This has been my *hopefully temporary* solution as well. Usually I've been pretty good at mitigating it but it has caught me off guard a few times when it braked for a car that was so far ahead that I really thought my car wouldn't even notice it.
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What are the guidelines for using Autopilot on roads with cross traffic?
- Thread starter Knightshade
- Start date
This has been my *hopefully temporary* solution as well. Usually I've been pretty good at mitigating it but it has caught me off guard a few times when it braked for a car that was so far ahead that I really thought my car wouldn't even notice it.
I believe this is actually dictated by local laws, not Tesla policy, so probably not a great example. Video Screens - AAA Digest of Motor Laws
Based on what? Not the manual. Not any documentation I can find, or statements from Tesla, or, in fact, anything except your imagination. You keep on posting about how you would “like” or “expect” the car to behave in situations that it was not designed for. In fact, in these situations, you should have no expectations whatsoever about how the car will behave. If it behaves well, then you lucked out, if it behaves badly (in your judgement) then you should realize it was your expectations, not the car, that was at fault.
What is wrong with expressing how one would prefer a product to operate under particular conditions? Just because it operates a particular way now, doesn't mean that I accept it and am fine with it being that way forever. I agree with you, it clearly was not designed to operate in the aforementioned conditions. Good thing the software can be updated.
I dont think "Its pretty clear that Tesla wants us to drive around the city on AP so they can gather data on it's performance" is expressing any such thing.
However, there is nothing at all wrong with expressing preferences or desires, we all do it in these forums. But if you read your posts they are not describing behaviors ("the car did X under condition Y") but failures ("the car did X under condition Y which was not good"). You can only classify something as a failure if you have certain justified expectations of how the car is anticipated to behave, and the observed behavior deviates from these expectations.
So, if you are using TACC/AP in a way specified in the manual, then yes, you can have the expectation that it will behave as described, and deviations from that can be considered failures (such as getting stuck in the left lane, which AP currently has trouble with).
But when you use TACC/AP outside of its specified use, then how can you have any expectations at all? Where do they come from? They certainly don't come from Tesla; they come from you. But that's just a subjective expectation that you have conjured out of thin air. I might want my Tesla to fly me to the moon, but there is no point in my posting that AP is a failure because I am stuck on this planet. And though it might sound silly, your expectations for TACC/AP during city driving are exactly the same.
So it's fine to say "I've been experimenting with TACC/AP on city streets and have found X", and you can even add "I think this would not be good for the car to do when Tesla upgrade TACC/AP for city driving." This is all useful and informative.
But you cannot then go on to say "TACC/AP is useless/dangerous/xxx on city streets" because that implies it should have done something different, and that "different" can only be something you have conjured out of nothing.
Stated succinctly: Dont expect a machine to do something it wasn't designed to do.
Regardless of the designer's intentions for the system, the statement that "TACC is useless/dangerous/xxx on city streets" is still factually correct. All I want is for Tesla to make it work safely on the roads that the vast majority of people are driving around on most often.
If my car can do something that causes another car to rear-end me, that is dangerous.
Nonsense. What if the your car was braking to stop you going off a cliff? Would you be happy, plunging to your death, to reflect that your car had not "over-reacted" and instead carefully prevented the car behind you from rear-ending you?
But this is all bordering on the absurd. The simple fact is, TACC/AP is not designed for use on non-highways and the manual clearly states it is not. Not withstanding any "that was just for the lawyers" nonsense, TACC/AP is designed for use on freeways, just like it says in the manual. If you want to try it out in other environments, and report back on the results, I applaud you (and the risk you are taking) and will read your analysis/experience with interest.
But when, after using TACC/AP outside of its designated environment, you then say "the car should have done better" or "it got xxx wrong" then you are (as I have stated) complaining that the car cannot fly to the moon. But you keep on quoting "it did something I didn't like" as if that proves something. As I have already said, all that this proves is your expectations are based on what you wanted the car to do, which has nothing to do with what it can do or what it is intended to do.
The manual also includes the ultimate legal catch-all and says TACC is not to be used on "roads with constantly changing traffic conditions." Does that not also preclude freeways in your opinion? Fact of the matter is, TACC still sucks even on the freeway with random and unexpected phantom braking that certainly isn't what I would consider a safe behavior when traffic is flowing 70 mph. What do you have to say about that?
Not really, no.
On a freeway all traffic on your side is always going the same direction.
There's never any cross-traffic at all. Or intersections.
Entry/exit is controlled by limited access ramps/lanes
Speed limits are almost always within a pretty narrow lane
There's generally 0 pedestrians or non-car things in the environment
In short conditions there change massively less than on "regular" roads where AP is explicitly not intended to be used... because it's not intended to deal with all those kinds of things that don't happen on freeways.
Weird I've got over 15,000 miles on my car, 90%+ on AP with TACC, and it's been downright excellent.
Maybe there's something wrong with your car and it needs service?
There are common exceptions to all of your counter-points. TACC needs to handle those exceptions safely and right now it doesn't.
Here is a good example that happened recently. I was driving up a steep hill on the freeway in the left lane and I was traveling approximately 70 mph with a few cars behind me while we were all passing slow truck traffic on the right side. There was a particularly slow truck that was going maybe 30 mph up ahead of me and my car decided that that truck was in my lane and it needed to slow down IMMEDIATELY. Of course I was paying attention and I was on the accelerator quickly to override the car's mistake but my car still slowed down quickly and unexpectedly to the drivers behind me. Best case, everyone is paying attention and nothing happens. Worse case, I get rear ended. Worst case, person behind me is a psycho who thinks I just brake checked them for no reason and they try to run my car off the road or something.
And finally, you better believe it that if someone tried to sue Tesla after TACC doesn't work even if they were on a freeway and using it within the guidance of the user manual, their lawyers final trump card would be to say that the manual prohibits use on "roads with constantly changing traffic conditions" and they would win the case because that statement is so vague that it could apply to literally every public road regardless of how you, in particular, interpret it.
No, there really aren't.
There's no common case where traffic is going both directions on the same side of a divided highway.
There's no common case where freeways have intersections and cross-traffic.
There's no common case where freeways aren't limited-access for entry and exit.
In fact the legal definition of freeway precludes such cases.
Chapter 1 Page 2 - Freeway Management and Operations Handbook
US DOT definition of freeway said:
THAT is the type of road AP is intended to be used on.
As Tesla themselves tells you.
Continuing to use it elsewhere and insisting it "should" work right in such places is 100% user error
HighZ
Member
I don't think anyone is saying that the currently "should" work correctly, but we are all suggesting improvements. This whole thread was created to talk about how AP, or more properly, TACC, should be used on roads with cross-traffic.
We get that Tesla says that the systems as designed have not been programmed to handle most of the situations involved on city streets. I can guarantee that they have programmed something in because both autosteer and TACC react to certain situations that have nothing to do with highways. If you say that it is just a coincidence, then I will maintain that it is not. And again, unless you are a Tesla programmer, you don't know what they have baked in for reactions, despite what a hacker might think is happening.
One example: I have taken a certain two-lane road that widens to include a left turn lane (no right allowed). A few updates ago, the car would struggle to determine what to do as the middle yellow line curved left while the white shoulder line stayed straight. It handled it, but with a little zig. As of at least the last update, it handles it as best as I would. I've tried it at different speeds and traffic conditions.
I maintain that while the disclaimer will not change until Tesla is willing to say that they are now officially covering those situations, we don't know what is being baked into AP or TACC. I have a very good feel how the car will operate in almost all situations, including a lane widening to allow parked cars, and even that has greatly improved recently.
I do not rely on TACC or AP in almost all cases anywhere due to the limitations of its brain. I do experiment with it everywhere and I do expect certain things will improve as they implement city driving.
This could be for a different thread, but I have been thinking about what they could implement to start. Certainly start/stop at stop lights while going straight. Stop at stop signs, then prompted to go with a push on the accelerator.
As for cross-traffic, while we are talking about the fairly easy case of a car turning in front of us 5-6 car lengths away causing braking, the more difficult cases will be numerous and more difficult to solve.
Oh my goodness! YES! Thank you! Someone who isn't arguing just to be obtuse. Yes this is exactly what I have been trying to say. I understand that the system *currently* only works under a very limited set of conditions and all the other comments I have made were simply to convey how it "should" work. There are probably hundreds of situations that AP handles that it really has no reason to handle if it were only expected to be used 100% of the time on the freeway with no exceptions. For example, the "you are going to run a stop sign" warning ONLY activates if AP is driving around the city? What other explanation is there for that one?
I would say you dont seem to have understood my posts. Go back and read them and answer your own question. (Hint: You are now making a statement about TACC/AP behavior under circumstances where the manual says it should work.)
Yes? It behaves unexpectedly even in conditions where it is supposed to work. Phantom braking on the freeway at 70 mph is not a desirable behavior and you can't use the excuse "tHe ManUal sAyS nOt To UsE iT In ThoSe CoNdiTiOns."
Which is great, informative, and useful. The point of my (rather too numerous) posts was that, having deliberately used TACC/AP in scenarios that push the envelope, you need to be careful in how you report its behavior:
(a) Make it clear you are using it outside its official limits (to avoid misleading the many new Tesla owners here).
(b) Carefully report when the car does things safely or dangerously.
(c) Avoid saying things like "should have done X" or "failed to do Y" which imply erroneously that the car was expected to behave in a certain way.
People dont read manuals. They just dont. My worry here is that posts that simply say "I was driving along a city street on TACC/AP and the car failed to stop at a red light!!" create a false expectation for someone reading the post that (a) the car is designed to be driven on a city street, and (b) the car is expected to stop at a red light. And that is bad, dangerous, and does all of us and Tesla a disservice.
And what did I say about that? I said, quite clearly, that in those circumstances you have a legitimate issue and have identified an area where the car fails. I dont see how I can make thing are clearer than that. See my earlier post #85:
"So, if you are using TACC/AP in a way specified in the manual, then yes, you can have the expectation that it will behave as described, and deviations from that can be considered failures (such as getting stuck in the left lane, which AP currently has trouble with)."
(As others have noted, this whole thread is drifting into obtuse silliness and shifting positions. I've said all I think needs to be said on the matter.)
I 100% agree with you. A lot of the issue I have seen is that new owners don't know what the car can and cannot do safely. Much of the information here and elsewhere seems to be curated with negative anecdotes suppressed (for various reasons) so the only narrative most people will see is "look how amazing autopilot is!" which is not going to instill the necessary mindset in to those people that they need to monitor the system at all times and be ready to take over immediately. Overconfidence and complacency in the system's capabilities is how you get people running in to things and being killed.
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