The Best Objective Study To Date on Truck Lust

[Shock-On-T]

I wanted to put to rest once and for all the notion of "truck lust;" that is, the feeling that the car will creep closer to a truck in an adjacent lane while autopilot is engaged.

The experiment:
I used my S85 with AP1 driving on freeways in Northern California. I had a friend tailing me, using a Blackvue 650GW dashcam to video my car and its position within the lane.

To minimize bias due to lighting condition and shadows, I attempted (the best I could) to travel for several miles in one direction, and immediately travel in the opposite direction. I looked for trucks (actually, anything that registered as a "truck" on the display), using AP1, setting the speed to slowly overtake that truck. The speed was set so that on average, it took me about 7 seconds to pass the truck completely.

I did my best to do this experiment at different times during the day.

Because of the difficulty in finding trucks from time to time (not to mention my own time limitation and the limitation of my friend, who's tailing me), it took me almost 40 days to gather 22 encounters. The speed ranged from 25 mph up to 72 mph.

We measured, using the dashcam video from the trailing vehicle, the relative position of my MS between the lanes before, during, and after passing the truck.

Results:
Sorry to disappoint many of you, but there was virtually no change in the position within the lane during any of the above encounters. In fact, the only time I was able to measure a position change is when the truck was offset in its own lane, nearing my vehicle. In that case, the MS moved AWAY from the truck slightly.

I admit that this study was limited by the inaccuracies of trying measure my position in the lane based on dashcam video. I also concede that 22 encounters is not a huge number, and there's no doubt that I did not duplicate every possible driving condition.

Conclusion:
No measurable truck lust. My interpretation is that the reported truck lust is more likely an illusion, rather than a true vehicle movement.

Definitely an illusion. The subconscious urge to give the truck a bit more room is not fulfilled by the robot car, and that weirds out the driver (technical term).

 

[calisnow]

Definitely an illusion. The subconscious urge to give the truck a bit more room is not fulfilled by the robot car, and that weirds out the driver (technical term).

It isn't an illusion @ShockOnT - what you say is correct but that is not "truck lust" - which is a different phenomenon.

 

[Candleflame]

truck lust is normal. as you drive past a truck it will naturally suction you in. i don't even notice it anymore but certainly when i first started driving i was like "woha what is this". if the autopilot reacts slightly delayed you will still get a feeling that you move closer to the truck.
imho.

 

[Robwoodruff]

Since clearly I did this test on the newest firmware (which I failed to mention in the opening post), I wonder if much of this issue has been corrected.

Last year, when autopilot was first enabled on AP1 cars, the truck lust was severe at times and I had to grab the wheel while my wife screamed at me that I was going to hit the truck. After several update, that does not happen any more. I would say it stopped in August 2016. I haven't been able to test my new AP2 car on a freeway yet to see if it has truck lust because no one drives 50 mph around here on a freeway.