Things my wife said about Navigate on Autopilot tonight

[AlanSubie4Life]

Try increasing follow distance.

Was using setting 6 when the wife became upset...

 

[pilotSteve]

Wow, 11 pages in the past three days. Tesla, are you listening? ....... <crickets>

 

[shellderp]

I use follow distance 3/4 and no jerkyness. I guess I am used to driving spirited so autopilot in comparison is very chill. Do you all experience jerkyness even on wide, straight highways?

 

[Berridge]

It irritates me too as a single driver.
I came to the conclusion that it is because the car cannot see as far ahead as a human driver and so has to react quickly to close events rather than anticipating events caused bay traffic further ahead.
I don't use AP for that reason.
I'm sure it is much worse for the battery having constant discharge/recharge which you don't get with a smoother human driver.

 

[SSonnentag]

AP is normally very smooth when on an open road with no traffic. The problem arises when traffic speeds are erratic. As humans, we can look far ahead and make appropriate judgement calls as to how to adjust our speed so as to avoid jerky braking and acceleration. The car AI seems to be near-sighted.

 

[BBMc]

I have the same problem with my husband's driving, but he never uses autopilot on my X when driving it. The TACC seems to drive him crazy with micro adjustments and he keeps braking out of it and asking me why the car did that. I ask him, "Did what?" As the passenger, I have rarely noticed anything while I sit and knit, unless a car cuts across our path and the Tesla brakes. It does not judge the other car's speed first and brakes, then adjusts speed to compensate.
When I drive, if a car darts in front of me, I hit the accelerator because I understand that the Tesla will brake without judging the speed of the other car, first. Human compensation for vehicle safety feature.

 

[Peter Lucas]

Wife: It's much smoother now. Did you turn it off?

Me: Yes, I did.

Wife: I'm much more relaxed now.

Here's hoping that Tesla discovers low pass filters soon.[/QUOTE]

My Model S 90D from early 2016, and AP1 does great with both TACC and lane keeping. 99% of the time. Very relaxing. For me and passengers.

 

[DopeGhoti]

The next test would be to simply say it's been turned off while leaving it on, and see if the complaints suddenly stop. An antiplacebo test, if you will.

 

[JBHinPA]

I've had similar experiences with passengers. I'm totally comfortable with AutoPilot and its limitations, however passengers see them as flaws. The dancing cars on the display, the double beep alert when the lane lines widen and the car doesn't know what to do, the hard braking when you come up behind a car coming to a stop, the phantom braking for no reason - I know why these happen and when to expect them, but trying to explain this to passengers simply discredits AutoPilot to them and makes them doubtful.

Couple that with all of the anti-AutoPilot headlines you see on the news. Really wish Tesla would spend less times on games and Netflix and work on the core functionalities of the car. It's embarrassing to have to explain to people why the above happens when they're already doubtful of AutoPilot.

The system has been around for years now and it still seems like a beta product. You would think after so long and so many miles driven on AutoPilot as data to improve upon it that it would at least be a little smoother if nothing else while in use.

I did a trial of AP in my M3. I didn't like it. Maybe I could have given it more time. But I didn't buy because I just didn't enjoy it. I like the idea of it But the reality fell short for me.

 

[Fernand]

It's great when people funnel their resentment and requests to the developers, and not to the eager to put down Tesla short traders and competitors. Improvement is desirable, I'm all for it. It will benefit all Tesla owners.

Tesla autopilot smashes into something, kills a human. Isn't it a little like vaping? The powers decided some time ago to side with the big tobacco companies. A couple of people died recently from an unidentified lung problem, but they (like millions of others) happened to be vapers. It's all over the news: vaping kills, highly dangerous nicotine or THC, should ban, epidemic, ALERT!
Faulty logic and no sense of proportion. About 1400 people die every . single . day from the tars in tobacco smoke. Hundreds of thousands of Teslas drive in AP/NOA all the time. Sure, it's imperfect, some people love it, some hate it. But how many accidents, really?

 

[Octo]

It's great when people funnel their resentment and requests to the developers, and not to the eager to put down Tesla short traders and competitors. Improvement is desirable, I'm all for it. It will benefit all Tesla owners.

Tesla autopilot smashes into something, kills a human. Isn't it a little like vaping? The powers decided some time ago to side with the big tobacco companies. A couple of people died recently from an unidentified lung problem, but they (like millions of others) happened to be vapers. It's all over the news: vaping kills, highly dangerous nicotine or THC, should ban, epidemic, ALERT!
Faulty logic and no sense of proportion. About 1400 people die every . single . day from the tars in tobacco smoke. Hundreds of thousands of Teslas drive in AP/NOA all the time. Sure, it's imperfect, some people love it, some hate it. But how many accidents, really?

Fernand, you seem to be taking critique of Tesla’s AP very personally. Your whataboutisms don’t change the impression that others have of Tesla’s AP and none of the criticism is meant to offend people like you. It comes with the territory if Tesla promises sci-fi abilities and then releases some half baked perma-beta for real money.

 

[Nagaman]

In Australia we have many thousands of kilometres of narrow seal with no line at all and too narrow for passing cars to stay on the bitumen, with at least one needing to run the near side wheel in the dirt.
In Britain they basically have narrow hedgerow lanes and villages with cars parked half on the footpath making a programming nightmare.
I love acc but not the jerky reactivate behaviour around other traffic; it’s energy inefficient also.

 

[Fernand]

We live half-baked in a half-baked world. Then we die. Haven't found a better world, trying to enjoy what we do have.

 

[Feathermerchan]

I had the 30 day free trial and I found that TACC worked great unless the driver ahead could not maintain a fixed speed. We've all probably ridden with people like that. Either accelerating or decelerating. I think the car needs a filter like what we as humans would apply when encountering that behavior. I fo;;owed an 18 wheeler and it was very smooth.
Now if the car ahead goes over a hill or around a curve out of sight, the TACC will accelerate to the set point but when the car comes back into view it has to slow down pretty abruptly. It's like a baby that doesn't know yet that just because something goes out of sight it is still there.
Autopilot will also happily cruise beside another vehicle. That is something I won't do.

 

[Octo]

We live half-baked in a half-baked world. Then we die. Haven't found a better world, trying to enjoy what we do have.

I find that the Model 3 is pretty well baked. Super crisp acceleration for example. Well done range. Sharp looks.

AP, well, nothing is perfect. That seems too raw.

 

[MayorMcCheese]

I'm still surprised by the decision to make Chill/Sport mode actually affect AP. When I'm in AP, I don't want the car pushing the limits of the car's acceleration on the highway. I want it to drive smoothly, stay in its lane, and not make sudden movements. It is surprising to me that it's still not possible to force Chill mode on AP without changing profiles or going into the settings menus.

And the rest: jittering cars on the display, inability to merge, failure to change lanes even with a car well behind your corner, jerking, phantom braking... it gets tiring.

 

[wjsx9999]

I just don't understand all these complaints of jerkiness with TACC, AP, and NOA. We have almost 30,000 miles on our two cars and drive with TACC and AP all the time and NOA on more lightly traveled routes and times. We don't use chill, do use mad max. But I think the critical difference is that we normally use a 5 or 6 car follow distance even in heavy LA freeway traffic. Yes, people jump in but the car can deal with that better than having todeal with someone forcing in where there really is no gap. If it is set to 1 or 2 car lengths it is much less smooth. We never go there. And my wife sleeps with it on all the time when I'm driving. Our experience is that it's much smoother than our previous car with adaptive cruise and that it has improved a lot since we got the first one in April 18. As far as NOA, we use it on more rural freeway runs and it does well in the current iteration. The only time I've noticed it slowing when passing is when it has to change lanes to merge behind a slower vehicle to get to the lane it wants to be in for the upcoming exit. And it has gotten amazingly good at merging with traffic entering the freeway when its in the right lane.

Not to say that there are not many weaknesses as described by others above, but jerkiness is just not something that I've experienced under any traffic conditions aside from someone forcing their way into the lane we are in. And for my wife and I we both prefer to have the driver put it in AP.

Just reinforcing Foxtrotter's observations. I always use a follow distance of 5 or 6 (2.5 or 3 seconds) and have very little of the annoying behavior experienced by others. AP and NOA have also brought a (welcome) Chill Mode to my driving demeanor with the +5 mph restriction over the posted limit. I now find myself most often in the right-hand "slowpokes" lane where most traffic stampedes past me. Now one of my main operator functions is to know when to lift the gear stalk, take manual control past whatever the momentary situation is, and then resume AP/NOA. It's turned an annoyance (driving) into an enjoyable pastime (piloting).

But I also experience shadow braking, occasional odd and concerning AP choices when lane configurations change, sometimes rather abrupt moves into an exit lane, not always smooth negotiating of tighter turns, and braking that's more aggressive than mine. But for almost all freeway driving, I much prefer AP and NOA. And it's current performance level hasn't yet hit an upper-limit with the neural-net known as my wife; fortunately I have the high-tolerance model.

 

[tmatsus]

I agree with most comments here. I find Tesla 3 autopilot is great, I use it quiet a bit everyday; however, it lacks the intuition a human driver has. Therefore, often it takes time to adjust to actions that are being taken by a vehicle ahead of you. I find it's particularly a bit annoying when the lead vehicle change lines. It slows down and takes time to get adjusted to the fact the lead vehicle is no more in the line and it can speed up. As someone mentioned I have the feeling the computing power is not in par with the needs of the road.

 

[wjsx9999]

For reference, I use NOA all the time, whenever it's available, and AS/TACC on city boulevards and on highways wherever NOA is inactive. I'm not as fond of TACC by itself. My wife started out sweating, and swearing, just like when she's being driven by any stranger. And now that she sees the car remains under control, one way or another, she's fine. But then my car's nowhere near as bad a driver as some of the anti-NOA posts suggest.

Yes, the system has that "eager dog off his leash" behavior, and I have wished there was something like an adjustable low pass filter. But then it occurred to me that as a responsible dog owner, I should keep it on leash. And that all I needed to do is USE that max speed roller. In situations where I myself would be pulling back, I back off on the target speed (given that's how it treats it). That has solved most of the issues I had, including entering cloverleaf merges too fast. But then I would never consider it any sort of negative or defeat to tap-up out of Auto when I see a situation that i can handle better, sometimes in-out in rapid succession.

In other words DRIVE the darned beast, don't play blind and then complain that Stevie Wonder's chauffeur is not a 45 year old pro driver with 30 years of experience. 'Cause he's not. Not yet anyway. To people who'd theorize that's more work than just driving in manual, I completely disagree. Trust me, if it was, I'd just stay in manual, since "whatever's easier" is one of my main rules. There are long stretches where I don't need to get involved at all, including Mad Max lane changes.

Bravo. Well said.

 

[WattTheHeck]

The next test would be to simply say it's been turned off while leaving it on, and see if the complaints suddenly stop. An antiplacebo test, if you will.

I was thinking the same thing!