What happened was- someone used a feature in a situation it's explicitly not intended to be used- so the feature being confused about that shouldn't surprise anyone who understands this.
It was on a highway, as suggested by Tesla. Some highways have sorts of "exit lanes" for turning right. Tesla does not say "do not use TACC on highways if traffic may exit the highway via dedicated lanes besides you current travel lane", nor do they say "TACC does not support vehicles driving slower in other lanes". Sure, Tesla can't make an exhaustive list (and they say what's in the manual isn't an exhaustive list), but they shouldn't need to. Highways have exit lanes. So do freeways. Highways and freeways are supported, and these are hardly problematic conditions like winding roads, poor weather conditions, etc.
My own experience is that other MFGs TACC equivalents are terrible compared to Teslas.
Most I experienced before buying my car wouldn't work at all below like 30 mph, come to full stops, or resume from stops....making them utterly useless in stop and go traffic on a highway.
And even then they usually had a minimum follow distance so far away I would constantly get cut off and dropped even further back over and over again.
Test driving a Tesla and seeing how much better their system was than anybody elses I'd used (Infiniti, Lexus, GM (non supercruise), etc) was literally the thing that made me want to buy the car.
But again I actually paid attention to where the system is supposed to work and where it's not.
Why do you need it to work below 30mph? Most cruise systems don't, and you're not supposed to go that slow on a freeway nor a highway, which are the only supported usages of TACC. If it's for accidents, construction, etc. you are intended to take full control of the vehicle, as those are unsupported cases.
You can. Buy one without Autopilot and that's exactly what you get.
I think the owners manual mentions that fact too- lotsa neat stuff you seem to be missing out on not reading it
AP has come with all Models 3s for a while now, and I did not have the option to remove it. The manual only mentions that one should read the manual if you don't have Autopilot, and doesn't actually outline how cruise functions in this case (perhaps it is even TACC as well, it's unclear). But let's suppose it is indeed "dumb cruise", why can't I have that as an option for models with AP as well so that I have a non-beta option to use?
Translation: You were using it where you are not supposed to. This is entirely your fault and you should feel bad for it.
As above, what are you basing this on? It was a highway. The car turning right was in their own
dedicated right turn/exit lane. I fail to see how this could be an unsupported case. If so, TACC shouldn't be used at all in Western Canada and I therefore have no supported version of cruise control in a 2019 vehicle? I just want to use cruise on highways like I always have (TACC or "dumb" cruise), why is this so difficult when it comes to Tesla and their fanbase?
So far I have yet to see any claims of unexpected braking be legitimized. All this bark, no videos, and a ton of people admitting its their own fault.
...
Wholly anecdotal. Where's the videos or lack of self-incrimination? And what about the people who say theirs works perfectly fine or better than their prior vehicles'? Human tribalism indicates that you will only accept anecdotal evidence that supports your view.
The world operates on a lot of anecdote. The system clearly has limitations, both on paper and in people's experiences. Sure, anyone can lie on the internet.
People can also be reaching out to see if others share their experience, get Tesla's attention to fix something that's not right, or be corrected. These are all noble pursuits and don't require irrefutable evidence. This is a forum, not a courthouse.
You can. Don't buy the FSD package and it's regular CC, not TACC.
I did not purchase FSD. I have TACC.
Please do. Dash cam footage is fine. It's completely analyzable. I do want to see actual misbehavior. It's very difficult to fix actual problems when there are a lot of people crowing about problems that are not actual problems. Let me know when it's available. Quick advisory though: Any use in situations where it's not proper (city streets, non-access-controlled roadways) is already an automatic fail on your part and will be pointed out as such if you bother to post them. No TACC is meant for city streets on any cars.
I have always mentioned on-highway usage, as has nearly all (or perhaps truly all) other posters in this thread in their anecdotes. The manual does not state that it's only for access-controlled highways (i.e. freeways), in fact the line saying starting with "When cruising near an exit on a controlled access road [...]" may imply there are supported scenarios outside of freeways.
I think it's entirely fair to
not count right turn lanes off of a highway as "cross traffic", as this traffic is not crossing the highway.
I
have used cruise in town where we have one really long straight road with almost no traffic on it. I know this is an unsupported case and so have never mentioned it, especially negatively. Oddly enough, this is the only place where TACC and Autosteer have worked their best for me.
Not sure about Canada, but the US has a plethora of cars with only touch-screen controls for a lot of things. Prius Prime is an example, And they do MUCH worse for controls. Precision finger-stabbing is necessary and occasionally four or more steps to get what you need, plus much less-responsive controls. Teslas are hugely better in the UI department.
Two touches to turn wipers on. Also notable that the technology behind both TACC and Auto Wipers is actually not 100% the same as other vehicles. TACC has more data inputs and AW have different data input. So yes, some of this is being built from the ground up. That extra input is why the TACC and safety features of a Tesla are safer than the TACC of other vehicles.
Canada has many of the same vehicles. And the Prius Prime indeed is a very touch-focused vehicle, but different in some key ways. Common controls like temperature have tactile depressions so you can locate by touch accurately. Not to mention the fact there
are actually a lot of physical buttons still. One should need to only rarely interact with the touch screen, and not for something as safety-critical as
wipers.
As another poster pointed out, precise finger-stabbing is still needed because it's a touchscreen without any tactile guidance or tactile feedback. I agree the UI and touchscreen of the Model 3 is extraordinarily more responsive than essentially all others, and if not for this fact I would never have bought the vehicle. Credit is due there. However, the very fact that a safety-critical feature is accessed via the touchscreen (one touchscreen press required, yes)
is notable because other manufacturers
are not putting something that critical "four or more steps" away.
As far as building technologies from the ground up, that's great. Perhaps there's some innovation they can bring forward and make an attractive improvement to customers. However, as a consumer, if these new approaches are delivered to me sub-par, I'm not giving a pass just because they tried to do it a different way. For example, rain sensors have worked well for over a decade, and Tesla decided to forgo it for a novel system that currently can't perform as well, with it being unclear if it ever will.
I feel your pain. I don't understand why some people say the beta wipers work just fine. I've never been able to get them to work properly all of the time. They usually start up very slowly and require a few manual interventions before they work properly. Heck, the other day they came on because of dirt on the windscreen which is a contraindication to wiping the windshield.
I agree with you 100% that the screen controls in Teslas are very dangerous. I'm willing to bet that at some point either legislation or lawsuits end up requiring them to change the UI so that no important feature of the car is done through the touch screen. I miss not being able to tune the radio (which is also lost in many other cars) and the heater without dealing with the screen. Please don't tell me about the controls on the steering wheel as they only allow you to station search, not select a preset. Does the radio even have presets? I know it doesn't have an off switch. I have to deal with it every time I get in the car.
For what it's worth, every Model 3 owner I've talked to
in person agrees that the auto wipers don't quite cut it. Sometimes it wipes too frequently (meh, not a big issue). Sometimes it doesn't wipe enough (very bad). This is very dependent on the "style" of moisture on the windshield (fine rain, downpour, spray from other vehicles, snow, slush, etc.) as well as more odd things like time of day and other light sources (e.g. headlights, billboards). Sometimes, it's just right. Service tech mentioned the Model S auto is simply flawless and he hasn't touched it since day one, but almost everyone complains about the Model 3 auto wipers.
The radio has presets!! I use them. Clicking left and right on left scroll wheel while on FM radio will cycle between the presets. I don't know how to set them off-hand, my wife did it. The saving grace is that you don't need to "seek" if you are looking for a non-preset station, as the touch screen only populates with available stations that you can select by tapping. It's kinda nice, but still touch-based yes.
Hmmm... My car used to not provide autopilot anywhere but access-controlled highways, now it leaves it up to me. If the TACC is not intended to be used anywhere else, why is it allowed???
This is actually a really good point. Even something like a 50km/h (30mph) minimum speed could help address this without location ambiguity.
...
Tesla is the opposite of not on the ball here.
Lexus for example- which has offered radar cruise control longer than Tesla has been making cars... surely THEY must be ahead of Tesla at it, right?
Nope.
https://drivers.lexus.com/t3Portal/document/om-s/OM53E71U/pdf/OM53E71U.pdf
That's the manual for the IS350- the lexus sport sedan (and the car I owned before my Tesla)
It then offers a long list of other places "unsuitable" for using it- roads with any pedestrians or cyclists, in heavy traffic (the SINGLE BEST place for TACC where it works GREAT!), and a bunch of other road, weather, and traffic conditions.
It gets WORSE though!
It won't engage under 30 mph. And it
turns itself off if the car drops below 25
It only has 3 distance settings and the shortest one is about 100 feet of follow distance.
In short- it's crap compared to TACC.
Ah, ok, I think we have different requirements of TACC which might help explain our differences on the subject.
I personally don't care about TACC operating below 30mph or 50km/h. I actually don't want to use it at those speeds, because that's likely a situation I need to be in unassisted full control (construction, accident scene, traffic jam). I also would like distance settings that keep further away from the vehicle in front. The max of 7 puts me uncomfortably close to motorcycles in particular, which I normally give more space to because they don't have a metal cage if something goes wrong. If someone goes in front of me while I was leaving plenty of room, it makes no difference to me.
For Lexus, they do not seem to say anything about phantom braking in their manual other than sudden road angle transitions (uphill/downhill). However,
Tesla does call out...
> "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control may occasionally cause Model 3 to brake when not required or when you are not expecting it..."
That is the precise difference that is under discussion in this thread. Tesla is acknowledging the problem in the very manual everyone keeps saying we need to read, while suggesting there is no phantom braking issue and if there is, every manufacturer deals with it.
So let's be clear:
Phantom braking exists. It's noted in the owner's manual. It is a bad thing. Other manufacturers may or may not also have that problem, but at least one does not seem to raise awareness to their operators that they would encounter this which would be prudent if it was as frequent as our anecdotes for the Model 3 imply.
... (and mind you, only 1 actual cars of theirs even does that much- the Fusion- plus a few trucks/suvs)
"One plus a few" is certainly more than just one...
