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Literally as written, this sounds like a medical emergency. From the article: "It had its right turn indicator on, but it drifted slowly to the left, into my l
by jsight 5y ago
Literally as written, this sounds like a medical emergency.
From the article: "It had its right turn indicator on, but it drifted slowly to the left, into my lane, before slowly going back into its own lane."
For this to have happened, the vehicle could not have had autosteer engaged. At most, it would have had regular traffic aware cruise control on, which would not have been monitoring for wheel input at all anyway. This strongly implies to me that the operator was at least operating the vehicle intentionally to a significant degree.
In any event, calling 911 is an appropriate response to an unresponsive driver.
- chrischen 5y agoIs it not possible for AP to lose the lane lines temporarily and then self correct?
- bpodgursky 5y agoExceedingly unlikely unless the lane demarcation is extremely bad. Lane-holding tech is really standard and reliable now (and even if you don't think AP is great, it's not stupider than what ships in mass-market cars).
- gambiting 5y ago>>unlikely unless the lane demarcation is extremely bad Which is the case.....a lot of the time actually? At least here in UK the lane marking is frequenly so bad that my Volvo Pilot Assist disengages because it can't see the lanes anymore - and I'm like yeah, duh, I can't see them either.
- WalterSear 5y agoThe lane demarcation on the freeway south from San Francisco is so bad that it frequently confuses me, and I've been driving on it for 20 years.
- borski 5y agoWhich one? I always found both the 101 and 280 pretty clear!
- WalterSear 5y agoMost recently, northbound 101 under the 380 overpass. But, also just before the 92, and through Redwood city.
- NickM 5y agoAgreed, though I'll add that on the very rare occasion that my Model 3 does lose the lane lines a bit, it tends to very quickly jerk back into the lane once it picks up the lines again. "it drifted slowly to the left, into my lane, before slowly going back into its own lane" does not sound like plausible autopilot behavior based on my experience; even if it was on autopilot and accidentally left the lane, it wouldn't slowly go back to it's lane, it would sharply correct itself as soon as it found out what happened.
- jsight 5y agoExactly... and turning on a signal completely turns off autosteer if in base autopilot. Not sure if it could be coerced into automatically coming back on if the car had FSD and the signal was turned back off, though?
- NickM 5y agoWith EAP or FSD, turning on the signal will trigger a lane change
- xyzzyz 5y agoI have lane assist in my 2019 Subaru Outback, and it works well maybe 60% of the time. Most definitely not something I would call “extremely reliable”.
- Lendal 5y agoWell, there is one thing that's stupider. There's no cruise control. It's AP or nothing. If I just want the car to do nothing but hold the current speed, like my 1986 Chevrolet Camaro did, it doesn't have that feature. If the cameras don't work for some reason such as a heavy rainstorm, there's no "dumb mode" cruise control as a backup. I find that annoying.
- ggreer 5y agoIf you pull down once on the stalk, it should activate cruise control, right? It's pulling down twice that activates autosteer.
- jsight 5y agoThat still does TACC. He wants cruise control without TACC. That is not possible in any modern Tesla, AFAIK. I believe the most recent to offer it was the Model 3 SR, which is no longer available. The SR+ and the Y SR both included AP with mandatory TACC. Its weird, as other cars at least offer an option to disable TACC.
- FireBeyond 5y agoI wouldn't be using cruise control during a heavy rainstorm. Standing water and hydroplaning plus cruise control = not a fun time.
- bpodgursky 5y agoYeah this sounds crazy unsafe. Cruise control is for long boring drives down straight highways in high visibility.
- Lendal 5y agoSure, if there's a blizzard or heavy rainstorm that blocks the cameras. Happens in Florida all the time. Rain so heavy the cameras can't see anything but a gray wall of water. In that case AP will emit an annoying audible alarm and disable itself, at which point you are steering the car manually. In these conditions, human drivers will "follow the taillights" but I don't think Tesla allows for that yet. If AP can't see outlines of objects due to heavy rain/snow, it cuts out.
- FireBeyond 5y agoRight. It's situations like this that I point to when people say "AP is safer than human drivers" - because AP is disabled entirely when it is unable to work effectively. Humans don't have that luxury.
- _nalply 5y agoSometimes it can make sense even for humans to stop driving and wait for better conditions. Rarely even humans are forced to give up driving (for example being stuck in snow). Viewed in this light the statement that humans don't have the luxury to delegate is not always applicable.
- FireBeyond 5y agoSure. There absolutely are. But there is a large disparity between "conditions where _ALL_ drivers should stop driving and wait", and "conditions where AP will forcibly disengage, but an average human driver should have no issue carrying on with relative safety".
- jsight 5y agoI've used AP in some situations where I was having a hard time clearly seeing the lines due to the rain. It held up pretty well, with me only very rarely intervening (from memory, 2 times in 100 miles). It probably helped that I slowed down pretty significantly due to the weather. I've also heard that the newer radarless vehicles are a little more picky. In general, I'm surprised at how many things it can handle well, but it does still need a hand on the wheel for the few times that it will fail.
- InTheArena 5y agoWhen AP looses the lane lines, and then re calibrates (usually due to very poor markings), it starts beeping rather insistently that you take over immediately. If you have lane detection on, Teslas will steer you back into the lane, if you start drifting off, even if auto-pilot is off. (This alone is a huge safety feature).
- jsight 5y agoSure, but there's two issues here. The turn signal is on in the other direction. Activation of the turn signal in base autosteer will disable autosteer. Activation of the turn signal in more advanced modes (Nav on Autopilot) will result in a lane change in the direction of the signal. There might be a way to trigger a scenario like this in an FSD equipped car with all FSD related features turned off, and a really careful sequence of events with the turn signal, I guess? I'd have to try it to be sure, but I think it'd actually take some work to do. But that last part does have me thinking it might be possible. The weird slowdown that he reported at the end could be consistent with AP finally giving up on alerting the driver and trying to "make safe" by slowing aggressively and probably going crazy with audible alerts. Maybe then the driver perked up and took off the ramp? But tbh, it all reminds me of a driver that I ran into (thankfully not literally) a while back. They were in an older car, so obviously not on ADAS... just driving that badly and probably under the influence. It happens a lot.
- troelsSteegin 5y agoWhat happens with Teslas on autosteer when an emergency vehicle approaches from behind? Will it safely get out of the way for flashing blue lights (US police), red lights (fire, ambulance). Amber lights - tow trucks? If a police car with lights on pulls in behind and waits, will autosteer pull you over? I am wondering how to safely stop a car with autosteer ON and driver OFF.
- heisenbergs 5y agoApparently, it'll pull over and turn on the emergency blinking lights. https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-autopilot-saved-the-life-of-a-drunk-driver-fell-asleep-while-driving https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-autopil...
- jsight 5y agoWith just regular autosteer, absolutely nothing. Generally speaking, I'd expect the same response out of Nav on Autopilot with the "Enhanced AutoPilot" or "Full Self Driving" features.