What Would Autopilot Have Done?

[AmpManMYP]

Had a dicey moment on I-85 east of Greensboro yesterday. Semi merged onto the highway; I was in the right lane. I moved to middle lane to give him the right lane to merge into. He then proceeded to move across the right lane and head into my middle lane, without so much as a pause or signal. I laid on the horn but he kept coming.

I was forced into the far left lane, which fortunately was open, though a car was fast approaching in it. If the car had been directly on my left when the truck drove me over, I would have been in a very tight spot. Brake hard, and try and hopefully miss them, but I was in the middle of the truck, and I'm not sure I could have braked fast enough to avoid him crushing me.

I was on cruise control at the time (traffic was generally gnarly, and I'm uneasy using AP in those conditions), and have wondered since what AP would have done in that situation (ie, if the car had been next to me). Brake hard? Swerve left? Both?

Here's the video:

It doesn't look too dramatic, since my 'swerve' was pretty controlled. But it was a close call nonetheless.

An aside - being on the short end of this sort of aggressive driving behavior seems to be happening a lot to me since I bought the Tesla. It's making me wonder. It's usually a Semi or a Pickup that's precipitating it. Note in the video that the trucker later uses his signal and conducts a more considerate merge into the far left lane, behind the SUV, after I pulled ahead to get away from him...

And I did send this video to the trucking company, for what it's worth.

 

[siucity]

My guess is autopilot would have slowed down. And it wouldn't have to brake too hard. Changing relative position doesn't take much.

 

[Tam]

...merged...

I don't think Autopilot is very competent at various scenarios of merging so I definitely would be ready to override the system.

I don't think Autopilot is ready to deal with your specific scenario.

It still has a long way to learn how to be as smart as human to anticipate that the truck would not yield and the truck would not just move over one lane from the merging lane number 5 (counting from left to right) to lane number 4 but 2 lanes from lane 5 to lane 3!

That kind of lane changing / merging is a disaster waiting to happen!

 

[DirtyT3sla]

Autopilot wouldn't have even noticed the semi and let you get crushed/hit. I've been in this situation and there is plenty of evidence on youtube (I wasn't recording at the time). It's pretty well documented the car is not great at detecting semi trailers as being obstacles in the road (due to them being high off the ground or what? I don't know). But good thing you were paying attention.

But I think you should learn to get comfortable using AP in heavy traffic. That's like the best use case ever. As long as you pay attention, like any car.

With all that said, if you had autopilot activated when the truck started to merge, the Tesla usually slows pretty aggressively to allow merging traffic in front of it. So the entire situation may have been avoided.

 

[Runebane]

It definitely would slow down. It does that all the time with merging traffic, especially if the car merging is going slower than you and if you had just maintained normal speed you would have passed them with no issues. Autopilot is very break happy.

 

[Knightshade]

Autopilot wouldn't have even noticed the semi and let you get crushed/hit. I've been in this situation and there is plenty of evidence on youtube (I wasn't recording at the time). It's pretty well documented the car is not great at detecting semi trailers as being obstacles in the road (due to them being high off the ground or what? I don't know).

This is not correct at all

It has trouble recognizing a sideways semi trailer- because the system is explicitly not intended to be used where there is cross traffic.

It has no issue at all recognizing a semi truck (or any other truck) in an adjacent lane going the same direction as you... and there's plenty of youtube examples of the car moving out of the way of one on its own for collision avoidance.

Watch Tesla's Autopilot avoid a swerving semi-truck

 

[DirtyT3sla]

This is not correct at all

It has trouble recognizing a sideways semi trailer- because the system is explicitly not intended to be used where there is cross traffic.

It has no issue at all recognizing a semi truck (or any other truck) in an adjacent lane going the same direction as you... and there's plenty of youtube examples of the car moving out of the way of one on its own for collision avoidance.

Watch Tesla's Autopilot avoid a swerving semi-truck

In your video, it is the front of the semi that it is reacting to. I'm talking about the tractor trailer.

You can see in this video that my car was going to merge directly into that semi from the side. I had to take over to avoid running directly into it. Nothing dramatic, I was fully ready to take control and wasn't in danger, it's just a fact.

 

[Knightshade]

You can see in this video that my car was going to merge directly into that semi from the side. I had to take over to avoid running directly into it. Nothing dramatic, I was fully ready to take control and wasn't in danger, it's just a fact.

I'm not sure it is.

For one- the display clearly shows the car sees the semi

It even turns it black showing it's focused on it.

And in the couple seconds before you take over the car is clearly slowing down-from 55 to 52 by the time you took over- meaning it's trying to get behind the truck to merge, not merge directly into its side- at the point you took over the display shows the semi wasn't even close enough to trigger the ultrasonic detection yet (which goes out several feet)- and you only had to slow to 49 to be able to merge in behind the truck- so likely that's exactly what AP was also in the process of doing.


I don't blame you for taking back over, better safe than sorry right?

But this is clearly not a case of what you previously claimed, which was:

Autopilot wouldn't have even noticed the semi and let you get crushed/hit.

 

[MTSN]

Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you just accelerate to get well ahead of the truck? I absolutely loathe being large trucks and semis due to rocks and debris getting thrown everywhere.

 

[KenC]

Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you just accelerate to get well ahead of the truck? I absolutely loathe being large trucks and semis due to rocks and debris getting thrown everywhere.

not to mention, that road did look covered in red clay dust, or whatever it is. Totally obscured the lane markings.

 

[hlin07]

Any time another car tries to get in front of me when I'm on autopilot, I get worried and almost always have to take over. Autopilot simply does nothing and would have rear end the car that cuts in front of me.
Once or twice, maybe a fluke. The frequency of this happening is too much. Just be aware of that.

 

[DirtyT3sla]

I'm not sure it is.

For one- the display clearly shows the car sees the semi

It even turns it black showing it's focused on it.

And in the couple seconds before you take over the car is clearly slowing down-from 55 to 52 by the time you took over- meaning it's trying to get behind the truck to merge, not merge directly into its side- at the point you took over the display shows the semi wasn't even close enough to trigger the ultrasonic detection yet (which goes out several feet)- and you only had to slow to 49 to be able to merge in behind the truck- so likely that's exactly what AP was also in the process of doing.


I don't blame you for taking back over, better safe than sorry right?

But this is clearly not a case of what you previously claimed, which was:

I do my best to push AP to the limit (while making videos anyway) as long as I and the people around me will remain safe. From my perspective in the car, it was definitely not slowing enough to safely get behind the semi, which is why I took over. It may have done it...but I truly believe it wasn't going to, otherwise I would have let it do its thing.

I'm still not convinced the car is very good at seeing the tractor trailer when coming from any angle besides when the tesla is coming up behind it (and even that had issues a few versions ago).

 

[Runebane]

I do my best to push AP to the limit (while making videos anyway) as long as I and the people around me will remain safe. From my perspective in the car, it was definitely not slowing enough to safely get behind the semi, which is why I took over. It may have done it...but I truly believe it wasn't going to, otherwise I would have let it do its thing.

I'm still not convinced the car is very good at seeing the tractor trailer when coming from any angle besides when the tesla is coming up behind it (and even that had issues a few versions ago).

I can tell you from my 1 hour commute each way that the tesla absolutely sees Semis coming into the lane and will almost ALWAYS slow down instead of any other evasive maneuver. Semi getting on the freeway going 20mph and you're going 70? Damn better hit those breaks so they get in front of you! Semi crowding your lane? Damn better hit those breaks instead of moving to the adjacent lane that's empty! All things that have happened multiple times in my commute.