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Thought: Autopilot "Trim" Using The Scroll Wheel

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Much has been said of the Tesla's Autopilot being similar to that of an airplane. As I drive with Autopilot, I find myself wanting to nudge the car slightly within a lane. I know this can be done to a degree with the steering wheel, but it easily disengages. I'm proposing something more subtle and accurate.

My thought was that an optional dashboard "app" would allow one of the scroll wheels to "trim" the car's position in a lane. Each click of the wheel could be, say, 2 inches. If you scroll up, the car trims to the right. If you scroll down, it trims to the left. This data could be used to help teach the system more accurately where you'd like to be in the lane. (Imagine the accuracy of the maps being adjustable by a couple inches from the fleet of expert drivers.) But, more importantly, it can keep you (as the "driver in command") in a position that feels safest to you.

Of course, this would never allow you to exit a lane and actually steer, but I envision it allowing you to override Autopilot's lane selection up to a foot either direction within the lane. Trim is commonplace on airplanes and I feel it could translate well here.

Any thoughts on this?
 
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Much has been said of the Tesla's Autopilot being similar to that of an airplane. As I drive with Autopilot, I find myself wanting to nudge the car slightly within a lane. I know this can be done to a degree with the steering wheel, but it easily disengages. I'm proposing something more subtle and accurate.

My thought was that an optional dashboard "app" would allow one of the scroll wheels to "trim" the car's position in a lane. Each click of the wheel could be, say, 2 inches. If you scroll up, the car trims to the right. If you scroll down, it trims to the left. This data could be used to help teach the system more accurately where you'd like to be in the lane. (Imagine the accuracy of the maps being adjustable by a couple inches from the fleet of expert drivers.) But, more importantly, it can keep you (as the "driver in command") in a position that feels safest to you.

Of course, this would never allow you to exit a lane and actually steer, but I envision it allowing you to override Autopilot's lane selection up to a foot either direction within the lane. Trim is commonplace on airplanes and I feel it could translate well here.

Any thoughts on this?

I think its not a bad idea, but unlikely Tesla would add it - AutoPilot is designed and marketed to be easy and "set and forget". Adding in manual tweaks/controls while good for most of us here at TMC, would probably be confusing and a turn-off for the mass market (as mass of a market there is for the S)
 
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I think its not a bad idea, but unlikely Tesla would add it - AutoPilot is designed and marketed to be easy and "set and forget". Adding in manual tweaks/controls while good for most of us here at TMC, would probably be confusing and a turn-off for the mass market (as mass of a market there is for the S)

Yeah, I saw it as optional. Totally agree on an even more mass market Model 3.

My thought was that it both encourages more active participation (and having a hand near the wheel) and would provide faster, more detailed fleet learning. I find myself wanting to tweak the position a bit. Maybe I'm in a minority with wanting to do that, too.
 
Of course, this would never allow you to exit a lane and actually steer, but I envision it allowing you to override Autopilot's lane selection up to a foot either direction within the lane. Trim is commonplace on airplanes and I feel it could translate well here. Any thoughts on this?
I'm almost 100% sure I heard in an interview where EM talked about AutoPilot/Steer not necessarily staying in the center of the lane all the time and intentionally going to one side. Example was when next to a larger truck.
 
I'm almost 100% sure I heard in an interview where EM talked about AutoPilot/Steer not necessarily staying in the center of the lane all the time and intentionally going to one side. Example was when next to a larger truck.

I think it'll get there. In my experience, it doesn't avoid trucks reliably. I prefer to give them a little more space. While the driver is responsible for the actions of the car, as we currently are, I think we should have the ability to trim the location within a lane. If it's optional and will never go outside the lane, I don't see a negative other than being more complicated than doing nothing.
 
As a pilot, I would also like this, but the mass-market implementation has to be easier than a trim wheel like that on a plane.

This can be done simply by having any light input on the steering wheel be the trim. A little tug left, and it chooses left bias. A little right tug, and it chooses right bias. I believe there are 5 lane positions right now (this is completely speculation only based on my experience with autopilot over several thousand miles) where it looks like this:

Left 1/2/3/4/5 Right ... 3 is center.

I think right now, the car prefers 3, but will sometimes go to the other positions as sonar detects things like k-rail or dividing walls on the highway. Sometimes I think it will do it for traffic too. But a little nudge that moves it to position 2 or 4 would be acceptable. Positions 1 and 5 should not be manually selectable, but rather, the car does it based on the AP model or local learning.

- K
 
Much has been said of the Tesla's Autopilot being similar to that of an airplane. As I drive with Autopilot, I find myself wanting to nudge the car slightly within a lane. I know this can be done to a degree with the steering wheel, but it easily disengages. I'm proposing something more subtle and accurate.

I had started a thread on this about three weeks ago, just after version 7 with Auto Steer Beta was released:

Possible Autosteer Enhancement - Temporary Left or Right Side Lane Preference
 
Much has been said of the Tesla's Autopilot being similar to that of an airplane. As I drive with Autopilot, I find myself wanting to nudge the car slightly within a lane. I know this can be done to a degree with the steering wheel, but it easily disengages. I'm proposing something more subtle and accurate.

My thought was that an optional dashboard "app" would allow one of the scroll wheels to "trim" the car's position in a lane. Each click of the wheel could be, say, 2 inches. If you scroll up, the car trims to the right. If you scroll down, it trims to the left. This data could be used to help teach the system more accurately where you'd like to be in the lane. (Imagine the accuracy of the maps being adjustable by a couple inches from the fleet of expert drivers.) But, more importantly, it can keep you (as the "driver in command") in a position that feels safest to you.

Of course, this would never allow you to exit a lane and actually steer, but I envision it allowing you to override Autopilot's lane selection up to a foot either direction within the lane. Trim is commonplace on airplanes and I feel it could translate well here.

Any thoughts on this?
Great Idea. As a matter of fact, one of the problems I encounter (not all the time, but enough to be frustrating) is that as soon as you set AP, the car pulls to the right lane marker. The display even knows that it's hugging the right lane and is sometimes so close to the line that it is hitting the lane markers. Anyone else have that problem? Your trim option would surely help that, because, as I said, it doesn't happen all the time.
 
My 2018 Model 3 seems to stay in the center of every lane no matter what. One of the first things I thought about was the need for a left-right trim. Since this idea has been around a long time, I was wondering if Tesla had provided feedback on this idea. Does anyone have news on this subject?