Hello,
I wanted to share my experiences with regular AutoPilot and FSD Nav on AutoPilot during two recent round trips from Carlsbad, CA to Camarillo, CA (I5 to 73 to 405 to 101). I have a 22 MYP. I used to have a 20 MXP w/ FSD but sold it early in the pandemic (I know, big mistake!)
The first trip to Camarillo was in June and I did not have FSD (not sure what software rev). Regular AutoPilot with lane keep made the drive more pleasant but the 405 around Irvine, CA has lots of construction and as a result, the lanes are all over the place (not straight, lots of curves). I had to disable AutoPilot while driving through here over 70MPH because the car would get so close to the concrete side barriers on some curves it was scaring me. Going around slight curves on the 405 South of LAX would result in it hugging the outer lane so close that it would hit the rumble strip reflectors. I previously did that drive many times in my MXP w/ FSD and never had these problems.
So, I decided to upgrade my MYP to FSD. Navigate on AutoPilot makes a BIG difference in the cars ability to keep itself centered in the lane. But I found that it still drifts a little too far in some turns.
The second tip to Camarillo was yesterday (11am-1:30pm) using 2022.24.5. I used Navigate on AutoPilot and probably told the car to “Fxxx OFF” about 42 times. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my Tesla, but Navigate on AutoPilot introduces a lot of stress to the drive. Some examples:
Not solely related to NAV on AutoPilot, the car probably nagged me 30 times during the drive to apply pressure to the steering wheel. It interrupts the music and beeps at you. My hands are ALWAYS on the steering wheel. I wish they could turn down the sensitivity of this or they need to come up with a better way to tell if the user’s hands are on the wheel (maybe the in-cabin camera???). To avoid getting nagged, you are forced to grip the wheel hard and apply some turning pressure on the wheel – this gets tiresome on a long drive.
I started the trip with NAV on AutoPilot with settings set to No, Average, No, No, and Vibrate. The problem was the car kept trying to change me into the HOV lane. I don’t have HOV lane stickers and don’t want to get a $500 fine. So, I disabled speed-based lane changes and set Require lane change confirmation to Yes. But the car kept suggesting lane changes another 100+ times during the drive up and on the drive back. Is there a way to turn off these lane change suggestions? It’s distracting with the chimes and the side camera view blocks a lot of the interface when this happens. These suggestions sometimes stay on the screen for over a minute if cars are in the lanes beside you. I love the side camera views when I use my turn signals to change a lane, but I don’t want to see these otherwise unless I turn on auto lane change. I am really surprised the car has no “Avoid HOV Lanes” feature. I would think Google Maps knows where the HOV lanes are and Tesla vision “sees” and renders the HOV diamonds on screen. SoCal is in Tesla Hawthorne’s backyard, right?
At the end of the 73, about half a mile or so before you enter the 405, the car veered *sharply* to the right as I was going about 72mph. It probably covered ½ to ¾’s of a lane before I was able to stop the turn. There were no cars in front of me in my immediate way. There was a car to the right two lanes over that was entering the highway traveling about 50mph but the car steered me sharply in the direction of that car. It was very concerning.
Right after this, the car started suggesting that I change lanes for the upcoming 405 transition but I was already in the correct lane according to the overhead highway signs. As we got closer to the 405, the car kept popping up the lane change suggestion and I would cancel it. It was almost comical – It was happening every few seconds towards the 405 onramp curve!
It was a little frustrating to see “short” to “medium” waits on the Calabasas 250V supercharger location as I was driving up the coast. I checked it many times during the drive and it would switch back and forth between short and medium. What does a “short” wait typically mean? What does a “medium” wait typically mean? I was on a tight schedule yesterday. I was supposed to meet up with some friends at 2:30pm and then run to a wedding in Moorpark at 4:30pm. Then I was driving back that evening and really didn’t want to stop on the way back to charge. I had baked in an extra 45 minutes for charging but I didn’t have a lot of time to wait for a supercharger when I didn’t know what short or medium waits would mean (would be nice to see short replaced with 5 or 10 minutes and medium replaced with 10 to 15 if those are the typical wait times – I'm not even sure how Tesla would know what the wait time would be. How would they know how many cars are lined up to charge?). And in general, what is the etiquette for waiting at a supercharger? Do the cars line up in an orderly line? Or is it a first come, first serve when a spot opens? I have to imagine the former…but I have seen supercharger locations where there really is no good place to line up without being in the way of parking lot traffic (Oxnard Collection Supercharger location comes to mind). I instead decided to go out of my way and take the 405 up to the 118 and over to the Simi Valley 250V location where there were 10 open spots (great location by the way – I had a nice lunch at Urbane Café). It would be nice to see more 250V locations along these highways. This would especially help on crazy travel holiday weekends. From past experience, I would be hard pressed to take my Tesla on a road trip in SoCal on a holiday weekend unless I had no time constraints.
On the trip back to Carlsbad (~9-11pm), things went smoother. However, at one point on the 405 somewhere North of Irvine, AutoPilot completely disengaged, and the car started slowing down. I’m wondering if the road construction has the maps confused? Tesla engineering, please investigate this.
I really like using the turn signal to change lanes. However, a big frustration was if you don’t hold the turn signal down long enough, the car will abruptly jerk you back into your original lane. Please fix this! I probably looked like a drunk driver half a dozen times last night.
Other things I noticed on the drive that I would like to see Tesla do better at:
When coming up on an oversize 18-wheeler style truck that is either hugging the lane or slightly overlapping into my lane, I would like to see the car to use its “vision” or its ultrasonic sensors and move over a bit. There were a couple of occasions where I had to intervene because the car was letting the semi get too close. The same thing applies to cars going around slight curves in the highway. Cars sometimes drift to the edge of their lane or slightly into my lane as my Tesla is slowly (~5mph) overtaking them (and the Tesla is also slightly drifting through the turn into them). I have to intervene because my Tesla doesn’t appear that it is going to avoid them.
Also, it’s not uncommon to be traveling anywhere between 5-45mph on the 405 between LAX and Sunset. AutoPilot keeps the car centered but if you are in the HOV lane or the lane next to it, you will experience numerous motorcycles blasting by you going 30-50mph faster than your car. Again, it would be nice if Tesla vision could spot these bikers coming up and either alert and/or move the car slightly over. You will see most ICE cars move over slightly to give the motorcycles space but the Tesla on AutoPilot or NAV on AutoPilot remains firmly planted in the middle of the lane like its saying “No way I’m moving, you move!”
I’m curious if my observations are unique or are these frustrations that most Tesla drivers have? If these are common occurrences, could I recommend that Tesla engineers should spend a week or so driving this stretch of road and take notes on all of these stressors and try to minimize or eliminate them (i.e. Chuck Cook style?)
Can anyone offer Settings that I should use that would help with the lane change suggestions and/or lane changes into the HOV lane?
I share this MYP with my wife but based on my experiences yesterday, I’m not sure I would want my wife to use NAV on AutoPilot! I would never hear the end of it!
I wanted to share my experiences with regular AutoPilot and FSD Nav on AutoPilot during two recent round trips from Carlsbad, CA to Camarillo, CA (I5 to 73 to 405 to 101). I have a 22 MYP. I used to have a 20 MXP w/ FSD but sold it early in the pandemic (I know, big mistake!)
The first trip to Camarillo was in June and I did not have FSD (not sure what software rev). Regular AutoPilot with lane keep made the drive more pleasant but the 405 around Irvine, CA has lots of construction and as a result, the lanes are all over the place (not straight, lots of curves). I had to disable AutoPilot while driving through here over 70MPH because the car would get so close to the concrete side barriers on some curves it was scaring me. Going around slight curves on the 405 South of LAX would result in it hugging the outer lane so close that it would hit the rumble strip reflectors. I previously did that drive many times in my MXP w/ FSD and never had these problems.
So, I decided to upgrade my MYP to FSD. Navigate on AutoPilot makes a BIG difference in the cars ability to keep itself centered in the lane. But I found that it still drifts a little too far in some turns.
The second tip to Camarillo was yesterday (11am-1:30pm) using 2022.24.5. I used Navigate on AutoPilot and probably told the car to “Fxxx OFF” about 42 times. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my Tesla, but Navigate on AutoPilot introduces a lot of stress to the drive. Some examples:
Not solely related to NAV on AutoPilot, the car probably nagged me 30 times during the drive to apply pressure to the steering wheel. It interrupts the music and beeps at you. My hands are ALWAYS on the steering wheel. I wish they could turn down the sensitivity of this or they need to come up with a better way to tell if the user’s hands are on the wheel (maybe the in-cabin camera???). To avoid getting nagged, you are forced to grip the wheel hard and apply some turning pressure on the wheel – this gets tiresome on a long drive.
I started the trip with NAV on AutoPilot with settings set to No, Average, No, No, and Vibrate. The problem was the car kept trying to change me into the HOV lane. I don’t have HOV lane stickers and don’t want to get a $500 fine. So, I disabled speed-based lane changes and set Require lane change confirmation to Yes. But the car kept suggesting lane changes another 100+ times during the drive up and on the drive back. Is there a way to turn off these lane change suggestions? It’s distracting with the chimes and the side camera view blocks a lot of the interface when this happens. These suggestions sometimes stay on the screen for over a minute if cars are in the lanes beside you. I love the side camera views when I use my turn signals to change a lane, but I don’t want to see these otherwise unless I turn on auto lane change. I am really surprised the car has no “Avoid HOV Lanes” feature. I would think Google Maps knows where the HOV lanes are and Tesla vision “sees” and renders the HOV diamonds on screen. SoCal is in Tesla Hawthorne’s backyard, right?
At the end of the 73, about half a mile or so before you enter the 405, the car veered *sharply* to the right as I was going about 72mph. It probably covered ½ to ¾’s of a lane before I was able to stop the turn. There were no cars in front of me in my immediate way. There was a car to the right two lanes over that was entering the highway traveling about 50mph but the car steered me sharply in the direction of that car. It was very concerning.
Right after this, the car started suggesting that I change lanes for the upcoming 405 transition but I was already in the correct lane according to the overhead highway signs. As we got closer to the 405, the car kept popping up the lane change suggestion and I would cancel it. It was almost comical – It was happening every few seconds towards the 405 onramp curve!
It was a little frustrating to see “short” to “medium” waits on the Calabasas 250V supercharger location as I was driving up the coast. I checked it many times during the drive and it would switch back and forth between short and medium. What does a “short” wait typically mean? What does a “medium” wait typically mean? I was on a tight schedule yesterday. I was supposed to meet up with some friends at 2:30pm and then run to a wedding in Moorpark at 4:30pm. Then I was driving back that evening and really didn’t want to stop on the way back to charge. I had baked in an extra 45 minutes for charging but I didn’t have a lot of time to wait for a supercharger when I didn’t know what short or medium waits would mean (would be nice to see short replaced with 5 or 10 minutes and medium replaced with 10 to 15 if those are the typical wait times – I'm not even sure how Tesla would know what the wait time would be. How would they know how many cars are lined up to charge?). And in general, what is the etiquette for waiting at a supercharger? Do the cars line up in an orderly line? Or is it a first come, first serve when a spot opens? I have to imagine the former…but I have seen supercharger locations where there really is no good place to line up without being in the way of parking lot traffic (Oxnard Collection Supercharger location comes to mind). I instead decided to go out of my way and take the 405 up to the 118 and over to the Simi Valley 250V location where there were 10 open spots (great location by the way – I had a nice lunch at Urbane Café). It would be nice to see more 250V locations along these highways. This would especially help on crazy travel holiday weekends. From past experience, I would be hard pressed to take my Tesla on a road trip in SoCal on a holiday weekend unless I had no time constraints.
On the trip back to Carlsbad (~9-11pm), things went smoother. However, at one point on the 405 somewhere North of Irvine, AutoPilot completely disengaged, and the car started slowing down. I’m wondering if the road construction has the maps confused? Tesla engineering, please investigate this.
I really like using the turn signal to change lanes. However, a big frustration was if you don’t hold the turn signal down long enough, the car will abruptly jerk you back into your original lane. Please fix this! I probably looked like a drunk driver half a dozen times last night.
Other things I noticed on the drive that I would like to see Tesla do better at:
When coming up on an oversize 18-wheeler style truck that is either hugging the lane or slightly overlapping into my lane, I would like to see the car to use its “vision” or its ultrasonic sensors and move over a bit. There were a couple of occasions where I had to intervene because the car was letting the semi get too close. The same thing applies to cars going around slight curves in the highway. Cars sometimes drift to the edge of their lane or slightly into my lane as my Tesla is slowly (~5mph) overtaking them (and the Tesla is also slightly drifting through the turn into them). I have to intervene because my Tesla doesn’t appear that it is going to avoid them.
Also, it’s not uncommon to be traveling anywhere between 5-45mph on the 405 between LAX and Sunset. AutoPilot keeps the car centered but if you are in the HOV lane or the lane next to it, you will experience numerous motorcycles blasting by you going 30-50mph faster than your car. Again, it would be nice if Tesla vision could spot these bikers coming up and either alert and/or move the car slightly over. You will see most ICE cars move over slightly to give the motorcycles space but the Tesla on AutoPilot or NAV on AutoPilot remains firmly planted in the middle of the lane like its saying “No way I’m moving, you move!”
I’m curious if my observations are unique or are these frustrations that most Tesla drivers have? If these are common occurrences, could I recommend that Tesla engineers should spend a week or so driving this stretch of road and take notes on all of these stressors and try to minimize or eliminate them (i.e. Chuck Cook style?)
Can anyone offer Settings that I should use that would help with the lane change suggestions and/or lane changes into the HOV lane?
I share this MYP with my wife but based on my experiences yesterday, I’m not sure I would want my wife to use NAV on AutoPilot! I would never hear the end of it!
