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Things my wife said about Navigate on Autopilot tonight

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Love TACC and use it almost all the time on the freeway. Except when it starts getting funky and braking unnecessarily. That happens when my lane is moving fast and the next lane over is stopped or traveling slowly. I think TACC is seeing these cars as possible merging vehicles and is trying to avoid them. TACC seems to be much too "kind" to merging vehicles. I never use TACC in the right lane for that reason. TACC also takes off ramps too slowly (I've almost been rear ended a couple of times).

NoA, on the other hand, is downright scary. The only place it's useful is in stop and go traffic under 25 mph. Otherwise, it switches lanes too soon when approaching an exit (like it starts moving over 2.5-3 miles before the exit). And, more importantly it does not know how to handle the situation when a approaching a new lane (like when a carpool lane opens up or when a right exit-only lane opens up). Lots of work still necessary before I could trust it NoA to take me "on ramp to off ramp" especially if there are freeway interchanges to get through. However, I do find it very useful to use for a few seconds while changing the radio station. checking the nav, or opening a water bottle. Just double pull, do your task, then push/pull to go back into TACC. Wish Tesla would make this a little easier by allowing me to cancel NoA without cancelling TACC.
 
I would say AP does have a bit of an eyesight problem (as in resolution) and/or predicative modeling problem, which makes me wonder how people are going to react when there are inevitably 2 versions of AP: the senior citizen one running on hardware 2.5 and the much improved version on hardware 3 (and to be clear, I’m just talking about AP not FSD)

...also makes me wonder when exactly Elon will get around to giving us FSD prepayers the computer upgrade (I know, next week)
 
I'm still surprised by the decision to make Chill/Sport mode actually affect AP.

I am not aware that it does. I have not noticed any difference, though it's been a while since I experimented. It would be a really odd decision, I agree.

When I'm in AP, I don't want the car pushing the limits of the car's acceleration on the highway.

Fairly sure it never does push the limits of acceleration in either mode. Chill mode allows a ~7-second 0-60. That's quite brisk! Way brisker than anything I have ever experienced on Autopilot. (That being said, it may be time to break out the VBOX again and run some tests on AP acceleration!)

Jerk can potentially be high in either mode. As an experiment, in chill mode, try this with passengers in the car: floor it for 1-second, followed by release of the pedal for 1-2 seconds, then floor it again, repeat indefinitely. I suspect your passengers will not be happy with the chill ride.

I want it to drive smoothly, stay in its lane, and not make sudden movements.

Yes, that would be nice.

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

If she caught on to being a guinea pig in such an experiment, the consequences would likely be dire, as this experiment would require lying to her!
 
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.
I also use Mad Max with a 5 or 6 follow distance and totally agree with what you said. Having said that......many of the “wife” comments apply to my husband when I use AP on non-highway roads. He loves it on the highway but when I have to take over (because of poor lines for example) no matter how smoothly I try to move the steering wheel — it feels jerky to him. (I’m trying to train myself to flip the wand up instead of using the steering wheel but old habits die hard.)
 
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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.
I use a follow distance of 3, 2, or 1 and don't perceive the behaviors described by others as well. I have one of the LR RWD models from last year. Maybe the AWD model with 2 motors is less smooth for some reason?

It's probably just perception though. Things that bother some people are apparently fine to others. I also suspect that many people on here overestimate there own driving abilities. We can't all be above average drivers. I'm constantly seeing cars that drift back in forth in their lane, that randomly speed up and slow down. I'm pretty sure they don't perceive much of that happening or you would think they would prevent it.
 
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Don’t worry, we will have FSD by the end of the year. ;)

Every time AP does something crazy, I say “and that why FSD won’t work anytime soon”. AP is a great step forward and I use it constantly, but it is just one step. We will get there, but it will be many steps.
 
My 30 day trial is over and I chose not to buy AP but I noticed that the car correctly gets the 60 mph speed limit as I enter the freeway near my house. But a few miles later it thinks the limit is 75. Well the toll lanes speed limit is 75 but the regular lanes, separated by a jersey wall, is still 60. If there is traffic its no problem because they are probably driving 60 or so but if no traffic you could get into real trouble. I don't know if it is looking at signs or using geolocation.
 
All of your non-complaining passengers are (probably unconsciously) comparing driving by Autopilot to the driving of the person in the driver's seat (you). See the above discussion. It's not necessarily a compliment (to you or to Autopilot) that they didn't notice any comparatively worse driving by Autopilot.


A) They hadn’t driven with me in years.
B) I’m a highly skilled and safe driver.
 
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I can predict with near 100% certainty that if an approaching car makes a left turn across my lane of traffic and is clearly far enough away to complete their turn safely without my car needed to slow down AT ALL, the Tesla AP will slam on brakes and then speed back up. Usually this happens AFTER the turning car is safely out of my lane. It happens so predictably I try to turn off the AP when I seen a car making a left turn in that manner.

If an approaching car makes a left turn across your lane of traffic, you aren’t using AP as directed. That’s fine if you really want to do that, but you can’t complain about its behavior in situations it specifically is not (yet) intended to support.
 
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I am a bit confused about all these complaints about AP I read on the previous pages.

We have had AP1 in our Model X90D from 2016 and AP2.5 in our Model 3 from 2018 and would give up neither under any circumstances. Total sanity saver in stop and go traffic commuting to work, and makes driving long distance trips that much safer and relaxing.

I do use NoAP a lot less, since it likes to merge into thick traffic early more than an exit ahead, which is probably the better and less selfish driving style compared to last minute merging into the exit lane, but I don't really care for it. Funny enough though, the few times that I let it just do its thing, I did not really lose that much time either. And it does not miss an exit like I have before. So maybe I should give it more of a chance.

I think AP and NoAP are fantastic, but do have their phantom braking events every now and then. Since it has been so rock solid with not rear ending anybody, I tend to just keep my foot on the accelerator in case I have to prevent an unneeded sudden slowdown. Over all its been very smooth and reliably for me and my wife though.

I would never buy a car without AP again, AP1 is a bit stupid when it comes to following drivers that don't know how to stay in the lane, AP2 is better at just driving proper in the lane irregardlessly. But I would not give up either. I am pretty sure we can go about twice as far with the same amount of effort compared to without AP, due to being able to delegate hours of micromanaging. I used to insist on flying anything more far than 200 miles, now going 400 is just fine.
 
Someone said I take all this criticism "personally". My experience is much like that of @Skryll and other positives, except maybe that I "drive" the NOA more actively, using the speed max roller as a limiter, and dropping in and out of AP, sometimes several times in a minute in very ambiguous situations. I hardly ever experience any of the problems that are reported. It's not that they cannot happen, but they can be avoided or, worst case, dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders, once you know the car and its current limits.

It's good that people are raising these issues, I hope Tesla is reading. It is a work in progress. But looking at all these rather bitter complaints, a potential buyer would conclude that the whole AP/NOA system is worthless. That e.g. phantom slowing (that's I've seen all of 2 times in the last few months) happens all the time, that the Model 3 automation drives incompetently and dangerously. And that would simply not be an accurate picture.
 
I've got an AP3 LR AWD car, just basic autopilot (no NoA). I think the biggest things that annoy me are the hard braking when the car in front of you slows to make a turn (non highway situation), and the jerkyness when it's changing speeds for offramps or new speed zones.

By Jerkyness I mean that the acceleration and deceleration should be damped/limited so that there isn't such sudden G force. My wife's 2019 Mustang with radar cruise control is much better at this (probably MobilEye powered).
 
Wow, 11 pages in the past three days. Tesla, are you listening? ....... <crickets>

I think someone is reading some of the stuff here BUT I think the best way to get their attention is via Twitter. I once again suggest we ALL go on Twitter and either weekly or DAILY send a tweet telling them to stop working on games and get some programmers to fix TACC.

Here is what I have been sending:

@tesla PLEASE stop working on games, karaoke, and stream video and hire some programmers to fix TACC. Its phantom braking, jerkiness and emergency braking when a car 1/4 mile away crosses in front/on side merging is going to cause an accident. No other TACC does this! @elonmusk

Maybe if we get hundreds of unhappy TACC users to tweet, they will finally listen.
 
If an approaching car makes a left turn across your lane of traffic, you aren’t using AP as directed. That’s fine if you really want to do that, but you can’t complain about its behavior in situations it specifically is not (yet) intended to support.
My TACC constantly jams on the brakes A BLOCK AHEAD if a car crosses in front when doing ONLY 30 MPH. This is totally unacceptable programming. No one drives like that. No other TACC/ACC does this (we have a Volt with ACC and my friend has a Subaru, plus I have driving a number of different rentals with ACC).
 
I once again suggest we ALL go on Twitter and either weekly or DAILY send a tweet telling them to stop working on games and get some programmers to fix TACC.

It's not an either/or proposition. There are entirely separate teams of engineers with very different skill sets working on Autopilot and infotainment. You wouldn't go into a busy restaurant and suggest that the bartender go into the kitchen and help out the cooks.

In addition, porting a new game to run in the car might only take a matter of hours once the licensing is settled, and it opens up a whole new activity while waiting at a Supercharger--something that reduces the apparent passage of time spent charging, which as we all know is a huge barrier to EV adoption.

Building stuff like games and Easter eggs on the side is also a big morale booster, allowing the dev team to achieve some quick wins and lower their crazy-high stress levels while having a little bit of fun.

(Source: 10 years of experience managing software engineers and 10 years of being one)
 
Wife: "Why is it so jerky?"

Me: "Well, it can decelerate somewhat abruptly while on freeway interchanges..."

Wife: "It's not just around corners, it's all the time on the freeway; why do you use it if it is so bad?"

Me: "Well, I'm trying it out; I think maybe you notice less if you're driving"

Wife: "Well, I notice it. It's ok to try it out if you're the only one in the car, but it isn't cool to do it otherwise"

Me: ...

Wife: If you keep trying to use it, I'm going to stop riding in this car, and we're going to have to take my car*. It's not relaxing.

Me: <disengages Autopilot for remainder of trip>

<a couple minutes pass>

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


Me: Yes, I did.

Wife: I'm much more relaxed now.


* My wife's car is a Chevrolet Spark EV. That tells you something.

You can't make this stuff up!

Here's hoping that Tesla discovers low pass filters soon.
I get the sensation the computer is acting at its limit. For example, a car will cross the road to go on a side street. It's 100 yards away, by the time my car slows down the other car is completely off the road. In other words, my car did not anticipate the actions of the other car, acted far to soon but didn't clear the other car from its decision making des[ite that car being off the road. That says to me the computer is not able to keep pace with conditions.

When my husband is riding as passenger he complains my Model S is jerky even when not in autopilot. The regen feature is what jolts him- that and my superb driving!
 
I've got an AP3 LR AWD car, just basic autopilot (no NoA). I think the biggest things that annoy me are the hard braking when the car in front of you slows to make a turn (non highway situation),


So your main complaint it is behaves oddly when you use it someplace it is explicitly not meant to be used



My TACC constantly jams on the brakes A BLOCK AHEAD if a car crosses in front when doing ONLY 30 MPH. This is totally unacceptable programming.


Ditto.

AP is explicitly only intended for use on divided/limited access highways-where all the traffic is going in the same direction and enter/exit is via ramps.... so you're not supposed to be using it in places that have cross traffic or turn lanes.




If it's still doing this stuff once you have the HW3 computer and the actual FSD code that is meant to work in those situations then it's a valid complaint.

Until then it's not bad programming- it's user error.
 
So your main complaint it is behaves oddly when you use it someplace it is explicitly not meant to be used






Ditto.

AP is explicitly only intended for use on divided/limited access highways-where all the traffic is going in the same direction and enter/exit is via ramps.... so you're not supposed to be using it in places that have cross traffic or turn lanes.




If it's still doing this stuff once you have the HW3 computer and the actual FSD code that is meant to work in those situations then it's a valid complaint.

Until then it's not bad programming- it's user error.
Well, the car knows what road it is on. So it’s not just user error but irresponsible programming by Tesla. Why doesn’t the car disable AP on roads that it cannot handle?