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"Obstacle detected" - blocking acceleration - very dangerous!
- Thread starter Colby Boles
- Start date
Yep. That's what I'm hoping for. When this first happened I did spend a lot of time on the phone with them about and they pulled the logs. They said they couldn't tell much from them and wondered if I had video. Now I do, so I should give them a call again.
Oh, geez. What a horrible onramp.
There is absolutely no room to accelerate and you're being pushed into the other lane by a huge barrier. To the car it probably seems like you're running into something.
Definitely send the logs to Tesla because I don't see any reason why 8.0 wouldn't have the same issue. It might not get corrected until 8.1 when they add white listing.
It would be interesting to see how many cars with AEB or throttle disconnect would fail this onramp if tried 10 different times.
If it was me (cause I'm a bit OCD especially when I'm pissed) I would try this onramp with AEB active and without AEB active. If that wasn't enough I'd go back and try it again with the camera covered up. I would also have a camera recording the instrument cluster.
There is absolutely no room to accelerate and you're being pushed into the other lane by a huge barrier. To the car it probably seems like you're running into something.
Definitely send the logs to Tesla because I don't see any reason why 8.0 wouldn't have the same issue. It might not get corrected until 8.1 when they add white listing.
It would be interesting to see how many cars with AEB or throttle disconnect would fail this onramp if tried 10 different times.
If it was me (cause I'm a bit OCD especially when I'm pissed) I would try this onramp with AEB active and without AEB active. If that wasn't enough I'd go back and try it again with the camera covered up. I would also have a camera recording the instrument cluster.
GordonBremer
Member
When experiencing problems that may involve a sensor, I suggest making a note of TEMPERATURE, especially heat due to sunshine on a sensor or bank of sensors. Our Model X definitely has heat sensitive sensors on the FWDs and possibly on the bumbers. The sensors will show phantom objects when they get hot enough. (Tampa service is working on this for a second time.) The problems noted in this thread may be exasperated by temperature, and the problem may not repeat under different temperature conditions. Service may not duplicate the problem in a cool service center.
Canuck
Well-Known Member
I thought the same thing. It's almost an accident waiting to happen under the best of circumstances. At the same time, however, it's not an excuse for what the car did. That just amplifies what is already a dangerous situation.
I agree it's not the best on-ramp - but here's the thing - each driver who merges in should:
A Model X P90DL has great acceleration, and should be extremely reliable in providing it almost instantaneously. "Stalling" the vehicle should be an impossibility. What is happening here is the worst possible combination of things - you don't get the much-needed acceleration you expect, and you get some small amount of movement before things cut out completely so that you are stuck out in the lane with no means to escape. I would still be complaining if the car chose to not move at all, but it would be much safer in this scenario. Of course what I really want is this undocumented feature to be turned off completely or at least be optional.
- Know the acceleration capabilities of their vehicle
- Be able to judge the speed and spacing of the oncoming vehicles
- Know their reaction times
- Know what risks and margin for error are acceptable to them
A Model X P90DL has great acceleration, and should be extremely reliable in providing it almost instantaneously. "Stalling" the vehicle should be an impossibility. What is happening here is the worst possible combination of things - you don't get the much-needed acceleration you expect, and you get some small amount of movement before things cut out completely so that you are stuck out in the lane with no means to escape. I would still be complaining if the car chose to not move at all, but it would be much safer in this scenario. Of course what I really want is this undocumented feature to be turned off completely or at least be optional.
It certainly doesn't excuse any active safety system for failing, but does illustrate the infrastructure problem we have. Where there are so many poorly designed roads that aren't very compatible with driver aids let alone autonomous driving technology.
Right now we're at a point where the NHTSA is pushing for things like AEB which this relates to, but there isn't any good testing standards to insure that BOTH the cars and the roads are compatible. They also have to be compatible with drivers in such a way that there is consistency among how they behave. We all know how to deal with ABS braking, but not so much when it comes to AEB braking or collision throttle control.
It potentially impacts a lot more than the Tesla because we don't know if it was triggered within the MobileEye system. I believe it was, but the only way to really know would be to try it again with the Camera covered up. It could be the ultrasonics, but I would be extremely displeased with Tesla if this was the case. They're good for slow speed parking, but not onramps.
For Tesla specifically what I find most troubling is the lack of documentation on this feature. There is absolutely nothing in the user manual about it. There is no mention of what causes it to activate, or how to disable it. There isn't even a way of dealing with it when it happens. I firmly believe it's part of AEB, but it's not mentioned within the AEB section of the manual. To me I find that to be completely unacceptable.
Still waiting on my model X so I don't really have any first hand experience with AP other than the test drive. That was awesome! 
Really looking forward to getting my car and trying out all the AP features but this thread caught my attention and highlights the importance of staying fully vigilant even with AP. Thank you for sharing your experience Colby.
Imagining the conditions where this cutout engages, I am wondering whether it is possible to cutout while taking a left turn in heavy traffic. Just as an example, if I am ready to take a left turn and waiting for traffic to pass, it is possible that multiple vehicles might pass right in front of my car and then I see a small opening where I can make the left turn safely and hit the gas pedal. It would be awful if it moved my vehicle into the oncoming traffic path and then cutout the gas because of "remembering" the previous vehicles that were passing it in close proximity. Of course I am just imagining these scenarios but just curious if anyone experienced anything like that during left turns?
Really looking forward to getting my car and trying out all the AP features but this thread caught my attention and highlights the importance of staying fully vigilant even with AP. Thank you for sharing your experience Colby.
Imagining the conditions where this cutout engages, I am wondering whether it is possible to cutout while taking a left turn in heavy traffic. Just as an example, if I am ready to take a left turn and waiting for traffic to pass, it is possible that multiple vehicles might pass right in front of my car and then I see a small opening where I can make the left turn safely and hit the gas pedal. It would be awful if it moved my vehicle into the oncoming traffic path and then cutout the gas because of "remembering" the previous vehicles that were passing it in close proximity. Of course I am just imagining these scenarios but just curious if anyone experienced anything like that during left turns?
EV-lutioin
Active Member
I had an 07 Prius that did a similar thing every time the wheels spun a little (like when you are flooring it to merge onto a highway). As soon as the wheels slipped a little the car would stop accelerating, it drove me crazy and was very dangerous. Sold it.
Every car that has traction control does that. Where if the wheels spins it brakes that wheel, and reduces the acceleration.
My Jeep does the same thing, but I manage it by knowing when to feather the throttle. It's mostly when it's just rained after not raining for awhile.
I believe the Tesla does it as well, but it's extremely difficult to lose traction in the Tesla.
Yes indeed, the Tesla's do interrupt acceleration when the wheels slip. Happened to me exiting a dirt road onto a busy paved road, needed to accelerate fast and squeeze myself into the traffic flow, but the wheels slipped on the gravel, and left me hanging, exposed on the main road. It recovered in time, but the feeling was similar to what is being discussed in this thread. I now know to not gun it making a turn from a dirt road.
You will accelerate faster if you limit your acceleration just before slipping. Once you start slipping (overcome the static coefficient of friction), you have to slow down the wheel significantly to gain traction again.
However, I think the video of OP is a different issue. Hopefully, it will get resolved with new 8.0 software.
However, I think the video of OP is a different issue. Hopefully, it will get resolved with new 8.0 software.
Yes totally different. The console displays "Obstacle Detected" - this is not traction control, this is the car thinking a crash would be eminent if it allowed you to accelerate. My guess is that it is either the radar or ultrasonic sensors being used in a way that has no doppler or other velocity information, or the latency of the processing is too high. It seems that it is deciding to not let you accelerate because there is a car in front of you "now" without taking the relative motion of that other vehicle into account. Another driver in this thread mentioned having the same thing happen when trying to cross a busy street perpendicularly. Basically the car gets spooked pretty easily because it has a very limited view of the world through its sensors. It will be interesting to see in what ways 8.0 can improve on this.
Just recently (last week or two), I've been getting some "ghost" cars showing up on my dash display, along with all the warnings (sounds like what you're potentially experiencing). Usually catches me off-guard because there is no vehicle directly in front of me. I'm usually driving at speed when it happens (rather than accelerating) so in my case there wasn't any safety issues for me(ie it's not trying to brake hard on my behalf).
I'm planning to wait for 8.0 upgrade and see if the problem goes away. If it doesn't, I'll contact Tesla and ask them to pull the logs and diagnose the problem.
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More than just ghost cars, when I had the CAW set to medium I would occasionally get hair raising alerts that I was about to hit something as I was driving along sweeping turns with guardrail posts and also making left turns at tee intersections with parked cars. In both cases I was coming nowhere close to hitting anything, and my steering angle was constant the whole time. It really seemed like it wasn't taking the relative motion into account, including my wheel angle. It seemed to be answering the question "If we went straight ahead right now - would we crash" - even though we clearly were not going straight ahead.
I ended up turning off CAW. Once you start getting false alerts like this it totally throws you off as you keep wondering if you should make some sort of evasive maneuver because it is seeing something you are not. Way too stressful for someone who already is paying a lot of attention to their driving.
I ended up turning off CAW. Once you start getting false alerts like this it totally throws you off as you keep wondering if you should make some sort of evasive maneuver because it is seeing something you are not. Way too stressful for someone who already is paying a lot of attention to their driving.
I have to point out, as I have before, that there are always gonna be a bunch of roads which aren't really 'designed' at all and aren't very compatible with any sort of driver aids. Dirt and gravel roads are the most obvious, but lots of ancient rural roads are like this, as well as ancient streets in old cities like Boston. It's just a wild and wooly environment. This is why I've been saying that full level 4 self-driving is impossible.
Canuck
Well-Known Member
I don't think that's the issue. This isn't an issue of AP not working where the road is not compatible. This is the car doing something very dangerous with no way of turning it off. AP can be turned off (and in fact can't even be turned on) if the road is not compatible, like gravel roads with no lines. Here the driver has no way of turning this feature off when he uses this on-ramp.
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