I screwed up in my week old Model S and as embarrassing as it is I figure maybe someone else can learn from my stupid mistake so I figured I'd share.
I've been playing around with AP on my HW2 Model S a lot and was using it on a local road with well defined lines etc. the road was a 40 mph speed limit so once traffic got up to speed I shut off AP and carried on driving but I now had adapative cruise on. I got to a red light with a car in front of me and the car came to a stop on its own. I zoned out and started obsessing over some fingerprints on the leather on my door. Light turned green, car started driving, I remain unfocused on driving and still wiping my door until I realize I'm headed right for a curb. Tried to steer away but it was too late and I curbed both rims pretty bad. Neither is bent but they are scratched half way around and look horrible obviously.
To be clear I am not blaming the car or autopilot. I was to blame and it was a stupid mistake. I do feel like there is probably something that could be done to make it harder to do what I did. Maybe the car could check if the driver has their hands on the wheel when it comes to a complete stop with adaptive cruise on or something. I love that adaptive cruise will stop and go on its own and wouldn't want that to change that's for sure. But given that Auto Pilot "feels" the same maybe some software tweak could prevent this bonehead move from happening. It just didn't click for me that the car was moving and It wasn't going to drive itself. So very stupid on my part.
I am extremely lucky this happened to me early on and that the only thing I hit was a curb and not anything else. I can stomach a few new rims as the price for this lesson but it could have been way worse.
I'll be looking for some used turbines that need repair and likely have all of them repaired to use a a back up set or with some longer lasting tires for road trips. For now though I am getting two new wheels from Tesla because the car is too new to have repaired rims on it IMO.
Hopefully my embarrassing story prevents someone else from making the same mistake. Drive safe!
I've been playing around with AP on my HW2 Model S a lot and was using it on a local road with well defined lines etc. the road was a 40 mph speed limit so once traffic got up to speed I shut off AP and carried on driving but I now had adapative cruise on. I got to a red light with a car in front of me and the car came to a stop on its own. I zoned out and started obsessing over some fingerprints on the leather on my door. Light turned green, car started driving, I remain unfocused on driving and still wiping my door until I realize I'm headed right for a curb. Tried to steer away but it was too late and I curbed both rims pretty bad. Neither is bent but they are scratched half way around and look horrible obviously.
To be clear I am not blaming the car or autopilot. I was to blame and it was a stupid mistake. I do feel like there is probably something that could be done to make it harder to do what I did. Maybe the car could check if the driver has their hands on the wheel when it comes to a complete stop with adaptive cruise on or something. I love that adaptive cruise will stop and go on its own and wouldn't want that to change that's for sure. But given that Auto Pilot "feels" the same maybe some software tweak could prevent this bonehead move from happening. It just didn't click for me that the car was moving and It wasn't going to drive itself. So very stupid on my part.
I am extremely lucky this happened to me early on and that the only thing I hit was a curb and not anything else. I can stomach a few new rims as the price for this lesson but it could have been way worse.
I'll be looking for some used turbines that need repair and likely have all of them repaired to use a a back up set or with some longer lasting tires for road trips. For now though I am getting two new wheels from Tesla because the car is too new to have repaired rims on it IMO.
Hopefully my embarrassing story prevents someone else from making the same mistake. Drive safe!
