V 10 lane changing

[Needsdecaf]

It's almost as though Tesla is aware that a turning signal is not meant to say "my car is currently moving in this direction", but rather "I would like to signal my intent to move my car in this direction". Funny, that.

2-3 or even 5 seconds before you move over? Fine. 15-20? Unnecessary.

In Chicago traffic, people consider that “giving away your next move.”

Yeah. Or in Boston. You signal, someone moves up to block you. They don't call them Massholes for nothing.

 

[DopeGhoti]

2-3 or even 5 seconds before you move over? Fine. 15-20? Unnecessary.

15-30 seconds might well be necessary when you are trying to move from an active lane of travel into what amounts to a very long, very narrow parking lot. Yes, lots of people on the road are dingbats that will see you "giving away your plans" and move to block you from getting "in their way" on "their" road. But if you actually use the signal it's not too long before you find an actual functional human being (or well-trained neural network, but I repeat myself) that will let you in. Because you are signaling your intent.

 

[Puddles]

It's almost as though Tesla is aware that a turning signal is not meant to say "my car is currently moving in this direction", but rather "I would like to signal my intent to move my car in this direction". Funny, that.

Bit off topic, but yeah. Signalling before moving over? Taking pains to move out of the passing lane? We are coming perilously close to (re)introducing selfless consideration into the driving experience.

This is why it does not bother me to drive down the road with the signal on, while overcaffeinated drivers rush up alongside. I feel it's pretty clear to everyone who the asshat is, and it ain't me.

 

[_jal_]

Don’t we all have jobs? Whatever. Let’s talk about turn signals.

There’re lots of reasons to use turn signals. And I put mine on when I’m trying to get someone to let me in. I also use mine whenever I’m changing lanes to let the drivers I see know I’m changing lanes. I also use it to let the drivers I don’t see that I’m changing lanes in case I’m going to hit them

I don’t put it on when I’m not going to change lanes. (Yeah, when I’m turning, I guess ) Specifically, wheat I meant above, is that I don’t signal I’m going to change lanes or intend to change lanes with a car in my blind spot. There are a surprising number of observant drivers who have seen my NoA turn signal go on and swerved or out the brakes on or honked because they thought I was going to change lanes cuz, you know, I put my turn signal on at speed - not stop and go.

Also, the car leaves it on for so long I’ve actually had cars “let me in” just to think I’m driving down the road with my turn signal on and proceed to pass me at the same time AP actually starts to change lanes.

Unless the car is trying to get let into a spot cuz it needs to reach an exit or interchange, it should only engage the turn signal when it can actually change lanes. And then it should just do it unless it actually sees something. It shouldn’t put it on when there’s a car in the blindspot, and it shouldn’t put it on and then dilly dally about getting over.

 

[DopeGhoti]

FWIW, I've found that if the car is wanting to move over but being skittish about the car behind you in the lane you want to be in, giving it a gentle push with the accelerator seems to move things along (and in the correct lateral direction).

 

[Phlier]

I wanted to get a bit more experience using v10's AP features before chiming in with my 1 cent worth...

I have "confirm lane changes with turn signal" selected. In fact, I've never de-selected this option. With v10, both NoAP and regular AP both seem much more sure footed about lane changes. One thing that drove me nuts about v9 lane changes was that I had to keep the turn signal on for a long time in order to confirm the lane change; I had to be pretty much established in the center of the new lane, and do a two count before letting go of the turn signal. Turning off the turn signal any earlier than that resulted in an "OMG the boss wants to abort!" situation, with the car rapdily changing back to the original lane. What used to really make me laugh was that the car would abort and go back to the old lane *much* faster than it would sheepishly nose itself into the new lane. It was almost like a panic abort. V10, OTOH, quickly and sure footedly moves over, and doesn't require that I do a 15 count with the turn signal before letting go of it.

There's a stretch of five lane (two both directions plus a left turn lane) road that I travel pretty much daily. V9 hated that road. Bad. V10 not only handles it, it handles lane changes on it no sweat. The fact that TACC has found the accelerator pedal makes using AP on this road much better, as there is quite often stop and go traffic on it. I no longer have to give it a little extra convincing to stay with the car in front of us. TACC also appears to have much smoother braking when cars in front slow down/stop vs v9.

Nags don't seem to be any worse (or better) than v9. I keep a constant torque on the wheel, and get a nag occasionally. A quick wiggle and it goes away again.

To me, AP/NoAP and even TACC feel more like useful tools in v10, vs just feeling like fun toys to play with in v9. The new toy to play with in v10 is Enhanced (or is it "Smart"? I can't keep track) Summon. Hopefully, it'll feel like more of a useful tool in v11.

 

[alsetym]

FWIW, I've found that if the car is wanting to move over but being skittish about the car behind you in the lane you want to be in, giving it a gentle push with the accelerator seems to move things along (and in the correct lateral direction).

I've noticed that too.

I've also noticed it is very capable of changing lanes MUCH faster if it runs out of room or really wants to make that off ramp etc. I wish it was always faster, in my opinion waiting longer with the signal on actually decreases safety.

 

[Beprimeau]

Has anyone had problems with Auto Pilot reusing to change lanes in rain?

Over the weekend I was driving in steady rain and AP would refuse to change lanes to the right. It would change lanes to the left fine, but not to the right. This was before the v10 upgrade. On the way home after the v10 upgrade it did the same thing in rain, but it worked normally when the rain stopped. This was true whether I was just auto steer or in Navigation on Autopilot. It made it useless to have AP on, because you had to disengage it every time you wanted to move right.

I contacted Tesla and they said they examined the logs and found no problems with the sensors and told me this was a normal weather-related failure (???).

I never had this happen before, but maybe I haven't been using AP in rain that much? (Model 3, RWD, FSD)

 

[alsetym]

Has anyone had problems with Auto Pilot reusing to change lanes in rain?

Over the weekend I was driving in steady rain and AP would refuse to change lanes to the right. It would change lanes to the left fine, but not to the right. This was before the v10 upgrade. On the way home after the v10 upgrade it did the same thing in rain, but it worked normally when the rain stopped. This was true whether I was just auto steer or in Navigation on Autopilot. It made it useless to have AP on, because you had to disengage it every time you wanted to move right.

I contacted Tesla and they said they examined the logs and found no problems with the sensors and told me this was a normal weather-related failure (???).

I never had this happen before, but maybe I haven't been using AP in rain that much? (Model 3, RWD, FSD)

Only the front cameras have a wiper...so if the other cameras get covered by too much water/road crud the result is predictable. They can typically deal with a decent amount of rain, but one bad drop in the wrong place and it can't see enough to make good decisions. I'm sure future cameras will address this with a cleaning system. But current gen teslas will have times when they are camera blind.

 

[thewishmaster]

I have "confirm lane changes with turn signal" selected. In fact, I've never de-selected this option. With v10, both NoAP and regular AP both seem much more sure footed about lane changes. One thing that drove me nuts about v9 lane changes was that I had to keep the turn signal on for a long time in order to confirm the lane change; I had to be pretty much established in the center of the new lane, and do a two count before letting go of the turn signal. Turning off the turn signal any earlier than that resulted in an "OMG the boss wants to abort!" situation, with the car rapdily changing back to the original lane. What used to really make me laugh was that the car would abort and go back to the old lane *much* faster than it would sheepishly nose itself into the new lane. It was almost like a panic abort. V10, OTOH, quickly and sure footedly moves over, and doesn't require that I do a 15 count with the turn signal before letting go of it..

Do you always hold the turn signal stalk to the first position when changing lanes in AP mode? If you push the stalk all the way (as if you're signaling a turn), the car will complete the lane change and auto-cancel the blinker.

 

[Phlier]

Do you always hold the turn signal stalk to the first position when changing lanes in AP mode? If you push the stalk all the way (as if you're signaling a turn), the car will complete the lane change and auto-cancel the blinker.

So my first thought was to reply, "Of course I do, whaddya think I'm stupid?" But instead I'm gonna sheepishly blush and say, "No, but I will now. Thanks for that little tidbit."

 

[groovyd]

Do you always hold the turn signal stalk to the first position when changing lanes in AP mode? If you push the stalk all the way (as if you're signaling a turn), the car will complete the lane change and auto-cancel the blinker.

yeah this took some time for me to learn also...

 

[thewishmaster]

yeah this took some time for me to learn also...

So my first thought was to reply, "Of course I do, whaddya think I'm stupid?" But instead I'm gonna sheepishly blush and say, "No, but I will now. Thanks for that little tidbit."

Heh, been there done that... Lane change aborts were quite violent back in the 2018.2x days when I first got my car.

 

[Wingsy]

You folks are making me soooo jealous. My car has been in the body shop for EIGHT weeks now and I'm beyond having withdrawal symptoms. (I'm the <insert insulting adjective> guy who hit the plastic traffic barrels and did $26k in damage.) If I'm lucky I may get it back this Friday.

 

[Phlier]

If I'm lucky I may get it back this Friday.

Wow, finally! So glad to hear that.

 

[Puddles]

You folks are making me soooo jealous. My car has been in the body shop for EIGHT weeks now and I'm beyond having withdrawal symptoms. (I'm the <insert insulting adjective> guy who hit the plastic traffic barrels and did $26k in damage.) If I'm lucky I may get it back this Friday.

Fingers crossed!

 

[Beprimeau]

Only the front cameras have a wiper...so if the other cameras get covered by too much water/road crud the result is predictable. They can typically deal with a decent amount of rain, but one bad drop in the wrong place and it can't see enough to make good decisions. I'm sure future cameras will address this with a cleaning system. But current gen teslas will have times when they are camera blind.

Seems odd that it only affected lane changes to the right. If it were just an unluckily placed raindrop, one wonders why it would start happening again when the rain returned.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Posted elsewhere already...but this seems like an appropriate place for this.

On 2019.32.11.1, lane changes are really bad. Lots of swerving and reattempting. I have videos but would have to post them.

1) Nevada and California I-15
2) Seemed independent of time of day but dark conditions might have been a bit better.
3) NoA without ULC. Manually commanded lane changes.
4) Not related to traffic as far as I can tell.
5) Seemed to happen in both directions (left/right)
6) Not related to torque (I got one brief message to apply torque (the prelim message) during the 1200 miles of driving). I played around with this just to make sure - I only succeeded in disengaging Autopilot. The torque requirements are not extreme with ULC off.

I signal, it starts to change, hits the line, swerves back, tries again, swerves back, tries again, finally completes. Sometimes I just take over if it is too humiliating.

Happened probably 100 times. I issued about 30 bug reports.

 

[Chisale]

Over the past year and many software updates, we have noticed the lane change/merge function vary widely between "spineless coward" and "raging crackhead." Some releases will just. not. go. until you manually hit the signal, and others will barge into the tiniest space with reckless disregard for the delta.

But V 10 has given it a whole new twist. Yesterday we came up behind a truck in the #2 lane, with heavy traffic to the left passing us. Regardless, on comes the turn signal, and the car starts over into a pretty tiny spot. It got about 2 ft into the lane, said gee! I did not make a good choice! and chickened out. Well, this is embarrassing, but we are beta testers and are willing to take it for the team. But it happened twice more, behind each of the next two cars! Even beta testers have their shame limits. Nobody wants to be the ones lurching and weaving their way down a crowded freeway at 70, repeatedly aborting dodgy merges.

Then, later, in a similar scenario except there was NO other traffic, again we got about 2 feet into the #1 lane, when the car said ABORT, ABORT! and headed back to where it came from. I have no idea what scared it off that time.

I think in addition to spineless coward and raging crackhead, we need to add another category: Cowardly Lion.

It's disappointing because the later releases of V 9 were getting very good at merging and lane changing. It seemed to predict good places to merge into, and accelerate smoothly into them. Well, 2 steps forward, 1 back, I suppose.

I've also noticed with the old version it was timid when approaching your exit. It would stay in the right lane WELL before the first exit sign appeared. Now it seems with version 10 if it'll want to pass a semi that is going 2 mph faster and with less than half a mile to go before the exit. Well...I've turned off automatic lane change until they get this and the issues you pointed out resolved. It's not a big deal.

 

[Chisale]

Completely agree. Sometimes it pulls stuff off so well, I think "Dang, they've really made progress!" Then a few minutes later, I phantom brake so quick the driver's behind me honk and swerve.

We need to get big plaques, similar to the "STUDENT DRIVER" ones that say "BETA TESTING IN PROGRESS!"

Or maybe just the "Student Driver" ones would be appropriate...

Another sign for adaptive cruise control could read: "I know the car in front of us turned some time ago but we're going to sit here....just in case."