4 ms·
The worst part of phantom braking is not just the need for a sudden human intervention. It’s that the required human intervention is extremely non-intuitive. I
by matthewdgreen 4y ago
The worst part of phantom braking is not just the need for a sudden human intervention. It’s that the required human intervention is extremely non-intuitive.
Intuitively when a car suddenly slows down it feels like the right response is to press on the accelerator: however in my experience this puts you in an unstable regime where you are “fighting” with the car. That is, autopilot continues to try to stop but temporarily accepts your override, but only as long as you maintain consistent pressure on the accelerator. Unfortunately if you even briefly let up on the accelerator, the car proceeds to violently slam on the brakes again. This can lead to a feedback loop where the car’s rapid acceleration/deceleration pattern makes it difficult to maintain consistent pressure on the pedal, and so the experience is like being in a rodeo. Worse, there’s no obvious way “out” of this cycle except to take your foot off the accelerator and let the car (briefly) win.
Counterintuitively, the “correct” way to deal with phantom braking is to avoid the accelerator entirely and instead dive right for the brake pedal: this instantly disengages cruise control. But this is not an intuitive response, you have to learn it the hard way.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoThere's a button on the steering wheel of my Impreza that I can press to turn off the cruise. I press that and then brake or accelerate as needed
- tannedNerd 4y agoIt is interesting that in all the talks with my friends that have a Tesla and have tried other driver assist features from other companies. Is that Tesla is only one we are worried about phantom braking aka a false positive and as such we keep the foot near the gas instead of the brakes. I’ve also developed a reaction to reach for the stalk with my other hand and disable it at the same time so I’m no longer fighting it.
- RangerScience 4y agoProtip: Apply the accelerator override, then up on the right control stick to disengage automation. It's the way to smoothly transition from autopilot to human control. (Then learn when/where/why the car thinks it should be behaving that way, drive it past those zones, and re-engage autopilot. Smooth ride!)
- throwanem 4y ago> this puts you in an unstable regime where you are “fighting” with the car This and your following description sound a lot like analyses of the two 737 crashes caused by MCAS.
- cranekam 4y ago> Counterintuitively, the “correct” way to deal with phantom braking is to avoid the accelerator entirely and instead dive right for the brake pedal: this instantly disengages cruise control. But this is not an intuitive response, you have to learn it the hard way. It is absurd that Tesla is allowed to sell cars that have this problem. Why isn't the NTSB (or whoever) insisting this is fixed and/or removing these cars from the road? They're unsafe. (I had a Tesla; glad I don't now)