Tesla Software updates - Australia

[HappyPEJ]

Just did two longish country trips this past week. Melbourne to Shepparton and Melbourne to Horsham.

Shout out to Jaun (Hope I got the spelling right) who gave up the charging space in Coburg so I could a quick top up on Wedensday before heading off to Horsham. Really decent of you, not required, and greatly appreciated. And thanks for the chat while we waited.

Also shout out to the International Hotel in Horsham. Arrived thinking I would have to make use of the Horsham SuperCharger. When I rolled into the car park to check-in, I found two destination chargers waiting for me. Nice!

The car was just brilliant. Super comfortable, Air-con was great. No range anxiety. Autopilot was fantastic on the trip.

Areas it would be good to see improveed over time.
- Less aggressive early braking when a car turns right a fair way in front of you. The level at which it slows the car is overly conservative and potentially dangerous for following cars.
- Less aggressive corrections when single lane splits into two. It travels straight for a while and then has a pretty violent correction to get it into either the left or right lane. Pretty sure it scared the crap out of one oncoming truck driver when it suddenly jinked right. I started turning it off when approaching these situations.
- Could handle 'left lane ends' situations better. (recognise and change lanes in advance, rather than waiting for the lane to run out)..
- Auto-adjust speed limit when the limit changes is spasmodic.
- As others have said, it would be nice if it slowed down 'before' getting to the new limit.
- It would be better if it indicated for a little more before making lane changes or taking ramps during NOA. I don't feel like it is giving enough warning to other road users.
- It would be nice when engaging TACC or autopilot when actual speed is significantly below expected limit to just set TACC limit to actual speed. When hitting 40kph road works, if you slow down to 40 with brakes and then try to engage TACC, it sets the limit to 100 or 110 and the car starts speeding up and it takes a while to drop the limit back via the scroll wheel. So, if actual speed is within, perhaps, 15kph of expected speed limit then set TACC to expected limit. If Actual speed more than 15kph below expected limit then set TACC limit to actual speed.
- On most windows, the X to close is on the upper left corner which makes perfect sense for a LHD car. For us, it means a bigger stretch. Would be nice if there was a configuration option or the car just auto moved it to upper right corner for RHD cars.
- Voice commands. Same as all other comments. Very erratic performance.

None of these are deal breakers - it's a brilliant vehicle.

Is there a formal forum anywhere to get this feedback back to Tesla?

 

[Priit]

I find if I hold the audio mic button and don’t release it whilst I speak the command and wait until the car starts executing the command before releasing I getting 90%+ success....

I tested that with my SR+ and it does not appear to make any difference on mine if I hold the button while speaking the command or not. It appears there are times when the car writes down and executes the command given and there are times when it just ignores anything I say.

 

[Brissienew]

. It appears there are times when the car writes down and executes the command given and there are times when it just ignores anything I say.

that’s what mine does too on 50.7

 

[HighlyCharged]

Areas it would be good to see improveed over time.

Excellent list. I'd add one more really annoying action - the unnecessary and aggressive braking when you're on TACC and about to go around a corner and there's a car at the apex coming the other way.

 

[Vostok]

Excellent list. I'd add one more really annoying action - the unnecessary and aggressive braking when you're on TACC and about to go around a corner and there's a car at the apex coming the other way.

I’ve had two phantom braking events, both at low speed, and both were aggressive, unexpected and concerning. Neither were on autopilot or under TACC, so I can only assume they were false triggers of AEB.

In one of them, coming up to a traffic light (I was slowing down anyway using the high regen of HOLD driving mode) the car braked so sharply to a complete stop that the tyres briefly skidded and the nose dived. It scared the hell out of my kids in the back and I was damned lucky I didn’t get rear-ended by the massive RAM ute behind me that thankfully was also slowing and a decent distance behind. The car in front of me belatedly made a decision to stop at the lights and overran the line, but was at least 10 metres away. There was not even a remote chance of a collision.

I kept the video of it. I should send it to Tesla with the question “WTF?”.

 

[SandyP]

I can only assume they were false triggers of AEB.

So far (around 5000 km travel) I have not encountered any case of AEB trigger. However, I had a few "Forward Collision Warning" events and I respond immediately.

Manual states:
"..If immediate action is not taken when Model 3 issues a Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking (if enabled) may automatically apply the brakes if a collision is considered imminent.."

 

[Kiwiadventure]

So far (around 5000 km travel) I have not encountered any case of AEB trigger. However, I had a few "Forward Collision Warning" events and I respond immediately.

Manual states:
"..If immediate action is not taken when Model 3 issues a Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking (if enabled) may automatically apply the brakes if a collision is considered imminent.."

This is called Phantom braking and still happens same places as 4 months ago.

 

[Vostok]

Manual states:
"..If immediate action is not taken when Model 3 issues a Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking (if enabled) may automatically apply the brakes if a collision is considered imminent.."

I can’t remember if the FCW was issued in my incident, the whole thing was so unexpected. And while Tesla’s software presumably decided a collision was imminent, that conclusion was totally wrong. The car in front of me accelerated away before deciding instead to stop, while I was decelerating the whole time, and there was plenty of gap. The manual also concedes false triggers might happen.

Maybe the solution is to set Early Collison Warning to be “Late” rather than “Auto” or “Medium” and then AEB won’t be so touchy. But who knows.

There’s a regular spot I also drive through where ECW goes off unnecessarily, going up a hill where there is a large speed hump.

AI decision making based on processing camera imagery is clearly not foolproof.

 

[Stratman]

Finally got some rain this afternoon to test the new Neural drop wiper algorithm …. It's Crap. It worked better in the previous software version.
Set to auto with light & steady rain, the wipers go from fast to flat out. Way too fast for only light or steady rain. Turned the wipers to manual & slowest which was about right for the amount of rain falling, but then the wipers stay on all of the time.

Something else that needs to be fixed along with voice commands in the next round...

 

[EcoCloudIT]

Finally got some rain this afternoon to test the new Neural drop wiper algorithm …. It's Crap. It worked better in the previous software version.
Set to auto with light & steady rain, the wipers go from fast to flat out. Way too fast for only light or steady rain. Turned the wipers to manual & slowest which was about right for the amount of rain falling, but then the wipers stay on all of the time.

Something else that needs to be fixed along with voice commands in the next round...

I drove 50km’s today in rather heavy rain (Melbourne based here) and I agree the wipers can get a bit over zealous at times however for me they are by in large working much better than before, slowed when they should, speed up when they should, stopped completely in the tunnel and stopped to intermittent at lights....overall delighted compared to pre-update.

 

[Brissienew]

My experience with the auto wiper is not very positive. Tonight was the first time I had really driven in the rain. It was going too fast, which was not as bad as when it decided to stop when I went under an over pass for a couple of second, and then wouldn’t start again even tough I had gone on a freeway with rain hitting the windscreen at nearly 100k/hr. So I was blinded by the water on the windscreen, at the same time looking away from the front trying to find that little wiper icon on the screen. Of course I should have known I could have the left hand stalk instead
Another time the wipers wouldn’t stop for at least another 10 seconds after the rain had stop and the windscreen was dry. I think these are the worst auto wipers I had come across.

 

[Vostok]

I think these are the worst auto wipers I had come across.

You’re not the only one, going by reports in the various forums.

I’m afraid this is a case of trying to build a better mousetrap and failing. Conventional windscreen rain sensors are cheap and reliable and work in every other car. But though some misguided thinking at Tesla, they decided they would instead be “smarter” and use the cameras already in the car to do the same job and use neural-net software to work out when it is raining and how heavily.

Wiser heads inside Tesla should have stepped in and stopped this nonsense. When a problem has already been reliably solved at low cost, there is no value in wasted and misdirected effort trying to “improve” it. God know how many man-hours of software development time has been burnt trying improving the reliability of the Model 3 wipers and they still aren’t working as well as the prior art. And possibly never will.

Hopefully Tesla have learnt their lesson and will never go down this path again.

 

[Gnat666]

Phantom Braking - still happening for me very occasionally on Freeways ... but in almost every case I note that theres an Overpass ahead of me & (bright) daytime.
Not sure if its the overpass itself or very heavy shadows under it ... or both.

 

[Shallowal]

You’re not the only one, going by reports in the various forums.

I’m afraid this is a case of trying to build a better mousetrap and failing. Conventional windscreen rain sensors are cheap and reliable and work in every other car. But though some misguided thinking at Tesla, they decided they would instead be “smarter” and use the cameras already in the car to do the same job and use neural-net software to work out when it is raining and how heavily.

Wiser heads inside Tesla should have stepped in and stopped this nonsense. When a problem has already been reliably solved at low cost, there is no value in wasted and misdirected effort trying to “improve” it. God know how many man-hours of software development time has been burnt trying improving the reliability of the Model 3 wipers and they still aren’t working as well as the prior art. And possibly never will.

Hopefully Tesla have learnt their lesson and will never go down this path again.

Well, you could say the same about the self driving, lane keeping, pedestrian warnings etc. Mobileeye and others have these problems better solved than Tesla, yet Tesla persist with the notion that developing camera based recognition is worth the pain and effort because it is the better process to develop. All of our recognition systems now are based on our personal vision abilities so why develop an autonomous system that uses something else. The wiper systems are the same, we currently use our eyes to determine if the wipers need operating, why not develop an automated capability based on similar detection, it will probably spin off into better recognition in other parts of the driving as well.

 

[Gnat666]

.....Mobileeye and others have these problems better solved than Tesla, yet Tesla persist with the notion that developing camera based recognition is worth the pain and effort because it is the better process to develop.

Really don't see how LiDAR is going to be stable when EVERY vehicle on the road is trying to use it .......
And even if they have new, better algorithms to filter out the interference, thats likely going to take shyt loads of processing power.

 

[Kiwiadventure]

Well, you could say the same about the self driving, lane keeping, pedestrian warnings etc. Mobileeye and others have these problems better solved than Tesla, yet Tesla persist with the notion that developing camera based recognition is worth the pain and effort because it is the better process to develop..

Why did you purchase a Tesla when you think Tesla's FSD is poorly designed. Tesla is the only manufacture allowed to use FSD beta and it's been approved by local government transport authorities.

 

[Vostok]

Well, you could say the same about the self driving, lane keeping, pedestrian warnings etc. Mobileeye and others have these problems better solved than Tesla, yet Tesla persist with the notion that developing camera based recognition is worth the pain and effort because it is the better process to develop.

Those things are very different to windscreen wipers, which is a mono dimensional problem, and has been solved reliably and cheaply. The things you mention above are much more complicated and multi-dimensional.

All of our recognition systems now are based on our personal vision abilities so why develop an autonomous system that uses something else. The wiper systems are the same, we currently use our eyes to determine if the wipers need operating, why not develop an automated capability based on similar detection, it will probably spin off into better recognition in other parts of the driving as well.

Because a good solution already exists for wipers that is reliable and low cost - it is way down the stack rank of things that need to be solved. The finite amount of R&D effort that a corporation has should be prioritised on hard problems that don’t currently have good solutions.

 

[Shallowal]

Why did you purchase a Tesla when you think Tesla's FSD is poorly designed. Tesla is the only manufacture allowed to use FSD beta and it's been approved by local government transport authorities.

On the contrary, I think TESLA's self driving technology is the right technology for the future and is one of the reasons I preferred Tesla over the competition.

 

[MC3OZ]

I'm on 2019.40.50.7 and I noticed something new today....

It popped up a new speed limit sign for s school zone 40 below the 60 above and indicated it was time limited.

It seem to know the times, as it wasn't there when I drove in the reverse direction outside of the limit time period.

I have a slight suspicion it may have been from reading the sign rather than a map, but perhaps a map update has triggered it or the new software simply visualised something that was always known... Regardless, it is a very handy feature...

 

[perkz]

My Model X is still on 2019.40.2. It's been showing school zones for a while now, at least in my area. They're part of the map data, it's still not reading signs.