Every part of Navigate on Autopilot is worthless
I commute about 20 miles each way every day, on a route that involves all kinds of roads, from small to interstate. Every feature of NoA is not only worthless on all of those roads, it is fairly detrimental to the driving experience
* Speed based lane changes: (Part 1) NoA takes into account literally nothing but the very next cars, and often makes unforgivable navigational errors, such as putting you in a lane that will merge into yours (literally the arrows are there) in just a couple hundred feet, getting you in/out of lanes that don't make sense because you'll have to get out of them in a minute because of which lane you have to be in to reach your destination.
(Part 2) Even without any of those, it still makes bad choices (unless the situation is as obvious as being stuck behind a slow car in an otherwise empty interstate): It hogs the left lane (no idea why they got rid of that feature that made it move back) all the time, unless on "mild" it swerves from lane to lane to lane - and on "mild" it allows you to be stuck behind cars that are FAR too slow.
(Part 2) by itself could MAYBE (really doubtfully) be considered an improvement to regular autopilot, but it comes with (Part 1) and makes everything far worse.
* Navigation based lane changes: On the roads I am on, this is also a detriment. I don't know what input they're basing these decisions on, but it is just wrong so much of the time.
It often has the wrong idea on what lane it should be on eventually. At times, it will not start trying to merge until 0.7-0.8 miles left on a crowded road, making for some intensely anxious moments. At times, it will change lanes 3 miles in advance. I know both of those are results of poor map information, because esp. on 2 lane roads, it will randomly think it needs to get into another lane to follow the route, even though the lane we're on is completely fine. This last thing especially happens 2-3 times per drive, and most of the time I have to manually cancel it.
* Taking exits: "Taking exits" is literally just making 1 lane change and immediately declaring NOA is now off while keeping AP on - 99% of the time you have to immediately take over because (a) you have to make a turn quickly, or (b) it's on a butterfly exit and it's being extremely slow. So now that AP can "take exits" we can keep AP on for 2 seconds longer than we had to before. Yay.
In general, I've realized that NoA just makes me really anxious while driving because I don't know if it will make the right
decision. Often it doesn't, but even when it does I don't feel good about it because I have been anxious about it. I have turned NoA off.
===
Autopilot is essentially unimproved from 2016-2017.
I first got an AP1 Tesla on February 2017. It centered itself perfectly on the lane and adjusted its speed well, and could read speed limit signs well 99% of the time. I know there was the whole debacle with MobilEye and AP had to get a lot worse before it could get better, but the lack of functional, usable difference in Tesla Autopilot between February 2017 and March 2020 is really very little. So little that if you had told me in Feb 2017, I would in no way believe you.
Today what I use Autopilot for is still 99.99% the same as my AP1 Tesla that was built in 2015. As I outlined above NoA takes away more than it brings to the table, so I don't use it. There are a few improvements (blind spot monitoring is much better while still not as good as my old Porsche Panamera from 2012, and the car now stops more reliably for stopped vehicles ahead, which is a very important improvement, albeit it's still uncomfortably late most times) but some stuff that's still inexplicably missing - I think AP2.5 still can't read traffic signs?
I'm not even mentioning gimmicks like smart summon. I love that I have it and I can shock people but I don't use it.
===
Everybody has caught up.
The lane driving assist-related features on even Hyundais are very good now and while they might not be as good as Autopilot yet - remember that years ago when Autopilot was first a thing, none of those companies had anything that even remotely compared. Now, Autopilot is essentially functionally unimproved, but all of those companies now have rivaling technologies that have caught up or are getting really close.
(I'm on a HW2.5 MCU2 Model S.)
I commute about 20 miles each way every day, on a route that involves all kinds of roads, from small to interstate. Every feature of NoA is not only worthless on all of those roads, it is fairly detrimental to the driving experience
* Speed based lane changes: (Part 1) NoA takes into account literally nothing but the very next cars, and often makes unforgivable navigational errors, such as putting you in a lane that will merge into yours (literally the arrows are there) in just a couple hundred feet, getting you in/out of lanes that don't make sense because you'll have to get out of them in a minute because of which lane you have to be in to reach your destination.
(Part 2) Even without any of those, it still makes bad choices (unless the situation is as obvious as being stuck behind a slow car in an otherwise empty interstate): It hogs the left lane (no idea why they got rid of that feature that made it move back) all the time, unless on "mild" it swerves from lane to lane to lane - and on "mild" it allows you to be stuck behind cars that are FAR too slow.
(Part 2) by itself could MAYBE (really doubtfully) be considered an improvement to regular autopilot, but it comes with (Part 1) and makes everything far worse.
* Navigation based lane changes: On the roads I am on, this is also a detriment. I don't know what input they're basing these decisions on, but it is just wrong so much of the time.
It often has the wrong idea on what lane it should be on eventually. At times, it will not start trying to merge until 0.7-0.8 miles left on a crowded road, making for some intensely anxious moments. At times, it will change lanes 3 miles in advance. I know both of those are results of poor map information, because esp. on 2 lane roads, it will randomly think it needs to get into another lane to follow the route, even though the lane we're on is completely fine. This last thing especially happens 2-3 times per drive, and most of the time I have to manually cancel it.
* Taking exits: "Taking exits" is literally just making 1 lane change and immediately declaring NOA is now off while keeping AP on - 99% of the time you have to immediately take over because (a) you have to make a turn quickly, or (b) it's on a butterfly exit and it's being extremely slow. So now that AP can "take exits" we can keep AP on for 2 seconds longer than we had to before. Yay.
In general, I've realized that NoA just makes me really anxious while driving because I don't know if it will make the right
decision. Often it doesn't, but even when it does I don't feel good about it because I have been anxious about it. I have turned NoA off.
===
Autopilot is essentially unimproved from 2016-2017.
I first got an AP1 Tesla on February 2017. It centered itself perfectly on the lane and adjusted its speed well, and could read speed limit signs well 99% of the time. I know there was the whole debacle with MobilEye and AP had to get a lot worse before it could get better, but the lack of functional, usable difference in Tesla Autopilot between February 2017 and March 2020 is really very little. So little that if you had told me in Feb 2017, I would in no way believe you.
Today what I use Autopilot for is still 99.99% the same as my AP1 Tesla that was built in 2015. As I outlined above NoA takes away more than it brings to the table, so I don't use it. There are a few improvements (blind spot monitoring is much better while still not as good as my old Porsche Panamera from 2012, and the car now stops more reliably for stopped vehicles ahead, which is a very important improvement, albeit it's still uncomfortably late most times) but some stuff that's still inexplicably missing - I think AP2.5 still can't read traffic signs?
I'm not even mentioning gimmicks like smart summon. I love that I have it and I can shock people but I don't use it.
===
Everybody has caught up.
The lane driving assist-related features on even Hyundais are very good now and while they might not be as good as Autopilot yet - remember that years ago when Autopilot was first a thing, none of those companies had anything that even remotely compared. Now, Autopilot is essentially functionally unimproved, but all of those companies now have rivaling technologies that have caught up or are getting really close.
(I'm on a HW2.5 MCU2 Model S.)
