navigated off an exit ramp - but as other have said - it drifted uncomfortably close the left guardrail and I took over again. There was plenty of room where remaining centered should have been quite possible. The last straw for me though was when it was merging onto the next leg of the highway journey. There was ample room for a merge - but it kept going straight onto the shoulder rather than merge onto the highway. Way to stressful to try to operate so I shut it off.

In general though, I find AP2 to now be superior to AP1 - smoother overall. I also know that NOA will continue to get better, but this first implementation was a big disappointment for me.

 

[clostridium]

In moderate to heavy traffic I agree that NOA just gets hosed by other drivers. The lane changes are just too slow. I remember on an update a while ago suddenly AP started doing really brisk lane changes (maybe 17.17.17?) which were too fast but then they overcorrected and since then the lane changes have been soooo slow.

Overall though the most recent AP on highways is truly useful well over 95% of the time outside of the moderate to heavy traffic. We just completed a 1300 mile round trip from OH to NC - down we went through DC and back we went through WV. Both routes provided different challenges for AP and it did pretty well. I still do not entirely like how it auto-exits since it seems abrupt and like it almost always overshoots and then has to correct. Which is a bit nerve racking. It's puzzling it won't change lanes during the trip without permission but exits without permission. You can do way more damage exiting inappropriately.

It does a great job lane keeping on almost all interstate scenarios I've encountered. That includes mountains with sharp corners at high speed. Almost all of the times I took over were with corners on hills with semis around where the semis seemed to be cheating on their lanes and I didn't want to find out how my car handled that.

Craig

 

[suwaneedad]

I do keep using it where possible, hoping I'm adding to it's training..

Bingo. This is what I do, when driving solo. With others in the car, the tech right now is not good enough to ensure passenger comfort.
So I use EAP when solo, under an assumption that doing so is adding to the neural net more so than the car just driving the roads without EAP active.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

While using Navigate on Autopilot on CA-52 West middle lane, with clearly marked lanes on both sides, it induced a micro-oscillation in the steering for no apparent reason this evening. Let it go to see whether it would resolve. Persisted for several seconds at the same level. Then my wife started to complain and I had to turn autosteer off.

I suppose that is incredible. Maybe it was trying to warm up my tires.

 

[Richt]

Well it sure isn’t perfect but wow driving on the i-5 between Seattle and Portland it really reduces driver fatigue. It seems to work best in bumper to bumper. I feel way safer with another set of “eyes” particularly in the rain.

The other place that it is great is in Portland take the various exits. It was uncanny particularly coming up from the south and figuring out where the I-5 and I-405 is.

The navigate on autopilot is really in beta and it will take time to make perfect but right now it makes the driving much easier.

 

[Msjulie]

it really reduces driver fatigue

Obviously I'm too much of a control freak; having to make sure to keep good pressure on the wheel or otherwise convince the car I am paying attention on top of actually watching what it is doing is more stressful for me. Driving the car alone is easier but I want it to get better..

 

[dave999z]

How exactly do you train it to learn quirks about your daily route? Was using Navigation on Autopilot this morning, and it correctly took the offramp, but the offramp then becomes 2 lanes, and it suddenly took the right one and sped up. There is a stop sign at the end of the ramp, so that was a little unnerving. Was expecting it to smoothly transition control back to me. Had to just hit the brake and take over. So how do I teach it to choose the left lane of this ramp, slow down (not speed up), and transition control in advance of the stop sign?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

How exactly do you train it to learn quirks about your daily route? Was using Navigation on Autopilot this morning, and it correctly took the offramp, but the offramp then becomes 2 lanes, and it suddenly took the right

I’m sure FSD is right around the corner!

 

[jgs]

I find NOA completely unusable. I have an AP1 Model X with an estimate 30k miles of AP1 driving. I have been trying NOA on my wife’s Model 3. In moderately heavy traffic - the auto lane change was not at all effective - I had to take over the lane change every time. It successfully navigated off an exit ramp - but as other have said - it drifted uncomfortably close the left guardrail and I took over again. There was plenty of room where remaining centered should have been quite possible. The last straw for me though was when it was merging onto the next leg of the highway journey. There was ample room for a merge - but it kept going straight onto the shoulder rather than merge onto the highway. Way to stressful to try to operate so I shut it off.

In general though, I find AP2 to now be superior to AP1 - smoother overall. I also know that NOA will continue to get better, but this first implementation was a big disappointment for me.

Agreed on all points, comparing my AP1 Model S to my wife's Model 3. I wanted to like NOA but the only kind-of sort-of useful thing it did was take a few exits -- but since it didn't reliably take them every time that wasn't all that useful either. And it kept suggesting pointless lane changes, I guess it really likes the center lane for some reason? I realize there is a "yet" implied in all this, just like AP1 wasn't very useful right after it rolled out but is now table stakes.

One small-but-significant thing I liked a lot better about AP2 on the Model 3 vs. my S is how the turn signal auto-cancels after a lane change completes. Also the behind-and-beside rendered view, helpful for situational awareness. About the only thing I noticed about AP2 that seemed inferior to AP1 is that the car kept wanting to center itself in on-ramps, instead of staying in the lane, which made it kind of swervy until I just started overriding it whenever we came to one.

 

[jcal0820]

Drove from Baltimore to mid-town Manhattan today, with Nav on Autopilot turned on most of the time. It’s pretty much a straight shot north on I-95 but a few places are a bit tricky: in Delaware where one diverts from I-95 to take the NJ Turnpike and the turnpike approach to the Holland tunnel. Nav on EAP handle it all with ablomb, with no alarming errors or diversions. Having driven for 4 hours and 200 miles on EAP I’m now convinced it was worth every penny.

I was a skeptic at first but now I’m an advocate. It’s far more relaxing with much less stress when the car pretty much drives itself, which is the case with EAP. Of course, one has to pay attention to what’s going on around the car, but lane changes are easy to do and much safer.

The car followed my desired settings (speed and following distance) to a T. I very pleased I invested in EAP: it will only get better with time.

Interesting..esp since I may be moving out East, and would also likely make trips like this in my Mod3. How many times did you stop ton charge, either local chargers or Tesla Superchargers, during the whole trip? Was it easily manageable?

 

[MaryAnning3]

Naive question: Let's say I enter a destination and the center console shows a map and provides directions. I am thinking that is what navigate means. Then, a bit later, I engage autopilot by pulling down twice... Does that initiate navigation with autopilot or is there something else one has to do? (I have a model 3. Does that make a difference?)

 

[jgs]

Naive question: Let's say I enter a destination and the center console shows a map and provides directions. I am thinking that is what navigate means. Then, a bit later, I engage autopilot by pulling down twice... Does that initiate navigation with autopilot or is there something else one has to do? (I have a model 3. Does that make a difference?)

Once you engage AP as you describe, it adds a button to the on-screen box that lets you engage Nav on AP if you choose.

 

[SVMike]

So I use EAP when solo, under an assumption that doing so is adding to the neural net more so than the car just driving the roads without EAP active.

Is there any evidence that the car is collecting sensor data and sending it back to Telsa to add to the training?
AFAIK, there is no training in the car. This would be near useless since it would only apply to your car. Plus, I'd want to data being sent from other cars to be properly curated -- we don't want cars to learn bad driving.

 

[MaryAnning3]

I think it would be good if the number associated with your following distance were displayed on the screen. Driving on uncrowded roads one can forget, and the only way I know to check is to change it. It would be so easy to just display it I think.

 

[ecarfan]

Once you engage AP as you describe, it adds a button to the on-screen box that lets you engage Nav on AP if you choose.

Alternatively, after entering a nav destination and seeing it display onscreen, as soon as the Navigate on Autopilot button appears you can tap it to turn it blue before you even engage EAP. Then when you engage EAP on a section of road where Navigate on Autopilot will also engage, they both engage simultaneously.

I find Navigate on Autopilot useful in its first implementation, though obviously it’s not perfect. Just like EAP, you should have your hands on the wheel and be paying attention. I actually enjoy using Navigate on Autopilot to see how well it does. Sometimes it does surprisingly well, other times not so good and sometimes I have to disengage it to do a lane change manually if there are a lot of cars around me.