When did AP gain your trust?

[Oldschool496]

I was cruising along the 15N without many people around. I initiated lane changes and the car got halfway through a change and swerved back into the original lane

Just guessing here: You may have not held the turn signal long enough or did a short burst instead of fully engaging the turn signal. I don't own a 3, but this running back to the lane I came from happens to me when I do the described. Its normal if that is what you are doing. The car has to make it over the line more then some amount before you cancel or let go of turn signal stalk. If this is auto lane change, then??

 

[ℬête Noire]

Curious how many miles of AP driving you think you did before it gained your trust.

Define what "trust" means here?

I think it is better put I became comfortable with EAP. Most of that happened within days and was a meaningful ongoing exercise for maybe a month to where I felt I understood what it was going to do. I suppose you could say I trust it to behave in a largely predictable manner and that I have reasonable grasp to make those predictions but I don't trust those expected decisions, and non-decisions, to be appropriate and safe in all circumstances. It's like a pet that way, one that will occasionally poop on the carpet if you don't tend it and put it outside regularly.

 

[Rockster]

Trust must be coupled with realistic expectations and an understanding of the tool's limitations. If you understand such things as the need for constantly paying attention, keeping at least one hand on the wheel, using AP in the appropriate circumstances, etc. trust can come quickly. If your expectations are unreasonable, AP will constantly surprise you and continually erode trust.

 

[ebmcs03]

Still hasn’t.

 

[Magnets!]

Not during my 30 day trial. I didn't purchase and was very happy to have my old fashioned cruise control back because it actually works.

 

[sperkin]

Still not trusting AP. I use it all the time, but it has to be babysat because it messes up quite often. Old lines, patches, new lanes, S curves, cars swinging 2+ lane changes, and cars merging on the freeway at the same speed as you usually I need to take over. AP auto lane change is messed up too. It will swerve even when no cars are around. My wife almost lost control of the car. She fish tailed in the RWD using Auto Lane Change last week.

AP is great in LA traffic when speed is always 0-15mph on the freeway though. I just sit in the left lane as this reduces cars changing lanes into me. They can only come from the right side which is safer than in the middle lane where cars are coming in from the left and the right. Stay out of the right most lane cause AP can't handle merging.

 

[corduroy]

After a 2,800 mile road trip with autopilot on 98% of the time in every road and weather condition I could throw at it.

 

[israndy]

Not sure what we mean by trust. In the Navigate on AutoPilot, I have discovered that I can drive 70 miles from my Mother-in-Law's to our exit off the freeway with my hand on the wheel and NO OTHER INPUT. Starting on the country roads just outside her town of Rio Vista.

I trust that it will always drive that route the same, so I would be fine if I fall asleep knowing it will come to a stop off the freeway in Alameda safely. Not planning it, as it's very illegal, but I trust it.

I also know that the 130 mile ride to our cabin requires LOTS of stops in small towns along the highway route and there are turns and humps in the road that I trust the car will always drive the same, in other words, it will turn off AutoPilot and flash the full screen red icon beeping for me to grab the wheel. I would not trust that it would handle me being asleep and would blow thru red lights with calamitous results.

But if the question is when did I start using the feature consistently, then I am like so many others, first day. OS 2018.4.17

I have been riding around w/o touching the wheel this whole time.

-Randy

 

[Sw0rdf1sh]

I became a believer somewhere between Johnson City TN and Asheville NC on I26. Driving basically through the Cherokee National Forest and the M3 handling perfectly at highway speeds.

Man hands were all around the wheel, but that was when I realized what it could do on the highway.

In the City I will reserve comment.

 

[Az_Rael]

Well, never fully trust, but I did start using it every day after the stealth 10.4 AP update way back in version 8. Prior to that, AP2 was.....dicey to say it nicely. So, several months after I got the 3.

 

[ℬête Noire]

Well, never fully trust, but I did start using it every day after the stealth 10.4 AP update way back in version 8. Prior to that, AP2 was.....dicey to say it nicely. So, several months after I got the 3.

Yeah, I was a late-comer to the EAP show. September 2018. By that time there had been a very sizable chuck of sorting out done compared to say just 6 months prior. The improvements since that time have been relatively small refinements.

Maybe the biggest change to EAP since then has been the addition of Navigate on Autopilot feature, and I find that near useless to me at this point. I can't figure out any value proposition from it, it doesn't reliably do things for me in a way I might expect them to and when it does the things it does I don't find them particularly helpful. So after giving it the college try for a while I just stopped using it until I hear it's gotten a serious bump. Maybe that's what EAP in general was like initially?

 

[silentcorp]

I loaned mine twenty bucks and was paid back in a week, that is when I learned to trust my EAP.

 

[arnolddeleon]

My analogy is this one: you and a student driver are at the controls at the same time. So you keep a light touch on the wheel, and let it steer, accelerate and brake. You can also hover over the brake pedal ready to react if anything comes up.
Also that virtual student driver has the strength of a toddler, to the minute you counter the wheel's rotation with a touch of force, you'Ve taken over.

I've used it from the day it became available, and the student driver is getting better with every single over-the-air software update. It might soon get its license. ;-)
I mean, it will now ask you about lane changes (Navigate on Autopilot) and if approved, will execute the lane change. Meanwhile, you are checking the blind spot and mirrors fo any people it might cut off.
It will also properly navigate highway interchanges too. And highway exits. Oh, almost forgot: it is now aware of merging cars when driving in the far-right lane, and does a reasonable job of adjusting speed to let them in.

So I say use it, but as stated before, do not give up trust and awareness: you are the driver 100% of the time. You just have less work to do, as the constant micro adjustments are taken care of for you (staying x car lengths from the car in front, staying in the middle of the lane). You can focus on situational awareness, defensive driving and sometimes, enjoying an extra second of scenery.

This is what I tell people! The person in the driver seat is still the driver in the charge. The only minor difference is where I keep my right foot, it will be covering the brake, accelerator or resting on the floor depending on the situation.

 

[planetary]

Day after I bought my car, I drove about 4 hours to Yosemite, including on some 2-lane windy roads. EAP was in control for about 90% of that drive, with me wide-eyed and anxious to take over. It wasn't perfect, and I was on edge -- but somehow left the car more refreshed than I ever expected.

Steady state: I spend 90 miles/day commuting on 680/880/237 in the Bay Area. 85% of the time, EAP is active. Due to its limitations and legal standing, I wouldn't choose the word "trust" to describe my, ah, relationship with EAP. Rather, I'd choose something closer to "delighted".

 

[israndy]

Navigate on Autopilot [...] I find that near useless to me at this point

Wow! I know it's pretty bad at changing lanes, but it has that issue even w/o NoA activated. I LOVE NoA as it allows me to let the car figure out what lane I was meant to be in. Without that feature I have several times TRIED to follow the cars on-screen directions only to end up going the wrong way after a few closely spaced splits. But NoA handles them perfectly. I can be engaged in conversation and not paying attention to anything but Am I About To Hit Anything and the car does all the real driving.

I do hate that it makes stupid mistakes like asking me to get into the faster lane when I am only going to go 1 MPH faster in that lane, or it will ask me to change lanes to follow route only to ask me to change back to follow route a few seconds later. Also, the aforementioned lane changes where it will pass someone with the turn signal on, start to change into their lane and then SLOW DOWN.

WHAT? Who programmed that?

It also often will pick a TERRIBLE time to prompt me to change lanes, causing a snarl in traffic that it could have seen coming. But that's also on me. I need to better check what it's suggesting, but I find if I wait to OK changes that sometimes leads to a problem.

But I still insist on using the feature, much to my wife's chagrin. And it gets better all the time.

-Randy

 

[ℬête Noire]

Wow! I know it's pretty bad at changing lanes, but it has that issue even w/o NoA activated. I LOVE NoA as it allows me to let the car figure out what lane I was meant to be in. Without that feature I have several times TRIED to follow the cars on-screen directions only to end up going the wrong way after a few closely spaced splits. But NoA handles them perfectly. I can be engaged in conversation and not paying attention to anything but Am I About To Hit Anything and the car does all the real driving.

I do hate that it makes stupid mistakes like asking me to get into the faster lane when I am only going to go 1 MPH faster in that lane, or it will ask me to change lanes to follow route only to ask me to change back to follow route a few seconds later. Also, the aforementioned lane changes where it will pass someone with the turn signal on, start to change into their lane and then SLOW DOWN.

WHAT? Who programmed that?

It also often will pick a TERRIBLE time to prompt me to change lanes, causing a snarl in traffic that it could have seen coming. But that's also on me. I need to better check what it's suggesting, but I find if I wait to OK changes that sometimes leads to a problem.

But I still insist on using the feature, much to my wife's chagrin. And it gets better all the time.

-Randy

Probably two-fold issue for me.
1) Lack of need locally, just isn't that much Byzantine stuff like that and I drive it so very little any that might get close to it.
2) Likely more key is flawed local data leading to flawed routing choices.

The day it got fired, after I humoured several miles of dubious lane choices (both of the accomplish-little, and leaving-chances-on-the-table varieties), it directed me onto the service road, through 2-stop lights, and a lefthand turn then onto the new elevated highway. When the clear and obvious choices was to take the lefthand flyover directly from one to the other. Cost me 5 minutes of putzing around like that? Yeah kid, good news. After you clean out your locker and head home you'll have lots of Netflix binge time ahead of you.

When the day comes that I find myself upon the West Coast in appropriate terrain, say the Bay area, he might get a call-back.

 

[ljbad4life]

I do not trust AP 100%. I remain vigilant and attentive while it's in use. I have come to know the weaknesses of AP and I will immediately take over BEFORE the situations occur. If I'm going into a construction zone, I take over. Why wait to see if AP can handle it, same thing goes for entrances on the right and an exit on the left right after, tons of cars moving across lanes. There are situations where I know I have out performed AP and there are situations were AP will outperform me.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I'm going to assume that in trust you mean when does your anxiety towards it go down significantly.

For me this was a matter of days with TACC on AP1. It was around a month or so for AP, but then it did things like truck lust which was a little scary. I also recognized that I was starting to lose situational awareness. Where I wasn't responding to things like debris on the road as quickly as I did with just using TACC. Eventually I decided to just use TACC, and I didn't really miss AP.

With AP2 I'm a little less trusting of TACC, but I've gotten accustomed to when to expect some false braking to occur. Like during a lane change when there is a semi next to the lane I'm changing into.

With AP on AP2 it's a hard to say.

If it didn't nag me so much I'd use it more. The level of nags with a Model 3 is really quite high, and it seems to be a common complaint with AP on the Model 3. For me it simply refuses to acknowledge that my hands are on the steering wheel unless I purposely create torque (by turning it slightly) or if I hold the steering wheel entirely wrong (lower right hand side with palm down). It's a lot more annoying to use than my Model S was with AP1. With that one I could hold it one handed on the lower right (palm up) and it was fine.

I do use it quite often during poor visibility. It's not so much that I trust it, but that it adds a level of validation of what I'm seeing that it feels comforting.

So good visibility -> TACC
Bad Visibility -> AP

I'll likely use AP more once NoA is improved. I shelved NoA for now because it doesn't work so great in WA state.

I can't speak to anyone else about how they drive, but I tend to choose which mode to use on what reduces anxiety/fatigue the most. I can't wait for NoA to get better because i really like being in the correct lane miles before I need to be. Once it works in WA as well as it works in CA (from what I've heard from CA people) it will at least be useful.

 

[Tam]

I have used Autopilot about more than 30,000 miles (Model X and 3 combined) for the past 2 years and I still don't trust it.

But I still use it almost all of the time. The only time that I don't use it is when it protests and refuses to engage.

And I love to use it because it has been very useful and safe as long as I supervise it at all times.

 

[ℬête Noire]

The level of nags with a Model 3 is really quite high, and it seems to be a common complaint with AP on the Model 3.

I suspect this is rooted in expectations and habits built by prior versions. I've driven nothing but "high nag" and I fairly quickly learned how to avoid it most of the time. I'm always putting a bit of pressure left or right, depending on where I want to default the vehicle towards/away from if something unexpected happens. The toughest is when the road is dead straight, or for some other reason there is no preference for a default direction.

At one point I still had issues where I'd occasionally get to the "flashing red hands" because I'd not noticed the blue. But one really good long trip is all it took for me to get that out of my system. Now, unless it's the car reporting that it's lost the lay of the lanes, I'm seeing maybe every 1000 mi or less?

I've had some things test my "situational awareness" and the outcome of that testing has given me confidence that I am indeed on top of matters to a degree I find acceptable. No "darting 'possum stew" was had that evening but my car remained free of splatter patterns, so I'll call the outcome a break-even.