What are your most common intervention scenarios?

I've been in the beta program since 10.2 and - while there have certainly been regressions - FSDb has gone from being erratic and scary to quite predictable, almost boring! Zero intervention trips are now common, and even my long daily commute only has a couple of them, usually at predictable locations.

On that note, I thought it might be interesting to start a thread about the most common intervention scenarios still encountered regularly by beta testers. My list is below - if these scenarios were mastered by FSDb, the vast majority of my daily drives would be close to zero interventions.

1. Unprotected Left Turns (ULTs): Specifically, the 'two part' ULT. While FSDb seems much better at gauging traffic distance and velocity, the recently introduced 'two part' driving logic (where it uses the median to wait for an opening on the far side of the intersection) is more trouble than it's worth. In my experience, it attempts this maneuver regardless of whether there is actually sufficient space in the median. This freaks out the cars coming from the right, who assume that I am about to drive right into them as my car approaches the median at high speed.
2. Flashing yellow left turn arrows: These are common in my area. The car should behave as if there were no left arrow, and yield to oncoming traffic but proceed otherwise. Instead, it just waits at the flashing yellow even when there is no oncoming traffic.
3. Right turn on red: FSDb still ignores these signs. This one is surprising, because I remember Karpathy describing the challenge of reading these signs in a presentation quite some time ago. I would have thought FSDb would at least attempt to identify these signs.
4. Toll booths: This is technically the old NoA highway stack and not FSDb. I'm hopeful V11 will be better at toll booths. These are E-ZPass toll booths without arms, so the car just needs to navigate through the toll lanes. It also has to deal with the unmarked open space on the other side of the tool booth (for some reason at one location near me there are no lane markings at all for ~100 feet after the toll booth, so all the vehicles just drive in a pack until the lane markings begin again).
5. (Some) speed bumps: FSDb is fairly good at recognizing speed bumps, but sometimes it misses them completely and I have to disengage so that I don't go airborne.

So that's my 'top 5' list of remaining major issues. Anyone else?

"Tesla Autopilot Engaged in Model X" by Ian Maddox is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Admin note: Image added as thumbnail for Blog.

 

[Dewg]

Just following up here with a video where I did not disengage, but count places where I would have disengaged.

Several interventions, and would have been about four disengagements in five minutes. Total of 8 interventions. The interventions were for speed, while the disengagements were for comfort/correcting braking behavior.

This is not a cherry-picked drive - it is the first one I captured and is fairly typical. The number of disengagements really just depends on the number of red lights encountered! (I disengage on every one, basically. For obvious reasons!)

Fortunately, that should be easy stuff to fix, and is likely an intentional implementation. Have not seen a single reasonable length uncut YouTube video which does not show exactly the same behavior, so nothing special about my vehicle here.

Be sure to zoom in on that screen. Really some epic slowdowns on this video - I can’t emphasize enough how exciting and amusing it is to watch.

Thanks for posting. I always get a kick watching these. I was finishing up lunch with a buddy who has M3 and showed him a bit of the video (this was a bit ago when you first posted but then deleted). I played it without sound first, up until just after your first left turn. His comment was "looks pretty good, I like how smooth the turns are getting". I chuckled and then replayed it with volume. We both laughed when you were up to 4 interventions after the turn. "What the hell? Those are interventions?"

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

. His comment was "looks pretty good, I like how smooth the turns are getting". I chuckled and then replayed it with volume. We both laughed when you were up to 4 interventions after the turn. "What the hell? Those are interventions?"

Yep. That definitely is the issue with YouTube. Remember the accelerator is easy to hide (accounting for two of them), and the disengagement is really not obvious in a GoPro video - but the nose of the vehicle is at least 4-5 feet to the left of where anyone normally would be when turning, and the angle of the car is all wrong, resulting in the nose severely cutting off anyone turning - they would have to turn really wide. Or they could just clip you.

There’s no question this is the case - and it’s equally the case that it’s impossible to capture this in video.

You’ll just have to take my word for it. If there had been any traffic (especially if signaling left!) I would have disengaged and hauled to the right, just in case anyone happened to turn left. It is even an obstacle for people turning RIGHT onto Sunset Ridge from Spring Canyon, since they are usually traveling fast and can take that corner a little wide. If you are too far to the left and in an unexpected spot, you could get hit by people turning right off the main road! Interestingly when the creep network engages it usually turns back to the right! Did not happen here because it just proceeded. (I think this is because if it wants to “pose” in the median - which would be dumb here of course - it has to make the wide turn, which requires a right turn before the left turn.)

But yes, definitely four legit interventions right away.

That’s the reason for the live commentary - it makes it easier to understand in real time what is happening.

 

[Dewg]

Yep. That definitely is the issue with YouTube. Remember the accelerator is easy to hide (accounting for two of them), and the disengagement is really not obvious in a GoPro video - but the nose of the vehicle is at least 4-5 feet to the left of where anyone normally would be when turning, and the angle of the car is all wrong, resulting in the nose severely cutting off anyone turning - they would have to turn really wide. Or they could just clip you.

There’s no question this is the case - and it’s equally the case that it’s impossible to capture this in video.

You’ll just have to take my word for it. If there had been any traffic (especially if signaling left!) I would have disengaged and hauled to the right, just in case anyone happened to turn left. It is even an obstacle for people turning RIGHT onto Sunset Ridge from Spring Canyon, since they are usually traveling fast and can take that corner a little wide. If you are too far to the left and in an unexpected spot, you could get hit by people turning right off the main road!

But yes, definitely four legit interventions right away.

Your very first turn was an intervention because it slowed down for the turn? Most people slow down for turns - the minivan in front of me while coming back from lunch in my neighborhood slowed down for right turns. A truck while entering my tract slowed down for a left turn with no cross traffic. Should I be honking at them? Anyways, thanks for the chuckles.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Your very first turn was an intervention because it slowed down for the turn?

It’s fine and normal to slow down, but it is not a stop sign, and visibility to the left is excellent. It’s a perfect rolling scenario when visibility is excellent. There are many intersections in the neighborhood where stopping is appropriate.

For that turn, it should slow down and stop if someone is coming, otherwise just roll on through when it is clear no one is coming.

Not a tricky situation. The idea is for the car to be confident, relaxed, and assertive.

For the fourth intervention it never gets the speed right (as you can see), and actually I was late, because I was chatting, which is why I ended up at set speed of 61mph (an error on my part due to the dialog); normally I would set 50-55mph to match traffic speed, but the car adjusted concurrent with my scroll wheel adjust and I did not notice I had dialed up from 50mph, not 28mph. Fortunately the speed limit is not actually 45mph (speed trap law).

This is a good example of FSD getting me in a situation I would not normally be in - user error resulted in too high a speed which I did not rectify (since I was watching the road and it was a small error - but I lost the pedal feel…).

This would have made the following traffic light stop less violent if the speed had been set correctly. Still would have used the brakes though.

Really a giant screw up on my part overall. And completely avoidable of course if FSD Beta would select the right speed (of course under normal circumstances I would just be pressing the accelerator and not bother with the scroll wheel - or more likely just not be using FSD for this turn at all as it does not help at all).

Looking at the video more - this never gets reset - still set at 61mph at the end - which is actually why the jerking is so bad (normally it does sort of ok on that last level stop).

I’m deleting this video and I’ll do a better test next time…it just is not representative of the typical issues after the speed gets set to 61mph.

 

[johnnycnote]

Just following up here with a video where I did not disengage, but count places where I would have disengaged.

Several interventions, and would have been about four disengagements in five minutes. Total of 8 interventions. The interventions were for speed, while the disengagements were for comfort/correcting braking behavior.

This is not a cherry-picked drive - it is the first one I captured and is fairly typical. The number of disengagements really just depends on the number of red lights encountered! (I disengage on every one, basically. For obvious reasons!)

Fortunately, that should be easy stuff to fix, and is likely an intentional implementation. Have not seen a single reasonable length uncut YouTube video which does not show exactly the same behavior, so nothing special about my vehicle here.

Be sure to zoom in on that screen. Really some epic slowdowns on this video - I can’t emphasize enough how exciting and amusing it is to watch. Pure entertainment.

• At 0:10, you intervened (sped up) because the vehicle slowed down when approaching an uncontrolled intersection. This is what you're supposed to do. You should always slow down at uncontrolled intersections as a safety precaution
• At 0:40, you intervened (sped up) because the vehicle was not getting up to speed fast enough to your liking. Hard to tell, but it doesn't look like this more gradual speed increase was creating a dangerous situation. While I love that electric torque too, should this be called an intervention or is this a driving preference?
• At 03:50, you mention that you're getting into the wrong lane. But it looks like either one of the two left lanes allow for a left turn. Unless you're making a right immediately after making that left (which didn't seem like it based on the nav screen), either lane should be fine
• I'll give you a few, specially the acceleration at 04:50. Even though you intervened (sped up) just prior to that because the car was going too slow

Now I get why you say you have too many interventions, you just like going fast!

 

[Dewg]

• At 0:10, you intervened (sped up) because the vehicle slowed down when approaching an uncontrolled intersection. This is what you're supposed to do. You should always slow down at uncontrolled intersections as a safety precaution
• At 0:40, you intervened (sped up) because the vehicle was not getting up to speed fast enough to your liking. Hard to tell, but it doesn't look like this more gradual speed increase was creating a dangerous situation. While I love that electric torque too, should this be called an intervention or is this a driving preference?
• At 03:50, you mention that you're getting into the wrong lane. But it looks like either one of the two left lanes allow for a left turn. Unless you're making a right immediately after making that left (which didn't seem like it based on the nav screen), either lane should be fine
• I'll give you a few, specially the acceleration at 04:50. Even though you intervened (sped up) just prior to that because the car was going too slow

Now I get why you say you have too many interventions, you just like going fast!

Oh dear, sweet Johnny. You went down the rabbit hole - let's see what happens.

 

[johnnycnote]

...It’s fine and normal to slow down, but it is not a stop sign, and visibility to the left is excellent. It’s a perfect rolling scenario when visibility is excellent...

Not an option. Tesla removed the "rolling stops" feature from FSDb last year due to NHTSA concerns

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

At 0:10, you intervened (sped up)

Actually I stopped it from slowing down further. We still got to 8mph. Did not speed up, just caught the slowing.

You should always slow down at uncontrolled intersections as a safety precaution

The car did. I stopped it from getting too slow (given that no one was coming, as you can clearly see in the video).

Not an option. Tesla removed the "rolling stops" feature from FSDb last year due to NHTSA concerns

There's no stop sign so there's no reason to stop here (and I will try tomorrow but I believe the car will not actually stop - not sure). No one stops here (if no one is coming). It's not required by law unless traffic on the main road exists.

Now that there is a reference point with this video, I'll just let the car do its thing and count the intervention if it is too slow. Should resolve this dispute and give an idea of the car's actions (of course someone could be coming and then we won't be able to compare).

At 0:40, you intervened (sped up) because the vehicle was not getting up to speed fast enough to your liking. Hard to tell, but it doesn't look like this more gradual speed increase was creating a dangerous situation. While I love that electric torque too, should this be called an intervention or is this a driving preference?

People drive 55mph or so on this road (posted limit which is not enforceable is 45mph).
The car does not detect the 45mph limit until the point you can see in the video (0:43, at the traffic light). This means exiting the merge at 25mph (28mph for me) which is far, far too slow, when traffic is coming. I only let it (I wasn't consciously allowing it) do this because there was no traffic. It's not a driving preference. The car should get up to 45mph at least, promptly, before merging.
Here, what happened was:
1) I pressed accelerator out of habit to get up to 42mph coming out of the merge; this was my accelerator "feel" for the correct speed. Note the set speed is 28mph until 0:43. That is when the car detects 45mph (around the traffic light), and adjusted set speed to 50mph.
2) At this point I inadvertently (because I was late to do so because I was chatting, as discussed) dialed up the set speed (which I normally do immediately as the ULT takes place, or before, if I remember) to what I thought was 45-50mph, but was actually 61mph. Because it was added on to the ~50mph automatic set speed.
3) This error, which had significant consequences, persisted through the rest of the video.

In short this is definitely not a driving preference and this intervention (done correctly) will ALWAYS take place (until Tesla fixes it). Next time I post video I'll fix this error, though (and count the intervention of course).

At 03:50, you mention that you're getting into the wrong lane. But it looks like either one of the two left lanes allow for a left turn. Unless you're making a right immediately after making that left (which didn't seem like it based on the nav screen), either lane should be fine

Just personal preference, and not counted against it. Only because eventually it's better to be in the right lane or middle lane (at the freeway the left lane gets stacked up).

I'll give you a few, specially the acceleration at 04:50.

That was due to the incorrect set speed and would not have been as severe if the speed had been set to 45-50mph. The next video hopefully will give a better example (usually it does better at this light because it is ever so slightly uphill, or perhaps just level).

I think with a proper set speed of 50mph the car will do slightly better (the oscillation and pulsing of the brakes will not be as severe, all else being equal).

Now I get why you say you have too many interventions, you just like going fast!

I actually just tend to go with traffic. In this video due to the set speed it was actually faster than I would have preferred for about 15 seconds; that was my error.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Redid this. Did much better with a lower (correct) set speed as expected, but also got lucky.

Only four interventions in five minutes; quite a bit better. I would expect that if I did this drive many times that would be slightly below the median. I would expect perhaps 6 typically in five minutes. Very busy at the ULT could boost that. Lots of factors.

Intervene for:
1) Incorrect stop
2) Set speed
3) Bad slightly downhill stop
4) Bad selection of turning lane (dangerous if traffic nearby)

 

[aronth5]

Disengagements or interventions? What are we discussing here?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Disengagements or interventions? What are we discussing here?

The thread title is interventions. I count interventions and disengagements in my video, even if I don’t intervene or disengage. (For that particular latest video anyway, in response to feedback. Just makes it easier to determine if they were necessary, if I don’t intervene except where required for safety - at least for one run of the “control” route. In future I might intervene to compare and contrast.)