PSA: CAREFUL--Autopilot sudden braking

[fseir]

Has anyone had this happen in bumper to bumper traffic? That's where I'm really looking forward to EAP.

Bumper to bumper isn’t a big deal, because you’re already going slow, and everyone is ready to brake at a moment’s notice. The danger is when you’re going 70 mph, and the car suddenly decides to stop for a shadow.

Despite this issue, I’m still happy to have EAP. Phantom braking is fairly infrequent, and I know to hover my foot over the accelerator when approaching problem areas. I’m sure Tesla will eventually solve it.

 

[daniel]

Has anyone had this happen in bumper to bumper traffic? That's where I'm really looking forward to EAP.

This may be just me, but I find that I don't like EAP in bumper-to-bumper traffic. (Specifically TACC which is engaged any time AP is engaged) I find that it lags too long before starting to move, and brakes too abruptly when cars are stopped or slowed ahead.

I like EAP best on highways or when traffic is moving along steadily.

I've had some unjustified braking, but never severe, and you can over-ride it by stepping on the go pedal.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I know there are other threads about this. But I think it is serious enough flaw in AP, that I think everybody should be careful (Trust me, I am not a short seller. I own 3 Teslas).

Situation: When autopilot is engaged, it somehow sees some shadows/images, and it brakes pretty hard even though no car is in front of you. It does not come to complete stop, but it will go from 65-70 to 45 pretty quickly.

Conditions: Typically for me it has been driving in the dark (evening or early morning) and going under an underpass. I am not sure if others have seen this during the daytime or other conditions.

Please take notice of this and be careful when engaging autopilot. I have already been rear-ended (not related to this issue), but I can see how this bug can create a hazardous situation where somebody behind could rear end you.

I hope Tesla takes note of this and fixes it soon....it can be fairly dangerous. In the meantime, I have taken to driving again without autopilot until the next update.

Interesting in that I experienced sudden braking in AutoPilot a week ago during a Test drive of a Model S. We were out on the expressway in Westmont Il and cruising along just fine and suddenly the car hit the brakes rather strongly for 1 second and then went back up to speed. The salesperson said that "the car on occasion sometimes thinks it sees something". I recorded in my brain everything I was looking at out of the window when it happened.
Then it happened again and I recalled the first braking experience and compared it to the second to see what was the same about either situation.

1. First time - 65MPH & Second time 65MPH....so that wasn't it.
2. First time - following a car as the expressway veered left. Second Time Straightaway not following anyone.
3. First time - exiting from under a via-duct. Second Time - exiting from under a via-duct.
Wait.... There is a possibility there.
4. etc...…

It happened a 3rd time exiting while coming from under a via-duct and I was then partially convinced that this particular Model S might have a problem recognizing the lines or something when going from a darker lighted environment to a lighter one.

Who knows...….

Either way....my plan is to use AutoPilot 90% of the time when I get my P3D.

 

[Joe F]

They'll get it straightened out. Sad to see this is back. First release that turned TACC on for my AP2 MS back in early 2017 was a disaster for this problem. Each release saw improvements, with an occasional regression. Mostly it's not been a problem in many releases for me, at least on my AP2 MS. Sadly it has resurfaced with 2018.24.1 on the limited drives I've taken. I'd note though that it's nowhere near as bad as the early days. I can't speak to how it compares to the M3 though.

 

[xav-]

This may be just me, but I find that I don't like EAP in bumper-to-bumper traffic. (Specifically TACC which is engaged any time AP is engaged) I find that it lags too long before starting to move, and brakes too abruptly when cars are stopped or slowed ahead.

I like EAP best on highways or when traffic is moving along steadily.

I've had some unjustified braking, but never severe, and you can over-ride it by stepping on the go pedal.

I was gonna post the same thing but you beat me to it. 100 pc agree I find myself having to disengage in bumper to bumper traffic more often.

The weird thing with AP is that when a car moves into your lane AP starts braking only once the car is more than half way into your lane. That is not an issue in regular traffic because cars usually leave a good buffer. But in bumper to bumper traffic people don’t don’t/can’t always do that

The weirdest thing is that AP shows the car doing the lane change correctly on the screen. The system knows exactly what is going on.. the braking is just delayed (to when the lane change is almost fully completed). Likely a gap that is easy to address.

 

[daniel]

... The weirdest thing is that AP shows the car doing the lane change correctly on the screen. ...

I have noticed, and commented elsewhere, that often the car shows a car ahead of me in the adjacent lane beginning to cross the line when in fact the car is well within its own lane.

And once there was a car right next to me in the adjacent lane to my left that started to veer awfully close to me, and my car did not respond by moving over to make space. I don't know what it would have done because I wasn't going to chance it. I canceled AP and moved over a bit.

I'm still on 2018.21, which seems unable to accurately assess the position of cars in adjacent lanes.

 

[xav-]

I have noticed, and commented elsewhere, that often the car shows a car ahead of me in the adjacent lane beginning to cross the line when in fact the car is well within its own lane.

And once there was a car right next to me in the adjacent lane to my left that started to veer awfully close to me, and my car did not respond by moving over to make space. I don't know what it would have done because I wasn't going to chance it. I canceled AP and moved over a bit.

I'm still on 2018.21, which seems unable to accurately assess the position of cars in adjacent lanes.

Same thing happened to me on two separate occasions (car attempts to change lane and didn’t see me). AP didn’t react at all either. You would think that the hypersonic sensors would make it trivial to at least raise an alarm.

I also have had false positives like yesterday where it was very confused by a motorcycle that was in the lane next to me (but that wasn’t a threat). I assume it probably was thinking that the motorcycle was a car.

From my perspective the accident prevention right now is pretty much non existent. The amazing saves I have seen on YouTube seems to involve AP1

 

[dendenyc]

haha I think every post on Tesla forums should start with the declaration "Im not a short seller" and to prove your love with a screenshot of your TSLA holdings.

 

[daniel]

From my perspective the accident prevention right now is pretty much non existent.

I would not expect EAP to prevent an accident that's caused by another driver's erratic behavior. FSD needs to be able to do that and that's a long ways away. But I do think that EAP when it's used properly (full attention on the road) provides a marginal improvement in safety.

 

[daniel]

haha I think every post on Tesla forums should start with the declaration "Im not a short seller" and to prove your love with a screenshot of your TSLA holdings.

For all its faults, Tesla is the clear leader in the industry, and has few competitors. Every other maker of electric cars is making them as a minuscule side line. And no other company can match Tesla's performance and technology. Shorting Tesla is just plain naive.

 

[dendenyc]

For all its faults, Tesla is the clear leader in the industry, and has few competitors. Every other maker of electric cars is making them as a minuscule side line. And no other company can match Tesla's performance and technology. Shorting Tesla is just plain naive.

I would tend to agree with you, but I'd wanna add "for now". There are lots of competition on the horizon from BMW, Audi, Volvo and Porsche. They will no doubt add some great cars to the mix that will accelerate the adoption of EV. Tesla has some great things going for it though with the SuperCharger network as well as their powerwall/solar/battery business. so Im not too worried in the the short term

Disclaimer: Im long on TSLA and love my M3.

 

[daniel]

I would tend to agree with you, but I'd wanna add "for now". There are lots of competition on the horizon from BMW, Audi, Volvo and Porsche. They will no doubt add some great cars to the mix that will accelerate the adoption of EV. Tesla has some great things going for it though with the SuperCharger network as well as their powerwall/solar/battery business. so Im not too worried in the the short term

Disclaimer: Im long on TSLA and love my M3.

This is true, but none of those companies sees electric cars as anything more than a side line. None of them considers EVs to be their major product. And none of them gives a rat's ass about converting our transportation system to a sustainable energy source. I'll never put all my investment eggs in one basket, but I think Tesla is going to just get bigger and bigger.

I own some TSLA and some Solar City solar bonds, which are now effectively Tesla bonds.

 

[xav-]

I would not expect EAP to prevent an accident that's caused by another driver's erratic behavior. FSD needs to be able to do that and that's a long ways away. But I do think that EAP when it's used properly (full attention on the road) provides a marginal improvement in safety.

I did see a few saves on YouTube though.. including one from Josh Brown before his fatal accident. That was AP10 though..

 

[rsomrek]

Same thing just happened to me for the second time with TACC and AutoSteer engaged. I had noted to myself the approach to an overpass and was interested to see that others have noted the same. I was traveling into the sun this time and may have been the first time also (can't remember). I don't know if that might be a factor. I'm on software v2018.21.9.

I sent a note to Tesla through my account with as much detail as I can recall and gave them permission to access my logs. This episode is disconcerting and I hope it get fixed soon. There was a car behind who probably had to brake just a hard to avoid read-ending me - scary. and a little afraid to use TACC and/or AutoSteer again.

I'll post any informative info I get back from Tesla.

 

[rsomrek]

Same thing just happened to me for the second time with TACC and AutoSteer engaged. I had noted to myself the approach to an overpass and was interested to see that others have noted the same. I was traveling into the sun this time and may have been the first time also (can't remember). I don't know if that might be a factor. I'm on software v2018.21.9.

I sent a note to Tesla through my account with as much detail as I can recall and gave them permission to access my logs. This episode is disconcerting and I hope it get fixed soon. There was a car behind who probably had to brake just a hard to avoid read-ending me - scary. and a little afraid to use TACC and/or AutoSteer again.

I'll post any informative info I get back from Tesla.

Got a rather perfunctory response from Tesla Executive Care:

Thank you for contacting Tesla! I apologize for the concern you are having regarding your TACC and autosteer. Your local service center would be best suited to assist you in this situation as they can ensure your vehicle is working properly and if need be go on a road test as well. I have provided their contact information below:...​

I was hoping for something better than this. It's obvious that the problem is either intermittent or only occurs under very special circumstances. In that light I provided as much information (time of day, location, direction of travel, etc) as I could and even granted permission (if that's even needed) to access the car logs to see what factors influenced the sudden braking.

This is a serious problem both from the standpoint of confidence in the safe operation of the AP system and in avoiding an accident where the car is rear-ended because the car behind is not able to react to such a sudden and unexpected braking action.

Anyone have any ideas how to pursue this further?

 

[nvx1977]

Got a rather perfunctory response from Tesla Executive Care:

Thank you for contacting Tesla! I apologize for the concern you are having regarding your TACC and autosteer. Your local service center would be best suited to assist you in this situation as they can ensure your vehicle is working properly and if need be go on a road test as well. I have provided their contact information below:...​

I was hoping for something better than this. It's obvious that the problem is either intermittent or only occurs under very special circumstances. In that light I provided as much information (time of day, location, direction of travel, etc) as I could and even granted permission (if that's even needed) to access the car logs to see what factors influenced the sudden braking.

This is a serious problem both from the standpoint of confidence in the safe operation of the AP system and in avoiding an accident where the car is rear-ended because the car behind is not able to react to such a sudden and unexpected braking action.

Anyone have any ideas how to pursue this further?

I've gotten this response from executive care too. You should respond back to say that while yes, you COULD contact the service center, this is likely a fleet-wide problem, so your feedback is directed toward the core engineering team to fix this at the firmware level.

Whether or not they forward your issue to engineering is a separate issue, but you should not allow executive care to deflect your issue so easily.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Got a rather perfunctory response from Tesla Executive Care:

Thank you for contacting Tesla! I apologize for the concern you are having regarding your TACC and autosteer. Your local service center would be best suited to assist you in this situation as they can ensure your vehicle is working properly and if need be go on a road test as well. I have provided their contact information below:...​

I was hoping for something better than this. It's obvious that the problem is either intermittent or only occurs under very special circumstances. In that light I provided as much information (time of day, location, direction of travel, etc) as I could and even granted permission (if that's even needed) to access the car logs to see what factors influenced the sudden braking.

This is a serious problem both from the standpoint of confidence in the safe operation of the AP system and in avoiding an accident where the car is rear-ended because the car behind is not able to react to such a sudden and unexpected braking action.

Anyone have any ideas how to pursue this further?

I'm sure they're well aware of the problem. Fundamentally there is a tradeoff between running into things and phantom braking. Do they want autopilot to run into firetrucks or randomly brake? It sounds like they moved the slider towards randomly brake on recent updates. It seems like they may have made the right decision since I haven't heard of any autopilot accidents recently.

 

[rsomrek]

I'm sure they're well aware of the problem. Fundamentally there is a tradeoff between running into things and phantom braking. Do they want autopilot to run into firetrucks or randomly brake? It sounds like they moved the slider towards randomly brake on recent updates. It seems like they may have made the right decision since I haven't heard of any autopilot accidents recently.

I only hope they are aware of the problem - particularly after the numerous posts here.

This is an interesting take on safety. Seems that a corollary to this could be assumed to be that accidents are only of concern when a Tesla hits something/someone and not when it could be the cause of someone else hitting it. I'd suggest that, in fact, the latter is a little more dangerous given what we appear to know now about hitting firetrucks. It would appear that driver error (putting the car in AP mode before attending to a cell phone) played a significant part in the actual crash. At what point do you decide to take control from the car and depress the brakes? Oh, but it's AutoPilot so why should I have to pay attention? How many warning bells would be required to get the driver to glance away from the phone?

In the cases posted on this thread, the drivers report that the car unexpected initiating severe, hard braking action without approaching any object/car ahead of them. If no one is following behind you, I guess the argument could be "so what." But what about when someone behind your M3 is looking at her phone and slams into the rear of your car because it started such a severe braking action? I guess you could argue that she should have been paying attention (as you could in the Utah fire truck crash) and/or that she was following too close. Good arguments but when the object is to avoid accidents you have to ask what could be done even when you're not the hitter but the hittee.

The fact is that many people who have experienced this anomaly have described some remarkably similar circumstances. A good sleuth (let alone a good safety engineer) would use the 'clues' provided to solve the 'mystery.' Safety is not a trade-off at this level. You cannot choose one (fire truck ramming safety) over the other (being the cause of an accident). Perhaps it will take some dramatic news stories about cars being rear-ended because of severe braking while on AP to get the same level of attention. And then one can make a judgment about the brilliance of making a 'right' decision about AutoPilot accidents.

 

[macgeng]

This happened to me for the first time yesterday on the freeway. Lanes were pretty narrow though and happens when my model 3 is coming up to a car that is on another lane. Happened three times!

 

[Devils son]

This happened to me for the first time yesterday on the freeway. Lanes were pretty narrow though and happens when my model 3 is coming up to a car that is on another lane. Happened three times!

That might be an alignment problem. Had something similar with ACC on the RS6.