What Tesla autopilot sees at night

[verygreen]

I was kind of surprised of the glare the blinkers put on the repeater cams. The road is still mostly wet from a recent rain.

I also have rain footage, but rain was not too strong so I suspect I need to wait for a stronger one.

 

[1375mlm]

One thing I noticed when driving out in the middle of nowhere was AP’s performance in lowlight, and I mean when I turned all headlights off, no illumination from other side traffic (was none when I tested) and none from adjacent cars (no cars in front or behind me for at least a mile).
It was a little stupid, but I wanted to see what would happen... of course I was extremely cautious and didn’t even think to look away or take hands off.
This was with clear lane lines, no construction
I tried Two scenarios when testing the lowlight performance
One was when I disengaged AP, turned headlights off (no daytime either) and saw the AP option to engage, which I did. It performed solidly and kept within lines like I would have. Didn’t test much with curves, only for less than a minute.
Next, and a little more scary, I had AP on and then with it on turned headlights off. Same result.
Impressive

 

[verygreen]

the car cameras have pretty solid dynamic range so they should do ok in the dark as long as there's at least some light (from like the moon)

 

[1375mlm]

Could have been ambient light from daytimes, I thought they were off but I couldn’t tell. It showed that they were off in the settings (v8)
But still, if they can handle that, then that’s good on them for prepping for lowlight/low visibility times at night
Reassuring for FSD development

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I wonder how well it can see cars without their headlights on?

Recently there have been a bunch of cases where people have been driving without their lights at night. To the point where at least one time I was really worried about changing lanes in front of him because I couldn't see his car clearly (a black car).

For some reason I didn't think of looking at the 360 degree visualization to see what it showed.

My guess is it saw the car better than I can.

Oh, and I have been keeping track of the rear camera. So far there have been zero failures in about a week of keeping track.

 

[verygreen]

Oh, and I have been keeping track of the rear camera. So far there have been zero failures in about a week of keeping track.

for me the most common failure mode now is (if I do turn on rear cam shortly after when the car is truly sleeping) make a short stop, get out (like a super quick shopping visit, make it under two minutes if you can) - when you return to the car - no backup camera detections.

Same thing if I get to the car, open the trunk, start placing stuff inside and so on, eventually I get into the car - no backup cam detections.

It might also stop working not in those scenarios, but I am less sure about those.

 

[djgarrett21]

Orange stripe down the middle indicates you were using AP (not Nav on AP)?

Trying to make sense of the lane markings.
Green=dashed/available lanes
Red=Solid line
Yellow=?
Purple=? (Flashes in the pillar cam)

Interesting how the lane markings change @ 3:25 as you take an exit. Goes from red, to yellow, to green.

 

[strangecosmos]

Great video, but can you add some EDM?

 

[strangecosmos]

One thing I noticed when driving out in the middle of nowhere was AP’s performance in lowlight, and I mean when I turned all headlights off, no illumination from other side traffic (was none when I tested) and none from adjacent cars (no cars in front or behind me for at least a mile).
It was a little stupid, but I wanted to see what would happen... of course I was extremely cautious and didn’t even think to look away or take hands off.
This was with clear lane lines, no construction
I tried Two scenarios when testing the lowlight performance
One was when I disengaged AP, turned headlights off (no daytime either) and saw the AP option to engage, which I did. It performed solidly and kept within lines like I would have. Didn’t test much with curves, only for less than a minute.
Next, and a little more scary, I had AP on and then with it on turned headlights off. Same result.
Impressive

That’s so cool. VG, would you be able to find an area of pitch darkness (might be hard depending where you live) when you could safely stop the car, turn off the headlights, and record what Autopilot sees?

I would love to see a test of Autopilot in pitch dark. But it sounds super unsafe so the best way I think is to 1) keep the car stopped or 2) use a closed road/closed test track.

1375mlm thank you for the scientific result but please don’t crash your car

 

[Seattle Tom]

@verygreen, thank you again! I was curious how autopilot would work at night (since thus far the various videos have been in daytime). This video was illuminating...pun intended.

That glare on the repeater cam and from the lens flare from streetlights was surprising. I still think the vision was good though.

And your rear cam worked on this video too!

 

[verygreen]

New Orange stripe down the middle indicates you were using AP (not Nav on AP)?

not sure what you mean by that orange stripe. This is just AP, no maps on AP (should not really make any differences for the purposes of the video)

Yellow=?

yellow is the in-car reported "unknown.
Purple is "road edge" of some sort we believe.

New Great video, but can you add some EDM?

What's EDM?

And your rear cam worked on this video too!

Yeah, now that I have a non-scientific magic to make it more likely to work than not I am using it whenever I can.

 

[Tezlanian]

I also have rain footage, but rain was not too strong so I suspect I need to wait for a stronger one.

Rural environment next please. Would be interesting to see what it makes of combines, cows and dirt roads

 

[strangecosmos]

What's EDM?

Electronic dance music. Like this:

 

[1375mlm]

1375mlm thank you for the scientific result but please don’t crash your car

Have driven the route over 20 times, it's the houston to dallas stretch. Was doing it at about midnight. But that was a one time only thing, won't dare to try again. Thanks!

 

[verygreen]

Electronic dance music. Like this:

oh, that's complicated, not only tastes differ, I need to find a bunch of free licensed music (one per video), and people would still hate the repeating stuff as they rewatch footage (everybody rewatches it many times since it's hard to concentrate on more than a single camera at a time, right, right?)

 

[GWord]

oh, that's complicated, not only tastes differ, I need to find a bunch of free licensed music (one per video), and people would still hate the repeating stuff as they rewatch footage (everybody rewatches it many times since it's hard to concentrate on more than a single camera at a time, right, right?)

I think he was just teasing you and also poking fun at people's propensity to add distracting music to documentary type vids.

 

[verygreen]

Just got some footage in a fog. Not super dense (at about 1:00 is thick stuff starting), but still noticeable.

 

[pilotSteve]

was the pause for the truck to go by before your car accelerated NoA autopilot? If so that’s pretty impressive!

 

[verygreen]

was the pause for the truck to go by before your car accelerated NoA autopilot? If so that’s pretty impressive!

no. As you can see from the status, it was fully manual at that point, Disengagement was at 00:13 for the exit. Also NoA was not in use at all though I need to start thinking how to visualize that I guess.

 

[SR22pilot]

Nice videos. I'm disappointed that traffic lights don't seem to be recognized. Unless I mossed something that is. I was hoping the code was working to recognize them even if the result isn't being used.