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Lets not put the cart before the horse :-) A bug was just discovered (a glaring blindspot, literally) in existing Model S. The workaround was to disable that f

by yardie 10y ago

Lets not put the cart before the horse :-) A bug was just discovered (a glaring blindspot, literally) in existing Model S. The workaround was to disable that feature until a solution is found. That workaround involves a steering wheel. If another bug is found that is similar to this one than those cars without a wheel will sit in driveways until the both the NTSB and NHTSA are satisfied. These investigations can take years and Tesla owners will not be happy about it.

mikeash 10y ago
What feature was disabled? I haven't noticed any missing features on mine.
- yardie 10y ago
  I assumed the hands-free driving was disabled. I haven't driven a Model S but from what I can gather the autopilot is comprised of many autonomous systems aboard. I'd assume Tesla has either told drivers or made some form of firmware update to limit people from doing handsfree driving?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    No, there hasn't been any change on this front lately. They've been tinkering with the various thresholds since the initial release last October, but the overall theme has remained the same: you can take your hands off the wheel for long stretches as long as the car is confident of its own ability, and once the car loses confidence beyond a certain point it will ask you to "reassure" it by holding the wheel. There was a period for a few months where part of that algorithm seemed to include a timer, such that the car would always lose confidence after 3-5 minutes hands-free. But that was long before the current media fluff, and they changed it back to be more dynamic.
    - yardie 10y ago
      Wow. That is reassuring. I'm used to boat and plane autopilots. They disengage quite abruptly and usually after the situation has degraded. Leaving the pilot to figure out why and then take action.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Yeah, that's not good. Tesla's usually does a good job of gently encouraging you to help before things get bad. And with practice, you can learn the situations where it's likely to have trouble and take over preventively or just be ready to.

by yardie 10y ago

mikeash 10y ago

What feature was disabled? I haven't noticed any missing features on mine.

yardie 10y ago
I assumed the hands-free driving was disabled. I haven't driven a Model S but from what I can gather the autopilot is comprised of many autonomous systems aboard. I'd assume Tesla has either told drivers or made some form of firmware update to limit people from doing handsfree driving?
- mikeash 10y ago
  No, there hasn't been any change on this front lately. They've been tinkering with the various thresholds since the initial release last October, but the overall theme has remained the same: you can take your hands off the wheel for long stretches as long as the car is confident of its own ability, and once the car loses confidence beyond a certain point it will ask you to "reassure" it by holding the wheel. There was a period for a few months where part of that algorithm seemed to include a timer, such that the car would always lose confidence after 3-5 minutes hands-free. But that was long before the current media fluff, and they changed it back to be more dynamic.
  - yardie 10y ago
    Wow. That is reassuring. I'm used to boat and plane autopilots. They disengage quite abruptly and usually after the situation has degraded. Leaving the pilot to figure out why and then take action.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Yeah, that's not good. Tesla's usually does a good job of gently encouraging you to help before things get bad. And with practice, you can learn the situations where it's likely to have trouble and take over preventively or just be ready to.