Surprising new AutoPilot Behavior

[vandacca]

Last weekend on a fairly long commute (45+ minutes), I noticed twice that AP did something surprising. Both times I was travelling above ~40mph (60km/h) and there was significant traffic, but it was flowing pretty good.

While AP was keeping me within my lane (blue traffic lines in IC) and not following the car in front (car was gray), AP shifted in the lane in response to the car in front. I'm guessing the car in front shifted to the left-side of the lane to get a better look at the traffic ahead, and my X slowly did the same thing.

It happened again later, at which point I made sure to note that the IC didn't show a blue car, but rather blue lines.

I haven't noticed this mentioned before on TMC, and this is the first time I've seen it happen (AP1 on 2017.46), so I wanted to start a discussion...

• Has anyone else experienced this?
• Is this a new "feature" or did it do this for a while now?
• Is this a sign of a more advanced AP implementation?

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Could it be that a car or truck in an adjacent lane was close to the line? We first noticed similar behavior when side collision avoidance was added in 17.17.4 in early May. We drove about 400 miles on 5/13 on 17.11.45 and didn't see this behavior. Once we arrived at our destination, we got the 17.17.4 update and installed it. When driving back the net day, we noticed that the car moved to the left slightly when passing semi trucks on the interstate and would then center itself after passing.

I have seen a blue car in AP2 a couple of times. Usually that has happened when following a car and the lines disappear. It is pretty rare compare to AP1 and it's probably been months since I've seen it.

 

[pdx3181]

I only have a couple hundred miles on my new X, but I can't say I've ever seen the car in front of me be blue . . .

But I also haven't necessarily paid attention to that. Will check it out.

 

[CjRichMar]

I've noticed this as well, in both the X and the S, while not "following" the vehicle in front. I thought it was a method of avoiding potholes, etc.

 

[vandacca]

Could it be that a car or truck in an adjacent lane was close to the line? We first noticed similar behavior when side collision avoidance was added in 17.17.4 in early May. We drove about 400 miles on 5/13 on 17.11.45 and didn't see this behavior. Once we arrived at our destination, we got the 17.17.4 update and installed it. When driving back the net day, we noticed that the car moved to the left slightly when passing semi trucks on the interstate and would then center itself after passing.

I have seen a blue car in AP2 a couple of times. Usually that has happened when following a car and the lines disappear. It is pretty rare compare to AP1 and it's probably been months since I've seen it.

Only once (last March, early 8.1) did I notice my vehicle shift in the lane to avoid a big truck drifting into my lane. Ever since, I'm always having to take over the wheel because my X likes to track the middle of the lane, even if there is a truck on the right and an empty shoulder on the left.

Anyway, in my case, there were no big trucks next to me. And it's too much of a coincidence that my X seemed to "follow" the vehicle in front. Both times the vehicle in front aggressively moved to the left part of the lane and my X slowly followed. Otherwise, it generally tries to stay in the center of the lane (or slightly right-of-center).

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Ah. I just noticed your original post mentioned AP1. Maybe this is new for AP1.

 

[rw99]

I noticed this "mimic" behavior this morning and wondered the same thing. In slow-n-go commute traffic, my AP1 X seemed to position itself in the lane as per the car ahead (at slow speeds).

This would actually be pretty useful for my driving, as many cars in the far-left lane on my highway routes typically "shade" toward the shoulder... mostly to provide extra room for lane-splitting motorcycles coming up between the #1 and #2 lanes. When Autopilot chooses the middle of the #1 lane, I'm a bit more concerned that one of those bikes might clip my passenger side mirror


Rich

 

[buttershrimp]

 

[buttershrimp]

 

[chillaban]

I've found that AP1 is exceptionally willing to "monkey see, monkey do" mirror the car in front, while AP2 is only biased towards doing that when it is not confident about lane lines.

It's both a good thing and a bad thing for AP1. When you're following traffic, especially many lanes of traffic, with reasonable drivers ahead, it makes AP1 perform REALLY well. But man, if you ever get stuck behind an idiot that weaves off into the shoulder all the time to gawk at cars in front, AP1 will copy that stupid maneuver half the time and it will happily draw on the screen that it's leaving the lane to follow the car in front.

I am really curious if Tesla intentionally devalued convoying for AP2, or if they simply didn't get around to implementing it. IMO convoying like that is purely a driver-assist copout that gives the deceiving appearance of near-self-driving capability when in reality it's just trusting what the person in front is doing.


(Note too that in AP1, you see much wider difference in behavior when you have a lead car vs not having a lead car)

 

[Xcelerator]

Wow, impressive! That was a series of difficult decisions and the car appeared to make them all perfectly and without hesitation!