Scary Experience with AP2.0 Autosteer on the Highway

[chillaban]

GM's approach with Super Cruise seems to address issues like this. GM geo-mapped the 160,000 miles of highway where the system will work. They also tested every one of the 160,000 miles with a Super Cruise equipped car to validate the system before putting it on sale.

I don't understand your logic…. What if another car started drifting towards you, and you had to intervene? What if they are performing construction and there's a lane shift with two sets of ambiguous lane lines since the last time the SuperCruise crew mapped the road?

There will inevitably be situations where the user will have to take control of a L2 or L3 ADAS. Humans are prone to error and it's very much still possible that a human can input a destabilizing command to the car.

 

[bonnie]

I'm sorry to hear of the OP's experience - regardless of who/what was at fault, it had to be scary, indeed.

In contrast, I just drove 70 miles home from Portland on I-84 in intermittent heavy rain. As many of you know, there are some major curves as it follows the Columbia River.

Happy to say that even in intermittently heavy rain and with semis and other vehicles in the left hand lane, going about 75 (or so ), it handled all the curves like a champ (even a couple of sharper ones), staying centered in the lane and not veering towards the metal divider or towards other traffic. My hands were hovering, but I didn't once need to intervene on the drive home.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

GM's approach with Super Cruise seems to address issues like this. GM geo-mapped the 160,000 miles of highway where the system will work. They also tested every one of the 160,000 miles with a Super Cruise equipped car to validate the system before putting it on sale.

Did they test every single lane of every single mile?

 

[Tam]

...They also tested every one of the 160,000 miles with a Super Cruise...

GM has been talking about self-driving cars since 1939 New York World’s Fair.

I think GM is fully capable if it wants to.

2018 GM Super Cruise is 2 years behind the schedule.

2015 article reported 70 mph Super Cruise shutdown due to sun glare during a press demo.

It is nice to speculate how much better GM Super Cruise is until youtube testers will show us whether that will be true or not.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

GM's approach with Super Cruise seems to address issues like this. GM geo-mapped the 160,000 miles of highway where the system will work. They also tested every one of the 160,000 miles with a Super Cruise equipped car to validate the system before putting it on sale.

Yes, I'm sure it will be 100% perfect from day one, when released...

 

[xborg]

Please submit your bug report to Tesla, with date and time.

Probably you're gonna get a response like that:
"We've checked the logs, and Autopilot worked as intended. The driver is responsible for everything, never rely on Autopilot..."

But still, it's worth trying. You may have found and edge case.

 

[Joe F]

Sensing AS drifting in curves, even at 80 MPH, all I've done was tighten my grip on the wheel to resist, with perhaps a slight, read very slight, correction, and AS disengaged without issues.

Mostly it has been handling curves fine, except nowhere close to being able to navigate the curve smoothly. Straight line segments followed by abrupt movements through the entire curve leaves a lot of room for improvement. Lightly guiding it through the turn, but not enough to cancel AS, makes for a smoother turn. Hopefully fixed, soon...

 

[Tam]

..Mostly it has been handling curves fine..

For the past 700 miles, I found my AP2 has handled freeway curves (including sharp interchanges) well as long as I manually adjust the system's speed to posted speed limits. I think it will automatically adjust its speed on curves in future (but not just yet for now).

 

[stopcrazypp]

I would imagine this is a case where the wheel was giving resistance so the driver applied more torque and when it disengaged, the driver was still applying the same torque (while wheel no longer provided resistance) and thus it resulted in an over-correction. In the heat of the moment the driver probably did not pay attention to if AP disengaged before or after.

I doubt the jerking of the wheel back and forth 5-6 times was done by AP, as I believe AP is only able to apply a gradual amount of torque. If it is able to jerk the wheel, then it would be able to do so unprompted, but I don't believe there was ever a reported case of this.

 

[Vad42]

We're being watched. And reported to NHTSA. Twitter

 

[Az_Rael]

We're being watched. And reported to NHTSA. Twitter

Lord, that guy again.

But the wheel didn't fall off! He has lost his focus /sarcasm.

 

[stopcrazypp]

We're being watched. And reported to NHTSA. Twitter

Ah, good old Keef. He had been doing this for a while (reporting on behalf of others). I wonder if NHTSA takes him seriously at all after all the spamming he had done.

 

[Vad42]

Ah, good old Keef. He had been doing this for a while (reporting on behalf of others). I wonder if NHTSA takes him seriously at all after all the spamming he had done.

I heard about him, but this was my first opportunity to browse his tweeter feed -- what a load of crazy. I thought SA was bad, but this is whole other level.

 

[DJ 240V]

I always tap the brake disengage the auto steer first.

Yep. The brake or the push the stalk away. I've don't like overpowering the auto steer at best I might resist it from drifting to the center (e.g truck or change in carpool lane markings - ) it would then disengage. Trying to steer hard at 80 mph is never a good idea.

 

[DJ 240V]

Hello,
I have a 60D with AP2- I tried using autosteer on the highway last Monday (3 days after the update was released to my car), and had one of the worst/scariest experiences I've ever had while driving and wanted to see if anyone else has had anything similar with their vehicle? I was driving on a major highway, thankfully at an offpeak hour with few cars around, in the left lane at ~75mph. Turned on autosteer (max speed of 80)- and was driving along (with my hands on the steering wheel) when I noticed it wasn't taking a left curve/turn on the road and drifting into the adjacent lane. So I engaged the steering wheel to deactivate autosteer and to make the turn myself. As soon as I did this, all hell broke loose. Basically the steering wheel jerked all the way to the left, veering me inches from the barrier- and then as I tried to straighten the wheel it jerked me all the way to the right, across 3 lanes of traffic...and then back let to the barrier, back across traffic, and again 5 or 6 times. Fortunately the cars around me saw what was happening and slammed on their brakes, so I was able to also slam on my brakes after about 5 seconds and pulled the car over to the side of the road. Of course I called tesla immediately and this is what I was told:
1) the car is not able to make that turn (a pretty mild curve) at 80mph- known issue with AP2. Fine- not a big deal to me- I had my hands on the wheel and was ready to assume control of the car in such scenarios.
2) the car functioned normally after that- any/all events following disengagement of the autosteer were due to "driver input/error". Obviously, this is the part I have a problem with- I think myself (and any other sober/adult driver would never perform the 90 degree jerks on the steering wheel at 80mph 6 times in a row -- that is just not a logical explanation. Clearly something malfunctioned, no idea what, and not sure if it's system-wide or specific to

If this is true , Tesla response seems completely inappropriate. "Try again" ? Really? Having had numerous bugs and reports submitted to tesla, I'm confident that doesn't sound like them. Would love for you to escalate this in an email to the tesla service and keep us posted.

Again. _IF_ this is true.

 

[Sawyer8888]

I am mostly comfortable driving loaners with AP1. As we know AP2 is several steps behind. I do not trust AP2 to the same degree as AP1.

AP1 = comfortable ride
AP2 = uneasy, slightly uncomfortable ride

I wish I could have AP1 in my car while we wait for future advancements with AP2.

AP2 makes a lot of questionable moves, some of which are a bit scary. I won't get into the details, but it feels to me like an inebriated and somewhat poorly educated driver all too often.

I still prefer having the autopilot feature, but I do have to keep a very close eye on version 2.0. AP1 is more of a responsible driver that requires a lot less oversight.

 

[Vad42]

I am mostly comfortable driving loaners with AP1. As we know AP2 is several steps behind. I do not trust AP2 to the same degree as AP1.

AP1 = comfortable ride
AP2 = uneasy, slightly uncomfortable ride

I wish I could have AP1 in my car while we wait for future advancements with AP2.

Elon said that was the original plan, before MobileEye divorce.

 

[Sawyer8888]

Elon said that was the original plan, before MobileEye divorce.

I know. And he was absolutely correct. I am not disputing that fact. The departure of MobileEye was unfortunate for the advancent of Tesla's self-driving capabilities. Tesla will eventually meet and surpass AP1. Right now we're in the middle of 2 steps forward, 1 step back. I can deal with AP2 not being as good as AP1, I just wish I didn't have to.

Example: With auto-steer enabled, AP1 will make a very smooth transition when changing lanes, either by maintaining or increasing speed. More often than not, AP2 will slow down and then dive into the adjacent lane like a drunkard.​

 

[Vad42]

I know. And he was absolutely correct. I am not disputing that fact. The departure of MobileEye was unfortunate for the advancent of Tesla's self-driving capabilities. Tesla will eventually meet and surpass AP1. Right now we're in the middle of 2 steps forward, 1 step back. I can deal with AP2 not being as good as AP1, I just wish I didn't have to.

Completely agree. Probably everyone does. Their hand got forced unfortunately. Hopefully this '1 step backward' would soon be overcome. Time will tell. I'm happy to be leasing AP1 car (8 months in) so by the time I'm ready to upgrade in 2019 we should be 5 more steps forward

I just hope for others sake (and Tesla's) that by the time masses start getting their M3s later this year, it's at least on-par with AP1.

 

[croman]

I don't understand why you keep using "it", when you mean "I".

It takes caress and practice to deactivate AP without it "kicking" (for lack of a better term). When you do deactivate it hard, you'll push yourself hard one way. And as a human driver, your natural reaction will be to compensate your mistake, by over-correcting.



It's definitely possible something is wrong with your car, but are you 100% sure that you as the driver didn't cause the oscillations by overcorrecting? At 80mph, it doesn't take much (not even close to a 90 degree jerk turn, as you said above)

I overcorrected. I experienced the same thing as the OP (but less serious). I was driving using AS at 80mph. Hit a curve (This was a month ago when 80mph AS was new and I didn't know it was unreliable). I had my hands on the wheel. AS failed to steer enough and as it hit the yellow and got close to the barrier, I took control. Instinctively I jerked the wheel hard to get back into my lane and avoid crashing into the barrier at 80. The issue is that AS was "holding" the wheel and there was tension. Breaking that tension created the oversteer. Then I overcompensated on gaining control. Luckily I was able to gain control after that quickly but it happened so fast (80mph) and, this is important, jerking the wheel does not disengage TACC so my car kept trying to go 80 rather than slow down naturally.

Subsequently I tap the brakes anytime I want to disengage. That takes care of TACC and AS and allows me to not have to fight the car for control in an emergency. I also avoid using AS at 80mph but I feel like its performing better (despite no updates) since a month ago. Just a scary situation and I don't like Tesla's reaction. I got no response to my report of this bug. Tesla responded even more poorly to OP.