"Obstacle detected" - blocking acceleration - very dangerous!

[Colby Boles]

I think we are in the equivalent of the "uncanny valley" here with these features where they are just good enough to be disturbing. My take on everything I have experienced with the car so far (this issue, observing the AP in various traffic and road conditions) is that they are trying to do too much beyond what information their sensor suite can really provide. I'm sure that if I was sitting in a black box with only the inputs this car has (not counting my visual system), I would have a hard time inferring what was going on too. From what I have gleaned from tech support I think both the ultrasonic and radar sensors might have a hard time making sense of fast moving objects (relative to the vehicle) since they supposedly don't directly sense Doppler shifts and do not have enough sensors or a high enough refresh rate or range to infer the motion other ways. The video system could compensate for this, but I'm not sure how much it is really doing.

I'm perfectly happy to let the car watch and learn, but I'm not willing to compromise on my or other's safety on the road if something isn't working right yet.

These are the kinds of things that make me so skeptical of ever having self driving cars. Automated driving assist systems have their advantages like always being alert, but they can likely never compete with the intelligence, rich sensory feedback, situational awareness and abstract processing capabilities of a healthy human. Until our road system is revised, there are times when our biological advantages will continue to outweigh the technological advantages of our digital co-pilots. This incident is one example.

Not saying they shouldn't keep working at it, just saying I think a lot of people expect too much too quickly. If autopilot systems are forced on drivers, it will actually be a net negative in the early years for drivers who stay alert and drive responsibly.

 

[Nitram]

I too had this "obstacle detected, power limited" warning, twice in a few days.
In both cases, it happened when I was about to cross a tight intersection in the city centre, so really tight since the street I was coming from was only one lane and so was the crossing street. I floored the go pedal from a standstill to quickly get out of this intersection while a car was still crossing in front of me, but would have been gone by the time I reached the center of the intersection. This clearly was not safe driving; rush hour driving in our over-crowded European city centers is not safe driving. The power got limited to virtually nothing and the message displayed on the dashboard screen. I believe I restored power by lifting my foot off the go pedal completely, then reapplying power.
My guess is that an obstacle was indeed detected when I started the maneuvre, but the system was not able to determine the speed of the perpendicularly moving car and therefore was not able to anticipate that it would be gone by the time I reached its position, so preferred to remain on the safe side my limiting power.
While I find this feature pretty cool, I do have my doubts about its implementation: there are occasions where one needs to get out a situation as quickly as possible, even if it means risking hitting an obstacle. The car is not yet able to determine what would be the safest move, so it should not prevent the driver from overriding what the car thinks is best. That is basically why we get collision alerts instead of automatic braking, and such an alert would have been perfectly fine in my case.
This seems to happen only when starting from a dead stop, otherwise it would have saved the day of the guy who crashed his X in a building: Tesla logs show that Model X driver hit the accelerator, Autopilot didn’t crash into building on its own

 

[trmmcd]

This sounds like something the Subaru EyeSight system calls "pre-collision throttle management". The example they give is a car behind another car merging on to a highway. If you think the car ahead is going to proceed and you are looking backward at on-coming traffic - and the car ahead stops and you accelerate - it will significantly cut your throttle because of the object / car ahead. Apparently the EyeSight system is very highly rated by the IIHS.

So it sounds as though there are scenarios where this is desired and areas where it is not. The OP example is indeed very scary - particularly if the phantom obstacles are being detected. I have about 4,000 miles and have only once noticed what I think was a phantom object being detected - so it sure sounds as though there might be a faulty sensor at work here.

 

[Colby Boles]

I agree that if this feature is done right, nobody would be complaining. At this point, I don't think it saw a ghost vehicle - I think it was triggered by the passing car before I accelerated and merged, which is like the issue @Nitram describes, and similar to the EyeSight scenario below, except that the other vehicle never slowed and there was no actual collision risk. When you wait at this stop line you are inches from being in the lane already, so it's not surprising that the MX notices the cars going by.

I had to drive the Tesla to Treasure Island again today to pick up my truck, so I will get a chance to try this merge again later today. I will bring a GoPro just in case I can capture the same issue again (minus blockading the car behind me).

This sounds like something the Subaru EyeSight system calls "pre-collision throttle management". The example they give is a car behind another car merging on to a highway. If you think the car ahead is going to proceed and you are looking backward at on-coming traffic - and the car ahead stops and you accelerate - it will significantly cut your throttle because of the object / car ahead. Apparently the EyeSight system is very highly rated by the IIHS.

So it sounds as though there are scenarios where this is desired and areas where it is not. The OP example is indeed very scary - particularly if the phantom obstacles are being detected. I have about 4,000 miles and have only once noticed what I think was a phantom object being detected - so it sure sounds as though there might be a faulty sensor at work here.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Is this the OP's complaint?

Unintended DE-acceleration!!!

 

[Colby Boles]

Yes, but that is not my title or thread.

Is this the OP's complaint?

Unintended DE-acceleration!!!

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Did it seriously turn everything to caps? Did they also have a character limitation?

 

[GVTesla]

Having several people now reporting an incident like this, I think Tesla should investigate this with highest priority and issue a statement as soon as possible. At least to explain what actually can happen in specific situations so people can prevent serious incidents.

Furthermore if it is a software feature, it should be turned off asap (hot fix?) and at a later stage they could implement it as an option that can be turned on voluntarily. In my opinion, the driver should always be able to have full control. Automation systems should have a supporting role (in case of auto pilot a very extensive one but supporting none the less).

 

[GVTesla]

I too had this "obstacle detected, power limited" warning, twice in a few days.

Nitram, has this only occurred recently? As I presume your driving style probably hasn't really changed over the past year or so, my guess would be that, if this 'feature' was present several months ago, you would have experienced this earlier too?

If only recently, then that might support the hypothesis posted earlier in this thread that it could have been added quite recently, possibly as a response to the incident with a car hitting a building after pressing the accelerator.

 

[Nitram]

When it happened to me for the first time, I thought that it is a really nice feature, and that's what I initially said in a french speaking forum here: Système d'évitement des collisions latérales et frontales - Page 2 - Forum Club Tesla Magazine back in late April, so before the X hitting a building if I am correct. I think (although not sure) that I commented on the fact that I was surprised the X incident happened considering what I experienced, and jumped to the conclusion that this feature only works when starting from a standstill, since the X was still moving before the driver pressed the go pedal.
But to me, the current implementation definitely lacks strong visible and audible alarms to let the driver know what is going on and how to recover from it in no time, at the very least. Maybe what bothered me most is the fact that I was surprised by a feature that I didn't know existed. As I said elsewhere, there was no collision warning, although I do see the collision warning pretty often despite the fact that it is not set to 'early'. I guess european driving habits are more agressive that US habits, and streets and roads are often narrower and more crowded too.

 

[bhzmark]

Detecting objects in front that appear to predict imminent collisions, and cutting power or applying brakes to mitigate the crash is an obvious good safety measure.

This is the type of feature that could have possibly saved Josh Brown's life.

I hope that they continue to refine this so as to decrease false positives (the OPs case) and decrease false negatives (Josh Brown's case).

I've encountered this before too and didn't think it was a big deal.

It most often occurs when you are lined up in the far right lane on a multi lane road at a redlight pointing directly at a parked car across the intersection. USually you are lined up at the redlight in the lane that is parked cars behind and ahead of you. Being in a Tesla you feel confident that you can get the jump on the person in the other lane and accelerate across the intersection and then quickly lane change into their lane and not rear end the parked car directly in front of you. However the car radar and camera isn't so sure about the last part and so cuts (but does not eliminate, in my experience) the power because it understandably senses a collision if you maintain present course and acceleration.

The solution is to just not always count on full power while pointing at an obstacle a short distance away, and try to point the car or make a lane change sooner rather than at the last desperate fraction of a second. really not a big deal. I wouldn't turn the feature off at all. Just understand how it works and deal with it, and hope it protects me when I someday in my dotage accidentally step on the wrong pedal.

 

[GVTesla]

But to me, the current implementation definitely lacks strong visible and audible alarms to let the driver know what is going on and how to recover from it in no time, at the very least.

Thanks for your reply. Guess it is safe to dismiss the hypothesis of this feature been added after the X incident of late. I totally agree that it needs at least updating so the driver can recover in a split second if Tesla decides that it wants to keep this feature.

The solution is to just not always count on full power while pointing at an obstacle a short distance away, and try to point the car or make a lane change sooner rather than at the last desperate fraction of a second. really not a big deal. I wouldn't turn the feature off at all. Just understand how it works and deal with it, and hope it protects me when I someday in my dotage accidentally step on the wrong pedal.

The OP quite accurately describes his situation. The workaround you suggest would not have worked there, with traffic rushing by, there will always be an obstacle every x seconds. If a system like this is to add safety, the first requirement is to behave super predictable. As it stands, the sensor suite, software or refresh rate just isn't adequate enough to offer this predictability and needs investigation. Until that time, let's hope nobody gets injured and a hot fix to temporarily disable it, should be seriously considered. Don't we all want Tesla to offer the best and safest cars around?

 

[Colby Boles]

Did it seriously turn everything to caps? Did they also have a character limitation?

All the above. I also filled their edit box with a long description of the issue only to discover a severe character count limit so I had to trim it down. It also removed all of the formatting (paragraphs, bullet points, etc.). It may just be where that guy pulled it from though. When I reviewed it before submitting it still had the formatting.

 

[Colby Boles]

Detecting objects in front that appear to predict imminent collisions, and cutting power or applying brakes to mitigate the crash is an obvious good safety measure.

This is the type of feature that could have possibly saved Josh Brown's life.

I hope that they continue to refine this so as to decrease false positives (the OPs case) and decrease false negatives (Josh Brown's case).

I've encountered this before too and didn't think it was a big deal.

It most often occurs when you are lined up in the far right lane on a multi lane road at a redlight pointing directly at a parked car across the intersection. USually you are lined up at the redlight in the lane that is parked cars behind and ahead of you. Being in a Tesla you feel confident that you can get the jump on the person in the other lane and accelerate across the intersection and then quickly lane change into their lane and not rear end the parked car directly in front of you. However the car radar and camera isn't so sure about the last part and so cuts (but does not eliminate, in my experience) the power because it understandably senses a collision if you maintain present course and acceleration.

The solution is to just not always count on full power while pointing at an obstacle a short distance away, and try to point the car or make a lane change sooner rather than at the last desperate fraction of a second. really not a big deal. I wouldn't turn the feature off at all. Just understand how it works and deal with it, and hope it protects me when I someday in my dotage accidentally step on the wrong pedal.

Thanks for this reply. Even though I wouldn't want the power cut in the situation you describe either, I can at least see how the car was making a reasonable judgement considering that it could not be aware that you are intending to make additional steering inputs at a later time to move into the next lane and avoid the stopped car. Further, it's possible that some of the vehicle stability features that keep it tracking very well in a straight line under hard acceleration might inhibit the car from turning as well as one would expect.

In my scenario, I needed to accelerate fast in a straight line and the lane had a car in front of me departing at freeway speed that there was no possibility of hitting anytime soon if I did nothing but accelerate. If the car had a sense of that vehicle's velocity relative to mine it would have known no collision was possible. Obviously I'm speculating a bit here as I don't have the data and even Tesla says the logs are a bit inadequate as they don't contain the individual sensor readings.

 

[Matias]

• It is likely that the sensors detected the first car that drove past me and since neither the ultrasonic or radar sensors are Doppler based, they only know that an object is close at some point, not it's trajectory.

To my understanding, the radar is doppler based, otherwise it would be very difficult for it to differentiate moving vs. non moving objects

 

[Colby Boles]

To my understanding, radar is doppler based, otherwise it would be very difficult for it not differentiate moving vs. non moving objects

Yes that was my thought too but when I asked the support person they said no. They may be uninformed however. I'm trying to limit my statements to things I was told by Tesla and not speculate too much. Is there a good link somewhere that details their radar system? It's certainly technically feasible that both the radar and ultrasonic sensors have Doppler. I've seen radar array sensors that can pick up individual people's small chest movements while sleeping in a room, so I know it's possible to do much more.

 

[GregKo]

This happens to me everytime I am parking in my garage. It's a tight squeeze when I pull in. I see the heat map turn to red and chimes go off. I need just a few more feet to go, but the car stops and I need to pump (gently) the accelerator to override the safety feature. I am used to it by now (in my garage) that its not really an issue.

I will add that the X did stop me from rear ending someone several months ago. In this case the car ahead of me suddenly decided to stop at a yield sign that we were both going through together. My eyes where looking to the right as that was the direction I was going. He hit his breaks while turning left. I thought he was going through but apparently he did not.The X beeped and applied its breaks. Everything loose in the car went flying forward but no collision and no injuries.

I see the heat map show cars as I pass them ion the highway (heat map shows yellow - I assume that is a safe distance) sometimes the heat map show curbs or guard rails when the are close to the road. If the sensor is malfunctioning, too sensitive or misaligned, I could see this being an issue.

Please keep us informed.

Greg - NJ

 

[Colby Boles]

When you were parking in the garage, did the "Obstacle Detected" warning appear in the instrument panel? I see solid red all the time pulling into the garage or when there are objects close by inside. I haven't noticed it disabling the accelerator in these cases, but I'm also babying it at that point so I'm not sure I would notice a change to the throttle mapping.

The fact that you need to pump the accelerator to get it going still seems like dangerous behavior to me. As soon as the car stops directly reacting to your inputs, it starts to become a question of when it will start reacting again, which leads to unpredictable behavior. You were in a tight spot in the garage and you had to push on the gas more than you normally would. You might start conditioning yourself to do that always, only one time the car doesn't sense the obstacle and gives you much more acceleration.

This happens to me everytime I am parking in my garage. It's a tight squeeze when I pull in. I see the heat map turn to red and chimes go off. I need just a few more feet to go, but the car stops and I need to pump (gently) the accelerator to override the safety feature. I am used to it by now (in my garage) that its not really an issue.

I will add that the X did stop me from rear ending someone several months ago. In this case the car ahead of me suddenly decided to stop at a yield sign that we were both going through together. My eyes where looking to the right as that was the direction I was going. He hit his breaks while turning left. I thought he was going through but apparently he did not.The X beeped and applied its breaks. Everything loose in the car went flying forward but no collision and no injuries.

I see the heat map show cars as I pass them ion the highway (heat map shows yellow - I assume that is a safe distance) sometimes the heat map show curbs or guard rails when the are close to the road. If the sensor is malfunctioning, too sensitive or misaligned, I could see this being an issue.

Please keep us informed.

Greg - NJ

 

[Darren Donovan]

The fact that you need to pump the accelerator to get it going still seems like dangerous behavior to me. As soon as the car stops directly reacting to your inputs, it starts to become a question of when it will start reacting again

This "feature" needs to allow the driver to turn it off if desired. What if the car in front of you intentionally slowed down and stopped to block you, so that his/her 'partners" can smash in your window, such as in carjackingg scenarios or, auto insurance scam artists staging an accident? The non-responsive go pedal refuses to cooperate and you're a sitting duck? Scary.

 

[Colby Boles]

So I finally was at the same location again with my MX and guess what? The exact same thing happened again! I am now 2 for 2 at having the accelerator disabled at this location when using full throttle after a car passes. This time I have video from my Blackvue to illustrate the problem. I have posted it up to Vimeo here:

The realtime video does not convey how long it feels like you have no acceleration. Again in this case a vehicle further behind had to make an emergency lane change because they thought they would rear end me. Once the acceleration resumed I was able to speed up enough that they never passed me in the other lane, but I'm sure it gave them a scare (and made me look like an idiot, once again).

This really needs to be fixed. Hopefully this video will help make that obvious.