Why don't FWD open conservatively all the time?

[redox]

I have a Model S and looking into an X, and I've been a bit concerned about FWD, in particular their inability to detect things like poles, hydrants, etc...

I see a few videos of "fails" on youtube, and was wondering why Tesla doesn't simply lift the FWD with the most conservative pattern (the one that uses the least amount of width) all the time, rather than try to allow itself to get close to the vehicle nearby during the lift process, thereby "shaving" it.

In many of those "fail videos", the issue isn't that the obstacle (pole, etc) is too close, it's just that it's not detected. If the car was always opening (and closing) conservatively, with the pattern that uses the least amount of width, a lot of these failure cases would not exist.

I see that the FWD can actually open with very little width (see Elon's demo and plenty of YT tests), so why not use that all the time? Is there any reason?

 

[NoSoup4U!]

Hi redox, good question! When they open tightly to the side, they protrude higher above the roof than when they open normally, risking hitting low ceilings and such. We’d be trading one risk for another.
I have an X since December and found that the best option is to watch them operate when in close quarters with pipes hanging from ceilings or even large mirrors on neighboring cars. Keeping in mind that there’s only a sensor in the middle of the lower part of the door. Most Times, there is enough room for them to open normally.

 

[redox]

Hi redox, good question! When they open tightly to the side, they protrude higher above the roof than when they open normally, risking hitting low ceilings and such. We’d be trading one risk for another.
I have an X since December and found that the best option is to watch them operate when in close quarters with pipes hanging from ceilings or even large mirrors on neighboring cars. Keeping in mind that there’s only a sensor in the middle of the lower part of the door. Most Times, there is enough room for them to open normally.

Thank you for your answer. I understand the trade-off.

With that in mind, I'd personally prefer if the trade-off was more conservative on the width rather than height, as I spend more time in outdoors than in garages, but perhaps the damage is worse in a "height accident", so the conservative slider was set the other way on the trade-off.

I would think there's quite a few improvements that could be made with the existing hardware. Perhaps they're already working on improvements.

First, a simple "garage" vs "open air" environment detection (same algorithm that decides to turn lights on in garages) could determine which setting for the trade-off to use (width vs height).
Second, keeping a history of distances from door sensors would help the car know that it "saw" something 1 foot away from the door when we were parking, "2 feet ago", so even if it doesn't detect it "right now", it knows it's there, 2 feet "behind the sensor".
Third, use the cameras and Machine Learning with Image segmentation to detect a pole or fire hydrant or something else at a distance from the body of the car.

Yeah I know, easier said than done.

None of these replace the existing mechanisms of detection: if the sensors detect an obstacle from side or top, the movement would always stop. They would simply be safer fallbacks when the sensors don't detect anything.

Cheers!

 

[NoSoup4U!]

One thing I like about the doors, you can set the opening height by location. That helps when parking at work in garage or at home.
You’ll love the X, we have an s and x and I prefer the SUV any day!

 

[inconel]

Just guessing but there might be more mechanical stress when the FWD is opened with the tight pattern.

 

[TJtv]

First, a simple "garage" vs "open air" environment detection (same algorithm that decides to turn lights on in garages) could determine which setting for the trade-off to use (width vs height).

It already does this. There’s software in there that essentially checks for an I under something right now, or have I somewhat recently drive under something with low height clearance. It uses that information to decide which method to open the door with and how high to open it.

The other thing is that using the tight opening method is significantly slower than the wide method. It’s already slow enough as is when it uses the wide method, I’d hate it even more if It used the slower tight method more frequently.

 

[redox]

It already does this. There’s software in there that essentially checks for an I under something right now, or have I somewhat recently drive under something with low height clearance. It uses that information to decide which method to open the door with and how high to open it.

Good to know, thanks!
I was wondering about that because I saw a video of "FWD fail" on YouTube where the guy was showing how the X was having trouble in a parking garage. The parking garage didn't have low ceiling, but it had fire extinguishing pipes that were lower than the ceiling, so the car didn't "see them", but also didn't seemed to have learned that it had gotten into a garage, so it didn't use the "minimize height" option to deploy FWD.

 

[jboy210]

Good to know, thanks!
I was wondering about that because I saw a video of "FWD fail" on YouTube where the guy was showing how the X was having trouble in a parking garage. The parking garage didn't have low ceiling, but it had fire extinguishing pipes that were lower than the ceiling, so the car didn't "see them", but also didn't seemed to have learned that it had gotten into a garage, so it didn't use the "minimize height" option to deploy FWD.

The sensors are in the center of the roof between the two FWDs. You can see them if you look. They look just like the ultrasonic sensors on the front and rear bumpers. So if the obstructing object is in the ceiling but off to the side sometimes the obstruction is missed.

As I understand it, there are also sensors in the doors themselves to detect vehicles right next to the lower portion of the FWD.

 

[Uncle Paul]

The doors open the way they normally do, because they open about twice as fast that way. Same with closing.

If the sensors see nothing in the way they will open in the quickest and most efficient manner.

After you own the car for a while you will get a good sense of when the doors will open fully and when they will hug the car while opening.

They really are quite amazing.

 

[Mine GO BOOM]

I've been using the X for three years. I have not hit anything with the doors, even when parking near cars, poles, etc. And I get the experience as I live and park in NYC, so poles anywhere on the street, low ceiling height in parking garage everywhere, and people who ignore parking lines in parking lots. Sometimes I get all three at the same time.

The car is pretty intelligent about all of it. The only times I care about the door path when opening is in the same situations that I would be careful about opening the driver door. In fact, I worry more about opening the front doors in any car (including my X) than the FWD. The few times I need to baby opening the doors are in very low ceiling parking lots. Even then, when babying opening the doors by holding the buttons and watching, I end up discovering they can open pretty high.



I've found the few things they can't detect is large truck's massive side mirror that are not folded. But I usually end up parking next to those where they line up with my mirror and not the FWD. If they are lined up with the FWD, I'll watch them opening. I think I had to stop it maybe twice? Probably didn't need to, but was operating out of caution.

In those situations where you are really worried, when you press and hold the door opening or closing buttons, they move very slower, and do open in the least-likely path to bump into anything. If low ceiling, they'll go up a bit, then wide, then up more. Otherwise, they'll go up the highest, then out.

 

[mbp11]

I am posting to this topic to hijack it slightly to get an opinion from other MX owners who are smarter than me. I am very concerned about safety in the Model X and one of the issues is how to get out of the rear seats and open the FWDs in case of an accident or a catastrophic power failure. The front seats are easy, they work whether powered or not, but the rear doors are entirely dependent on power, unless you pull the speakers out and pull the emergency release.

I THOUGHT there was a cable there behind the speakers that you could pull and get the doors unlatched, and so I NAIVELY thought that I could run a red or yellow loop or belt of material around the cable on the inside, and have it hang out the speaker grill for emergency exit.

To my surprise, I pulled the speaker grills today and find a small, thin, 0.35 inch cable in the door that leads to the bottom release, and there is the smallest knob attached, like a bicycle cable end, and not a loop as I expected. How do I feed this to the outside as an emergency exit??? There is no way of attaching this to an emergency grasp for an emergency exit.

My quick solution today is the run the cable to the outside of the speaker cover for now so if my passengers need to, they can pull the thin wire. This releases the bottom latch and the door counterweights will hopefully release the rear seat occupants. Has anyone else thought about another solution?

Mike P