Tesla Software updates - Australia

[Priit]

Auto high beam has been useless since day 1, nothing to do with the update. It has the single worst auto high beam of any car I’ve ever driven.

It goes on even in fairly bright environments, it does a terrible job of identifying oncoming traffic (or cars you are following) to turn itself off so you end up with a lot of irate drivers flashing you back and it goes crazy by turning on/off every time th smallest of reflections from things like stop signs and other traffic signs.

It is SOOO bad that you literally should never use it unless you live in the middle of rural Australia. Having it active in metro areas is a disaster as it constantly wants to go on.

I agree that it has been rather bad since the beginning, however since 2020.8.3 update, it has got much worse. Before I could at least use it partially on empty country roads, well, now it is totally useless even on those. I wonder if their intention with that update was to reach absolute bottom with that feature, so that anything they did with it after this would improve it, regardless of it the change was useful or not.

 

[MC3OZ]

Auto high beam has been useless since day 1, nothing to do with the update. It has the single worst auto high beam of any car I’ve ever driven.

It goes on even in fairly bright environments, it does a terrible job of identifying oncoming traffic (or cars you are following) to turn itself off so you end up with a lot of irate drivers flashing you back and it goes crazy by turning on/off every time th smallest of reflections from things like stop signs and other traffic signs.

It is SOOO bad that you literally should never use it unless you live in the middle of rural Australia. Having it active in metro areas is a disaster as it constantly wants to go on.

I turned if off about it went berserk after a software update (V10?) and tried hard to blind other drivers, very embarrassing..

 

[SaturnV]

Auto high beam has been useless since day 1, nothing to do with the update. It has the single worst auto high beam of any car I’ve ever driven.

It goes on even in fairly bright environments, it does a terrible job of identifying oncoming traffic (or cars you are following) to turn itself off so you end up with a lot of irate drivers flashing you back and it goes crazy by turning on/off every time th smallest of reflections from things like stop signs and other traffic signs.

It is SOOO bad that you literally should never use it unless you live in the middle of rural Australia. Having it active in metro areas is a disaster as it constantly wants to go on.

nope, useless in rural Aus too - turned it off day one.

 

[Brissienew]

I don’t care much about auto high beam anyway, it’s not very hard to switch it on and off manually, but it really is not fit for purpose in it’s currently form.

 

[Crustyman]

I've never found auto highbeams to work very well in any of the cars that I have owned (Chrysler, Toyota, Kia) they all liked to blind randomly and used to get confused by reflections from highway signs and go on and off.

On another note 2020.12.5 has definitely reduced the regen braking which has messed with my one pedal driving

 

[Bluebay]

On another note 2020.12.5 has definitely reduced the regen braking which has messed with my one pedal driving

Ok, I love one pedal driving - so will give 2020.12.5 a miss until the version after it - and hope they fix reduced Gen .

 

[Flatbat]

..On another note 2020.12.5 has definitely reduced the regen braking which has messed with my one pedal driving

What sort of car do you have? I cannot notice any difference in Regen braking in my Model 3 LR since updating to 12.5. Have you checked your regen setting is not in low?

 

[dasn]

Regen braking seems the same to me. The big difference I've found in 12.5 is that engaging Autopilot is smoother, it doesn't immediately snap to the middle of the lane anymore and if you enable it when you're under the set speed it doesn't immediately decelerate when you lift off the accelerator, instead it holds the current speed and smoothly accelerates to the set speed.

 

[Bluebay]

What sort of car do you have? I cannot notice any difference in Regen braking in my Model 3 LR since updating to 12.5. Have you checked your regen setting is not in low?

ok, I might go with the upgrade and see if I get the same result as you and Dasn. Thanks for the info .

 

[Crustyman]

What sort of car do you have? I cannot notice any difference in Regen braking in my Model 3 LR since updating to 12.5. Have you checked your regen setting is not in low?

Model 3 P+, definitely in the standard regen, I even checked it straight away when I expected it to slow down faster with regen. I used to have to be careful if I took the Cruise off without my foot on the accelerator it'd feel like I'd jammed the brakes on but now it doesn't at all and I've had to use the brake pedal a couple of times in places where I would normally never touch it.

 

[Flatbat]

Model 3 P+, definitely in the standard regen, I even checked it straight away when I expected it to slow down faster with regen. I used to have to be careful if I took the Cruise off without my foot on the accelerator it'd feel like I'd jammed the brakes on but now it doesn't at all and I've had to use the brake pedal a couple of times in places where I would normally never touch it.

Could be because it is cool in Ballarat (15C), the battery is cold and regen is disabled until it warms up. Could also be because your battery is full and regen is disabled. Are you getting a regen is limited message? Are the regen limited dots displaying on the left side of the green regen slider?

 

[Crustyman]

Could be because it is cool in Ballarat (15C), the battery us cold and degen is disabled until it warms up. Could also be because your battery is full and degen is disabled. Are you getting a degen is limited message?

It was almost 20C today, the car showed no regen limit and was at 74% SOC. The other day on 2020.8.3 I was driving on a 7C morning and it was showing a big regen limit yet it felt more powerful than today, definitely different to 8.3 to a point where I got caught out coming up to an intersection where I would normally just take my foot off and slow down I had to go for the brake because the car wouldn't have pulled up in time. I'm definitely not the only one reporting this, others with Model X and other Model 3's also complaining about same.

 

[PC__LoadLetter]

I’m not even sure how helpful high beams are in a self-driving car. Autopilot seems to notice stuff just as well without them, and they attract roos.

Not that it matters to me. Most of my country road driving (and that’s a lot!) is on roads just busy enough that you shouldn’t use high beams anyway.

 

[RareEarth]

Auto highbeams work OK on winding roads when a car comes into view a short way ahead. I find you have to intervene when you are on straighter stretches of road, especially if the oncoming car has older 'yellow' tinged lights. The sensor lets the car get too close before dimming the lights, often leading to a flash from an annoyed driver.
Also, with a semi coming over a hill, you will see the row of lights above its windscreen before the actual headlights and that is when you need to dip your lights. Not sure the auto highbeams will ever be able to do this.
Another thing auto highbeams can't do is dip the lights when approaching a car from behind.

 

[Shallowal]

I noticed during the bushfire period that the auto high beam was hopeless because all the oncomming lights were yellow.
I disagree about it detecting tail lights however, as I find it is actually over-sensitive to them and quite often dips the lights when highlighting the red flash on the roadside markers.

 

[paulp]

I’m not even sure how helpful high beams are in a self-driving car. Autopilot seems to notice stuff just as well without them, and they attract roos.

Not that it matters to me. Most of my country road driving (and that’s a lot!) is on roads just busy enough that you shouldn’t use high beams anyway.

There are no self driving cars in australia. Its very dangerous to consider a tesla as ‘self driving’

 

[Flatbat]

I find the Auto High beams work pretty well on country roads.
One annoyance - when Auto High beam is selected it seems impossible at the start of a drive to trigger high beam, until you exceed a speed of about 45kmh, regardless of how dark it is. Once you have exceeded the 45kmh trigger to get high beam on you can then slow right up again and they remain regardless of speed. This is a real pain if you frequent unpaved rural driveways as I do.

 

[Priit]

I find the Auto High beams work pretty well on country roads.
One annoyance - when Auto High beam is selected it seems impossible at the start of a drive to trigger high beam, until you exceed a speed of about 45kmh, regardless of how dark it is. Once you have exceeded the 45kmh trigger to get high beam on you can then slow right up again and they remain regardless of speed. This is a real pain if you frequent unpaved rural driveways as I do.

I used the auto high beams rather a lot when driving on empty countryside, however since the 2020.12.5 update, even with empty road and no other light sources for miles, it appears to take the red reflection off the roadside markers and any reflection off the road signs and switch back to low beams then as the reflection is not intense enough it switches on high beams and keeps repeating that. after about 20 switches per km, i had to switch it to manual high beam, as it in total darkness driving like that, the actual visibility is very limited if you only get short glimpses of what is ahead.

 

[Flatbat]

...it appears to take the red reflection off the roadside markers and any reflection off the road signs and switch back to low beams then as the reflection is not intense enough it switches on high beams and keeps repeating that. after about 20 switches per km, i had to switch it to manual high beam...

Yeah I see that happening too, but perhaps only once every half hour or so, when driving on rural roads at night. I guess the road markers in your region are better and reflect more light. I will start submitting bug reports when it happens from now on. You could grab a a dashcam clip of when it it switching at 20 cycle per KM.

 

[Stratman]

There are no self driving cars in australia. Its very dangerous to consider a tesla as ‘self driving’

With hardware version 15 they might be.