I am currently in the middle of a 500 Mile Road Trip and I am extremely displeased with the autopilot update. It seems no matter how I squeeze, push or do whatever to the steering wheel there is no simple way 2 make the hold steering wheel notification go away. My hands are feeling very fatigued my focus on the road is about as bad as it can be since these notifications come up every 12 seconds. I personally would not go through this again on a future road trip. Not using autopilot in my opinion would be way safer based on what this is causing me to do. I know they are trying to make people be more attentive but I think this was a big swing-and-miss and is anything but relaxing to drive. Version I'm on is 2018.21.9. . If you are planning a road trip in your car and like using autopilot I would not get the software update not only cuz it's extremely annoying I believe it is way less safe. Now it did mention something about autopilot being better when merging on a highway but that's something that is a very rare situation verses taking your focus off the road every 12 seconds to give the steering wheel a personal massage to make it shut up.
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Would not update car if you have a road trip coming soon
- Thread starter TikiNiki
- Start date
I find that if I wrap one hand or both near the bottom of the steering wheel (7 o'clock for the left or 5 o'clock for the right), relax my arms, and allow the wheel to carry my hands/arms around as it moves, it provides a good balance of sufficient torque to register as hands-on and relaxation for my hands/arms. I also positioned my seat and steering wheel such that my arms don't have to be raised far above my lap. And if something goes awry with the auto steer, my hands are already on the wheel and ready to respond. As a disclaimer, this is just my preference, so try it at your own risk. 
Enjoy the rest of your road trip!
Enjoy the rest of your road trip!
Butane
Member
I think you're being a bit overly dramatic. My commute is 60 miles of freeway everyday and I have no real issues that I didn't have before with the nagging. Remember (or maybe heads up) Tesla detects the presence of your hands by their resistance to the motion of the wheel. Apply a steady, light torque to the wheel and you'll never have the issue. Personally, I have a light enough touch steering normally, it nags for my usual hand grip. A slight change solved the issue for me.
I use autopilot every day and haven’t noticed a difference at all. Am on the latest software too. I usually keep both hands on the wheel or sometime/ my left arm resting on the door and hand on the wheel. In the past, I would let the wheel do all the work and got bunch of alerts, now I help it steer with the sightest pressure on turns and very rarely get any alerts. It certainly requires a certain finesse I think that changes with the updates. Keep using it til you find your comfort zone with it. I love autopilot and TACC, makes highway driving so much better.
Pkmmte
Le meow
Oh crap, I just updated to that version last night and have a road trip coming up in 3 weeks from now...
It wasn't that bad on my commute to work, though. It came up every 50-ish seconds for me like it normally does. I usually just pull the bottom right of the steering wheel slightly using two fingers as if I were pulling someone's hair.
Still, given these complaints, I wouldn't be surprised if people start demanding Tesla to provide a free "AutoPilot Buddy" accessory for them.
It wasn't that bad on my commute to work, though. It came up every 50-ish seconds for me like it normally does. I usually just pull the bottom right of the steering wheel slightly using two fingers as if I were pulling someone's hair.
Still, given these complaints, I wouldn't be surprised if people start demanding Tesla to provide a free "AutoPilot Buddy" accessory for them.
EV-lutioin
Active Member
It seems that a good amount of people complaining about the increased nag may be trying to dismiss it in the wrong way. Squeezing the wheel isn’t going to do anything. All that needs to be done is apply a little bit of torque (clockwise or counterclockwise) on the wheel. I’ve been just applying a small amount of resistance to the steering that AP is doing on its own and it seems to be satisfying the “hand detection” for my case. This is what I was also doing to satisfy AP that I had a hand on the wheel on previous software versions as well so I really haven’t had to change my behavior when AP is active.
mtndrew1
Active Member
You need to apply slight resistance against the rotation of the steering wheel to prevent nags.
There is no pressure sensor in the steering wheel rim anywhere. Squeezing, pushing, or pulling will never register. The car will be gently steering itself left and right as you go down the road and any bit of resistance against the car’s effort to steer will register and prevent nags.
Try resting your hand on one of the wheel spokes while the autopilot steers. I get virtually no nags on autopilot this way even on the new version.
View attachment 309517
There is no pressure sensor in the steering wheel rim anywhere. Squeezing, pushing, or pulling will never register. The car will be gently steering itself left and right as you go down the road and any bit of resistance against the car’s effort to steer will register and prevent nags.
Try resting your hand on one of the wheel spokes while the autopilot steers. I get virtually no nags on autopilot this way even on the new version.
View attachment 309517
Pushing and squeezing would make me tires also. Luckily, those have nothing to do with the no hands warning.
What it is wanting is a slight rotational pressure. The same type of pressure (but less) that it would take to turn off the autopilot when turning the wheel.
If you are on a curvy road, just holding the wheel kinda still works, but if you are on a straight road, just add a little pressure to turn the wheel.
It requires very little pressure. If you are getting tired, then you are doing the wrong thing.
What it is wanting is a slight rotational pressure. The same type of pressure (but less) that it would take to turn off the autopilot when turning the wheel.
If you are on a curvy road, just holding the wheel kinda still works, but if you are on a straight road, just add a little pressure to turn the wheel.
It requires very little pressure. If you are getting tired, then you are doing the wrong thing.
Squeeze and push do nothing. You need to turn the steering wheel lightly. Just like canceling Autosteer by turning the wheel, except using less force. It can be done with one finger at the bottom of the wheel, not hard at all.
I've settled a similar technique to quell the nag, but it seems less safe than the old 10 and 2 that always causes nags for me. Tesla needs to work on better detection if it's going to be so prone fo false negatives. People should be able to just drive the car and not have to learn a different way to hold the steering wheel because the car can't detect your normal grip reliably.
insaneoctane
Well-Known Member
The parallel to Apple's "You are holding it wrong" are astonishing! I find it also a bit ironic that just days after Elon expressed how Tesla's cars "aren't built by the marketing department, the finance department." We get a EAP update that clearly came from Tesla's legal department!
Either this is a hoax, there's something wrong with your car, or you're really doing something wrong. See the above posts and the next paragraph regarding the latter.
On mine, the nag is about the same on surface streets and more frequent on the highway. BUT, the sensitivity of the steering wheel to cancel/prevent the nag seems much more sensitive. Prior to the update, I had to put my hand up off of my leg a few inches on the steering wheel so that the weight of my arm would put enough torque on the wheel for it to sense me. Now, even on a straight road, I can rest my arm on my leg and simply hold the wheel with my left hand at about the 7:00 position. The resistance of my hand on the tiny corrections that AP uses to stay in the lane is enough. It takes significantly more effort to keep my head upright to watch the road than to do this so there's absolutely no way it causes any fatigue. Though I am starting to get arthritis in my thumbs so maybe on a multi-day road trip I'd get sore enough to need a couple ibuprofin.
The nag is super lame. Blame the dumbasses who completely quit watching the road and killed themselves, ran into fire engines, etc. and then they or the media blamed AP/Tesla.
I'd strongly prefer to have the inside camera verify that I'm watching the road and let me take my hands off of the wheel... at the very least on the highway. As long as I'm paying attention and preemptively take over when I see something coming that AP can't handle, I'm perfectly safe. Everything has to be engineered for the dumbest person punishing the rest of us. I'm not seriously this cold hearted and it would be a PR disaster for Tesla... but there's a part of me that wishes they would just get rid of the nag completely and let natural selection take its course.
Having completed my trip and checking on these responses on my next supercharger stop as well as playing with it alot longer here is how I see it. Overall still do not like the update. The hold wheel steady or the slight movement you get in wheel while it stays in autopilot does not work well. It goes in the same category I found from all the squeezing, pulling pushing of the wheel I experienced where it felt like it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. The only thing that really worked continously was the split finger hold that mtndrew1 demonstrated in his attached picture. My only gripe is I don't feel like I have that much control holding it like this in the event I need to take over the wheel suddenly. Not sure if this is because it's not how I'm used to holding a steering wheel or not but in the event of an emergency, I want to be able to hold the wheel in how I'm used to doing it. Appreciate all the tips though
mtndrew1
Active Member
TikiNiki, I also have found that this new update seems to have problems noticing my hands on the wheel. I drive with them on the wheel all the time, and had gotten to a place I rarely have experienced nags. Now it is very annoying, and I twice had to apply so much torque that autopilot disengaged.
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