Turn TACC off?

[Bobbins]

Hi all, my first post and I'm hoping someone can help me with this! I took delivery of a new Model 3P a little over a week ago and the Autopilot/TACC is driving me nuts ... is there a way to turn the "TA" feature off and revert to a normal cruise control?

I do around 25,000 miles a year, my commute is 45 miles each way mostly motorway driving so I rely heavily on cruise control, with previous cars I just engaged the cruise and typically sat at 60mph chilling to some music or even an audiobook, definitely relaxed and stress free. With the Model 3 once I engage the autopilot it becomes a battle of wills between the car and me!

I've adapted to holding my foot an the accelerator while I select the speed I want, but then every action that involves anything more than an empty road causes unpleasantness in the drive, even nausea inducing at times. If I move out to overtake a vehicle the speed dips by a couple of mph then picks up again, If I allow it to catch up with a vehicle in front it slows to that vehicle's speed but then oscillates in speed as if hunting. I've also had it self-apply the brakes quite heavily in situations where realistically there's no hazard present, it's become a plainly stressful experience!

Any thoughts?

 

[Marius A]

Hi all, my first post and I'm hoping someone can help me with this! I took delivery of a new Model 3P a little over a week ago and the Autopilot/TACC is driving me nuts ... is there a way to turn the "TA" feature off and revert to a normal cruise control?

I do around 25,000 miles a year, my commute is 45 miles each way mostly motorway driving so I rely heavily on cruise control, with previous cars I just engaged the cruise and typically sat at 60mph chilling to some music or even an audiobook, definitely relaxed and stress free. With the Model 3 once I engage the autopilot it becomes a battle of wills between the car and me!

I've adapted to holding my foot an the accelerator while I select the speed I want, but then every action that involves anything more than an empty road causes unpleasantness in the drive, even nausea inducing at times. If I move out to overtake a vehicle the speed dips by a couple of mph then picks up again, If I allow it to catch up with a vehicle in front it slows to that vehicle's speed but then oscillates in speed as if hunting. I've also had it self-apply the brakes quite heavily in situations where realistically there's no hazard present, it's become a plainly stressful experience!

Any thoughts?

For overtaking, make sure you pull out earlier. The TACC considers the car to be in front of you until you've fully exited your lane.
As for sudden breaking, that's what is called phantom breaking and ghost breaking. It's the number 1 complaint about the TM3 according to surveys. I've stopped using AP and TACC because of it.

 

[toolman335]

You only want cruise control?
I may be new to Tesla but when I use it I just tap down once instead of twice for old school cruise control.

 

[Fernand]

I don't know what previous car you had that self-steered and let you just hang out and chill. You're going to have to get to know this machine, it's not at all like what you had before. And it takes a while.

Some things it does better than others. There are situations where you learn you should disengage the AP. I've had maybe 3 of the famous "slowdowns due to not obvious potential danger" in the last year and a half, it's easy to handle, and I don't care. No car at this point can do everything to everyone's satisfaction. So it's very simple. You want to use the car's feature set or not. I presume you can still dump it if you hate it. If you do keep it, it helps to set out with curiosity as to what it does and when.

The majority of Tesla owners use the full feature set and like it. A lot. So there's evidently a way to make it work on the pro vs. con scales. It took me literally several weeks to learn how best to use it and really adapt. At first it felt like the battle you describe. It's an AI machine with a lot of personality. Like riding a horse. Now that Nicki and I get along just great, the idea of not fully using the automation strikes me as silly.

FWIW using the scroll wheel and not the pedal to adjust target speed is something that becomes second nature. Setting initial speed 5 miles BELOW speed limit can give smoother changes.
.

 

[trm2]

Pick up a used, first generation Leaf. That should turn off the T and A.

 

[Petermcg]

You only want cruise control?
I may be new to Tesla but when I use it I just tap down once instead of twice for old school cruise control.

That is incorrect. Tapping once engages traffic-aware cruise control (TACC). Tapping twice engages auto-lane keeping and TACC.

Cruise control sets a given speed and doesn’t change that speed even if a slower vehicle is in front of you - you’ll hit that car. TACC will maintain a set speed unless a slower vehicle is in front of you in which case it slows to match that car’s speed. If the car (or you) move out of that lane, TACC will resume your set speed.

There is no way to deploy simple cruise control on the Model 3.

 

[ilyak]

That is incorrect. Tapping once engages traffic-aware cruise control (TACC). Tapping twice engages auto-lane keeping and TACC.

There is no way to deploy simple cruise control on the Model 3.

Technically, it *can* be correct - on the condition that the car does not have the base autopilot package. When I bought my car, the firmware it came with did not yet have the base autopilot defined, so the car acted like I didn’t have any AP features and pulling on the stalk once engaged the non-adaptive basic cruise control. Of course, the package is now standard on all but the off-menu SR trim, so this capability is exceedingly rare, but it’s still there. You are correct that for OP’s car that has at least base autopilot, there is no way to revert from TACC to basic cruise control, except by finding a way to have AP features deactivated.

 

[dmurphy]

I've adapted to holding my foot an the accelerator while I select the speed I want, but then every action that involves anything more than an empty road causes unpleasantness in the drive, even nausea inducing at times. If I move out to overtake a vehicle the speed dips by a couple of mph then picks up again, If I allow it to catch up with a vehicle in front it slows to that vehicle's speed but then oscillates in speed as if hunting. I've also had it self-apply the brakes quite heavily in situations where realistically there's no hazard present, it's become a plainly stressful experience!

Any thoughts?

Please pardon me if this sounds condescending, as I don’t mean it that way ... but are you familiar with the TACC controls on the steering wheel’s right button?

Scrolling up/down set your speed.
Scrolling left/right sets your following distance to the car in front of you.

From your description above, it sounds to me like maybe you didn’t know about those functions. I can see how frustrating TACC would be without them!

Dialing up/down my speed with the thumb wheel works really well, and setting my following distance helps avoid the “jerkiness” you mention when overtaking someone, since you’d have enough of a gap to overtake safely.

Again, I apologize if you do use those functions and are still frustrated - but from how you described it, I just wonder if you weren’t aware of them? This is a car unlike any other - and unfortunately that means reading and studying the owner’s manual a bit is imperative. I know it’s only a hair better than reading the phone book, but because it’s so different than anything you’ve driven before, it’s pretty important.

Hopefully that makes it a more rewarding experience for you!

 

[Msjulie]

There is a non-zero set of threads where folks ask for 'dumb' cruise control because on some roads (a lot more these days perhaps) there is little to no vehicle traffic so traffic-aware-cruise is a bit of overkill no matter how some might view this feature. Also phantom braking is alarming to the driver no matter what kind of attention you're paying and not everyone is as generous with their acceptance of said behavior (my dad finds it quite alarming as passenger).

Sadly there is no such option; the other day my 3 got a small ear-full from me when it just decided there was danger in front and decelerated quite strongly. Needless to say, nothing was actually amiss.

I will say it has gotten smoother in some of it's behaviors, it doesn't jet back to speed and even the quick deceleration was less neck snapping that a few months back.

 

[Bobbins]

Okay no I'm not dumb and yes I've mastered all the controls!

This is the "basic" autopilot system as is now standard for UK spec M3P cars, one press down of the RH control engages TACC.

The big issue, and it is a big one, appears to be that the Tesla software wants to align the road speed to an exact whole mph, ie. 72, not 72.2 or 71.8. So when the TA becomes activated following another vehicle, rather than only slowing down to stay behind the vehicle it will continually increase and lower the road speed by 1mph ... hence the hunting. The only way to stop this is to drop the speed by 1mph using the steering wheel control so that it's no longer trying to catch the car in front .... but that's not really traffic aware cruise control!

 

[AdamVIP]

It sounds like your best option is to crank the follow distance down to one and press the accelerator while changing lanes.

Maybe Im lucky but following other cars has always worked well and I haven't experienced phantom braking in quite awhile.

 

[TX_M3P+]

Okay no I'm not dumb and yes I've mastered all the controls!

This is the "basic" autopilot system as is now standard for UK spec M3P cars, one press down of the RH control engages TACC.

The big issue, and it is a big one, appears to be that the Tesla software wants to align the road speed to an exact whole mph, ie. 72, not 72.2 or 71.8. So when the TA becomes activated following another vehicle, rather than only slowing down to stay behind the vehicle it will continually increase and lower the road speed by 1mph ... hence the hunting. The only way to stop this is to drop the speed by 1mph using the steering wheel control so that it's no longer trying to catch the car in front .... but that's not really traffic aware cruise control!

That sounds odd and is not what I experience when I use TACC. The TACC speed is set just above the car icon and has blue brackets around it. This is the speed that TACC will maintain. It can be increased or lowered by scrolling the right wheel up or down, and a forceful flick of the wheel up or down will change the speed by 5mph/kph at a time to make rapid acceleration or deceleration easier. The speed within the blue brackets can only be changed by the driver, however, TACC will slow the car down to avoid hitting a slower car in front of you. This speed adjustment by TACC does not modify the speed defined in the blue brackets, so once the car in front of you changes lanes or once you change lanes, the speed should return to what is set within the blue brackets, provided the lane is open and free from other cars. I have encountered times when a slower car in front of me changes lanes that TACC will not immediately speed up until the Tesla moves slowly passed that car, it's almost like it doesn't unlock from tracking it until it is no longer on the radar. However, you can manually press the accelerator pedal to help speed the car back up in these situations. I have also experience phantom braking, where the car will hard brake for no apparent reason or for reasons a normal driver would not hard brake for. This is very scary, especially when driving at high speeds on the highway. Again, using the accelerator pedal can override these situations, but it doesn't take away the jarring effect of the unexpected action. There are also some autopilot setting you can change to help mitigate when the car applies it's corrective measures. The Forward Collision Warning setting can be set to Late to avoid applying these avoidance measured too early and you can also adjust your follow distance to 1 car length.

 

[skygraff]

TACC (and autosteer) are great most of the time but, when they aren’t, the option to revert seems reasonable.

We can disable autosteer and take on that task if lane keeping starts to degrade, annoy, or nauseate. When we do so, especially on a fairly straight highway, the driver workload doesn’t rise appreciably and there’s little added tension/muscle fatigue.

However, when TACC randomly phantom brakes, accelerates to what will be an obvious stop (sometimes, it still doesn’t see the big picture), responds to incorrect speed limit changes, or simply makes unnecessary (sometimes rapid) changes, the two available options are fatigue inducing. You can either disengage it completely and roll back to the days before any kind of CC with all the ankle movements and speedometer cross checks or you can keep it engaged but keep your foot poised to countermand commands (whether or not you try “tricking” the system with slight speed set changes, etc.) which, again, keeps tension in the ankle (even if you find the perfect point in the accelerator where you can rest without overriding TACC) and still requires more active speedometer cross checks.

If we had the option to degrade an additional step of automation without having to disable it completely, we would be on par with most other vehicles on the road and, more than likely, still have AEB and other safety systems in place; hopefully, it isn’t AEB which is causing phantom braking. I’d argue it should be possible to have autosteer and dumb cruise control but I wouldn’t mind if that wasn’t possible.

Point being, as has been said by the OP, others in this thread, and by many other threads, there are times when TACC is frustratingly uncomfortable (especially for passengers). When driving an almost empty highway, basic cruise control should be an option and the driver should be able to make that determination. It’s not labeled as a beta function but, let’s face it, TACC has issues and we’re all aware that improvements come regularly from Tesla who should, in turn, realize that driver assistance features need to be just that and drivers should have levels of control beyond on and off.

There needs to be a window in the spacecraft!

 

[rickdogg82]

I love cruise control and use it all the time. It is an important feature to me. But the Tesla TACC's phantom braking makes it nearly unusable. After every update I give it a go to see if any improvements have been made but I usually experience phantom braking again the first day and I abandon it until the next update. Some may find it acceptable and others likely don't ever use it (it is obvious that many drivers don't use cruise control) but for me it is a deal breaker. Thanks to OTA updates I am hopeful that it gets fixed.

 

[dmurphy]

Okay no I'm not dumb and yes I've mastered all the controls!

Again, I hope I wasn’t offensive. Sure wasn't intended that way, but when you mentioned accelerating with the pedal vs. the thumbwheel, I thought maybe it wasn't clear.

Sure didn't mean to call you dumb or anything - we all gloss over stuff sometimes. Heck if I wrote down everything I've ever missed, I'd never stop writing!

 

[toolman335]

Again, just an amateur here, but when my car is clean I've never had a phantom braking issue. I've only had it happen when it's dirty. The car has to see well, correct? Or is it strictly radar and I'm wrong?

 

[TX_M3P+]

Again, just an amateur here, but when my car is clean I've never had a phantom braking issue. I've only had it happen when it's dirty. The car has to see well, correct? Or is it strictly radar and I'm wrong?

I believe TACC and AP use both radar and the cameras together. If you wash your car weekly I don't think the dirt level would be enough to hamper either the radar or the cameras.

 

[TW14 9LF]

In addition to the issues raised above re TACC, I also dislike the fact that, if the speed limit changes, the car will change it's speed to accommodate that change.....and rather suddenly, not smoothly. There is a freeway interchange that I go through frequently that, for some reason, the speed limit drops from 65 to 55. Nobody slows down. But if I'm on TACC, my car will, no matter what I have it set at. Very annoying, and could be dangerous, if somebody were following me and either wasn't paying attention, or thought I was brake (not break) checking them.

Put me in the camp of wishing we had the option of either TACC or conventional cruise. Could just be another horizontal click on the right spin wheel.

Elon, you listening? Or are you still drunk tweeting?

Keith

 

[Fernand]

FWIW, I DO wipe all the camera lenses, and brush off the other sensors as needed, with a microfiber, as part of the pre-flight walk-around. It's important enough, I believe, that if I forget, I'll get out of traffic (remember traffic?) and do it before continuing.

No idea if it's the cause, but I've only had about 1 unfounded slowdown per 6 months, and only 1 of those in 18 months that could be considered "braking".

The car can function with partially obscured views, but it's easy to imagine the car hesitating in response to IR or visible light bouncing off some dirt just so, the way humans do at sunset before pulling down the visor. So why not go for the best performance ? I'd consider that part of learning to use this car, much like disengaging specific automation in spots where you know they won't work well.

Elon, you listening? Or are you still drunk tweeting?

Keith

Huh ? Do I sense a specific orientation ?
.

 

[mal_tsla]

TACC also does the extremely annoying "fleet speed" -- which, when it makes mistakes like it does consistently on several roads around here, has you slowing to 40mph on the highway (with no cars around, and not because of phantom braking, as the car visibly overrides the set-speed) or refuses to maintain your set speed on a long and gradual ramp that requires no slowing down.

I would love a mode where TACC would *never* override my set-speed. I don't mind it slowing for obstacles/traffic. But if I set the speed to 65mph, and there's nobody/nothing blocking my path, I want it to go 65mph, not 45/50/55 whatever it thinks is a better idea for the road in front of me.