# False Forward Collision Warning



## MrMatt (Jun 1, 2018)

Anyone else getting Forward Collision Warnings when there is no imminent danger? My neighbor's car is parked on the street and I pass it every day and about ~4 times so far in the last 2 weeks since we've had the car, the collision warning sounds and freaks me out. I'm not close to it and not heading towards it and its not moving and i'm only go 25mph. And then today, driving, the alarm sounded and there was no car there. I don't have a lot of faith in this system, but i don't wanna turn it off......

I also notice that it does not detect bikers and does not handle large vehicles (buses and tractor trailers) well at all (it just shows them as other cars). Plus when i'm stopped in first position at a light and there is cross traffic, it seems to think those cars are heading parallel to me and get's all confused and moves the cars sideways! Anyone else see that too?

I expected more from this system with all the hype. I only have free Autopilot, not enhanced.


----------



## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

File a bug with Tesla after one of these occurrences.


----------



## Dogwhistle (Jul 2, 2017)

MrMatt said:


> I also notice that it does not detect bikers and does not handle large vehicles (buses and tractor trailers) well at all (it just shows them as other cars). Plus when i'm stopped in first position at a light and there is cross traffic, it seems to think those cars are heading parallel to me and get's all confused and moves the cars sideways! Anyone else see that too?
> 
> I expected more from this system with all the hype. I only have free Autopilot, not enhanced.


I believe this is just a limitation with the current rendering software. Right now, autopilot can only show obstacles as other Teslas facing parallel to your direction of travel. Bikers, trucks, pedestrians, they're all Teslas. What's really amusing is to sit at a stop in the front position with pedestrians walking in front of you. Mine shows a bunch of cars sliding sideways across my path! I think this will change in future updates/improvements to the system.


----------



## Dogwhistle (Jul 2, 2017)

MrMatt said:


> Anyone else getting Forward Collision Warnings when there is no imminent danger? My neighbor's car is parked on the street and I pass it every day and about ~4 times so far in the last 2 weeks since we've had the car, the collision warning sounds and freaks me out. I'm not close to it and not heading towards it and its not moving and i'm only go 25mph. And then today, driving, the alarm sounded and there was no car there. I don't have a lot of faith in this system, but i don't wanna turn it off......


In your case, since you are getting a bunch of false warnings, you might want to set the system to "Late" notification to try and get rid of them.


----------



## msjulie (Feb 6, 2018)

Mine has startled me on multiple occasions - nothing imminent though. My guess is that if you accelerate when the car in front (even if pretty far away) is not, it thinks maybe you're going to ram it... basing that on a couple of yellow light moderate accelerations.. but it's a guess cause it's done it to me when there's nothing dangerous nearby..


----------



## tim-sutherland (Apr 8, 2018)

I had mine on late collision warning since delivery didn't have any false positives. On my current road trip I set it to the middle selection (can't remember how they label them) and got a few false positives. So I'll be setting it back to late.


----------



## 3V Pilot (Sep 15, 2017)

Mine has been set to "Early" since I've owned the car, thought I would try it out and thought I would have to reduce the setting. That said I think I've only triggered it once and I knew I was approaching a car rather quickly. If you have that many false readings I'd get the system checked by Tesla to make sure the sensors are properly wired and calibrated.


----------



## ateslik (Apr 13, 2018)

I have to drive up a long hill with multiple stop signs to get to work. Sometimes if I’m driving too fast approaching a car in front of me waiting at the sign the alarm will sound even though I am nowhere near close to a collision. If the ground was flat and I was appoaching that fast then mabye. My guess is the collision warning is a calculation of your current speed (distance / time) compared to the available distance to the object in front of you and the time it takes to stop in that distance. When you exceed a threshold where the time required to stop is close to the time it takes to travel that distance it triggers. But it should also take into account the grade of travel in my opinion, since a steep grade helps stopping a lot.

Still makes me piss my pants almost everytime though, dammit.


----------



## Kizzy (Jul 25, 2016)

ateslik said:


> […]My guess is the collision warning is a calculation of your current speed (distance / time) compared to the available distance to the object in front of you and the time it takes to stop in that distance. When you exceed a threshold where the time required to stop is close to the time it takes to travel that distance it triggers. But it should also take into account the grade of travel in my opinion, since a steep grade helps stopping a lot.[…]


Sounds like great feedback. Have you filed a bug report?


----------



## Bernard (Aug 3, 2017)

msjulie said:


> Mine has startled me on multiple occasions - nothing imminent though. My guess is that if you accelerate when the car in front (even if pretty far away) is not, it thinks maybe you're going to ram it... basing that on a couple of yellow light moderate accelerations.. but it's a guess cause it's done it to me when there's nothing dangerous nearby..


Same here, but it has actually done emergency braking on me because it did not realize the road was curving sharply and saw the car coming in the opposite direction emerging from the curve as a car crossing my path at a very short distance. That was rather a shock (and I was lucky nobody was behind me, since they could easily have hit me), so I've learned to disable EAP on any road with sharp turns...
For now, it seems to be aimed strictly at driving on divided highways.


----------



## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

It's important to note that this is not unique to Tesla. False positives are a huge challenge in collision warning / AEB systems. Uber shut off their cars' factory AEB systems (leading to the fatal crash in Arizona) because they felt it was giving too many false positives.


----------



## Charlie W (Apr 23, 2016)

Is there a volume control for warning beeps/bongs (or whatever you call the warning) tones the Model 3 makes?

The other day while my wife & I were driving to a friend's home, I had our Model 3 on Traffic Aware Cruise Control (i.e., I was steering; the car was more or less determining the speed). We were enjoying a quiet country-side drive -- no radio; no conversation at that moment -- UNTIL all of a sudden, an oncoming car made a left-hand-turn, crossing in front of us, and turning onto a side-street. Although I didn't see it as a problem and no emergency braking was needed, our Model 3 disagreed. It let out a LOUD series of about 8 beeps/bongs/or whatever you want to call them, to alert me to the situation. Not only did the loud warning scare the bejeebies out of my wife, but it didn't help with her acceptance of the day when Full Self Driving comes about. It also made me wonder if there is a way to lower the volume -- not turn it off, after all, it does serve an important safety function, but just turn it down just a bit.

~Charlie


----------



## Dogwhistle (Jul 2, 2017)

I had three very strong false-positive braking events on one 300 mile trip with my wife, scared the crap out of her and made her motion sick to boot. We were doing 75, and the car pretty much went into max braking with no one in front of us. She was pretty ticked and now I’m not allowed to have cruise control, let alone autopilot, engaged with her in the car. The benefits of the system are being lost by these pretty significant flaws, really hope it gets sorted.

The errors seem to occur going up hill with an overpass located towards the crest of the hill, putting the overpass towards road level as the car looks forward. Lots of those in western Maryland.


----------



## Bernard (Aug 3, 2017)

Dogwhistle said:


> I had three very strong false-positive braking events on one 300 mile trip with my wife, scared the crap out of her and made her motion sick to boot. We were doing 75, and the car pretty much went into max braking with no one in front of us. She was pretty ticked and now I'm not allowed to have cruise control, let alone autopilot, engaged with her in the car. The benefits of the system are being lost by these pretty significant flaws, really hope it gets sorted.
> 
> The errors seem to occur going up hill with an overpass located towards the crest of the hill, putting the overpass towards road level as the car looks forward. Lots of those in western Maryland.


Similar errors also occur using TACC, triggering braking, although not necessarily emergency braking:
(i) Approaching a large box-like object on the side of the road (such as a "this is your speed" radar display).
(ii) Strong shadows that extend across your lane and are sufficiently broad (not a lamppost, but a large tree or small building --- or an overpass ;-).
(iii) Any car crossing the road at some distance in front of you (coming from the left to enter your lane well ahead of you, coming from the right to enter the opposite lane, again well ahead of you) -- or just appearing to be crossing the road in front of you but actually coming out of a sharp curve in the road; etc., etc.
In all of these cases, no driver would feel the need to slow down, but each time TACC decided to slow down, presumably because its estimate of possible outcomes if maintaining speed included collision and it used a "better safe than sorry" approach.
In a couple of cases, it triggered emergency braking -- annoying, but no harm for me and my passenger, except that I worried in such cases about getting rear-ended, since the driver behind me would certainly not expect me to brake, much less brake very hard.

The more I drive my Model 3, the less I use any automation, including TACC. It's such a pleasure to drive anyway that I'd rather do all of the driving myself -- and it's almost more tiring to keep my foot hovering over the pedals than to actually use the pedals. I use cruise control mostly to set an upper limit when going downhill.
I'll revisit that approach when version 9 of the firmware gets installed -- I hope it will be better at handling intersections and sharp curves.


----------



## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Emergency braking has triggered one time on me in three months (and a real collision was imminent). I had Auto-pilot engaged going down main street at about 30 mph. There was one lane in either direction, a center turn lane, cars parallel parked on both curbs and a lot of side streets and curb cuts for stores. A big box truck was mostly blocking the view of a car on my right, coming out of a parking lot and trying to cross my path while turning left. I could see the cars wheels under the box truck as it pulled up and stopped, ready to enter traffic. I knew they probably couldn't see me due to the box truck and I thought, "no, don't pull in front of me". Then they started to dart in front of me in a manner where I was sure to hit them broadside if I took no action. Since I was only going 30 mph and I could see the pavement was clean and dry, I covered the brake without pressing on it. My plan was to see if the AP would react but I was ready to stomp on the brakes the last second and stop in time. Right before I stepped on the brake the AEB jammed them on HARD for me. Since the other car continued to accelerate hard, I was able to step back on the throttle before the cars some distance behind me had to brake. But, had the AEB or myself not taken any action, we would have broadsided them at 30 mph in a typical urban collision. I know AP is not for such environments but I like to push its limits while keeping close tabs on it.

So I can confirm AEB really works. I've never had a heavy braking event that was unnecessary but AP will often slow down by coming off the accelerator or doing mild regenerative braking in urban situations when it's not really warranted. If I ease on the accelerator manually in these situations, the AP will take over and keep accelerating to the set speed. It's like I'm coaching it, saying, "It's OK Panda, thanks for being careful but carry on".


----------



## 3V Pilot (Sep 15, 2017)

PNWmisty said:


> Emergency braking has triggered one time on me in three months (and a real collision was imminent). I had Auto-pilot engaged going down main street at about 30 mph. There was one lane in either direction, a center turn lane, cars parallel parked on both curbs and a lot of side streets and curb cuts for stores. A big box truck was mostly blocking the view of a car on my right, coming out of a parking lot and trying to cross my path while turning left. I could see the cars wheels under the box truck as it pulled up and stopped, ready to enter traffic. I knew they probably couldn't see me due to the box truck and I thought, "no, don't pull in front of me". Then they started to dart in front of me in a manner where I was sure to hit them broadside if I took no action. Since I was only going 30 mph and I could see the pavement was clean and dry, I covered the brake without pressing on it. My plan was to see if the AP would react but I was ready to stomp on the brakes the last second and stop in time. Right before I stepped on the brake the AEB jammed them on HARD for me. Since the other car continued to accelerate hard, I was able to step back on the throttle before the cars some distance behind me had to brake. But, had the AEB or myself not taken any action, we would have broadsided them at 30 mph in a typical urban collision. I know AP is not for such environments but I like to push its limits while keeping close tabs on it.
> 
> So I can confirm AEB really works. I've never had a heavy braking event that was unnecessary but AP will often slow down by coming off the accelerator or doing mild regenerative braking in urban situations when it's not really warranted. If I ease on the accelerator manually in these situations, the AP will take over and keep accelerating to the set speed. It's like I'm coaching it, saying, "It's OK Panda, thanks for being careful but carry on".


I'm glad you posted a positive review of the system. I've had my car since April and in 8000 miles of driving, mostly on Autopilot, I've only had 1 AEB activation, and it happened when it should of. I set my warning to "Early" on day one and assumed I'd need to dial it back. It's been there ever since and very rarely has it ever gone off. Yes, I get that under autopilot the car will brake if someone makes a left turn in front of me, I just apply a little accelerator pedal to keep that from happening. I think the whole system works great, with some understanding that it's not perfect, but then again I can understand it may not be enough to make others happy with how it reacts. I'm looking forward to version 9 and hoping that things improve but even if it didn't get any better than the current state, it's still WAY better than anything else out there and I'm glad I have it!


----------



## Dale Gardner (Jul 1, 2017)

Finally disabled the forward collision warning a week ago. My sanity has been restored! Should have investigated this more a lot sooner. I looked through the settings a couple times and never found it. I don't have Autopilot, so I didn't know there would be any relevant settings in there. Also, it isn't obvious that the page can be scrolled down for more settings. 

For my experience, I was averaging at least two alerts per drive. It was really stressing me out, and also frightening my passengers when present. 

Similarly, I also disabled the parking warnings/beeping (but I did that the 2nd day having the car). I don't know how folks could stand trying to park with that cacophony of beeping going on.  Way too stressful and annoying. 

I'm starting to wonder if the car's warnings are set too aggressively by default. New owners will not be accustomed to the warnings and tend to panic, since the beeps are very loud and usually difficult to ascertain the cause of the alert. Trying to park in a garage can sound like you're in a fire drill.  Many new owners may be coming from a car which provides no such warning beeps. Or just the standard reverse parking proximity tone. It can be a rude awakening for sure.


----------



## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Dale Gardner said:


> Finally disabled the forward collision warning a week ago. My sanity has been restored!


I adjusted forward collision warning to "Late" and I don't recall it ever going off. Before I made the change it was driving me nuts.


----------



## Mistersandman (Sep 23, 2017)

I get the forward collision notification EVERY time I drive in my neighborhood. It’s always when the street has a slight curve to it and there are cars parked on the curb on my right. I recognize that my situation is a difficult one to assess accurately but it sure does freak out the passengers. Other than my neighborhood it has worked pretty reliably and saved me a few times. I’m set to medium.


----------



## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Mistersandman said:


> I get the forward collision notification EVERY time I drive in my neighborhood. It's always when the street has a slight curve to it and there are cars parked on the curb on my right. I recognize that my situation is a difficult one to assess accurately but it sure does freak out the passengers. Other than my neighborhood it has worked pretty reliably and saved me a few times. I'm set to medium.


Have you tried setting it to "Late"? I can't stand false alarms and this setting has been working great for me.


----------



## Mistersandman (Sep 23, 2017)

PNWmisty said:


> Have you tried setting it to "Late"? I can't stand false alarms and this setting has been working great for me.


No I have not because when I'm outside of my neighborhood I want ample time to react to a real situation. When I first got the car I had it set to early and it sounded almost every time in my neighborhood. But since setting it to medium it has reduced by about half. If only I could set it based on location. Lol. Or maybe it has a late setting when navigating winding roads.


----------



## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Mistersandman said:


> No I have not because when I'm outside of my neighborhood I want ample time to react to a real situation. When I first got the car I had it set to early and it sounded almost every time in my neighborhood. But since setting it to medium it has reduced by about half. If only I could set it based on location. Lol. Or maybe it has a late setting when navigating winding roads.


Of course, there's a catch-22 involved there. Because if you have never tried the "Late" setting, you don't know if there's enough time to react or not. The danger of having it set too early is multiple false alarms will desensitize you to the alert.


----------



## Mistersandman (Sep 23, 2017)

PNWmisty said:


> Of course, there's a catch-22 involved there. Because if you have never tried the "Late" setting, you don't know if there's enough time to react or not. The danger of having it set too early is multiple false alarms will desensitize you to the alert.


I've pretty much been desensitized to alerts in my neighborhood so I'm probably ok. Will have to mess with it next time I'm in the car.


----------



## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Mistersandman said:


> I get the forward collision notification EVERY time I drive in my neighborhood. It's always when the street has a slight curve to it and there are cars parked on the curb on my right. I recognize that my situation is a difficult one to assess accurately but it sure does freak out the passengers. Other than my neighborhood it has worked pretty reliably and saved me a few times. I'm set to medium.


are you talking about the actual collision (4 loud beeps) alert, or the single beeps from when the proximity sensors pass something?
just asking because my neighborhood has a 2lane street, with cars parking on both sides - making it a one lane street that is hardly passible in places and have never gotten anything beyond the proximity sensors. maybe its speed related too... how fast are you going when it beeps?


----------



## Allan (May 17, 2018)

I have mine set to early and I get alerts when I'm accelerating and the car in front of me is decelerating. Seemingly regardless of how much distance is between us. I'm ok with that.

I also get some notifications that I can't quite figure out. It seems that if someone changes into my lane in front of the car in front of me without sufficient space I get a warning. I'm thinking maybe this is a really smart early warning because if the guy in front of me gets cut off he might slam on his brakes which would cause me to need to do so as well. But it seems like this one is a little earlier that I would want the notifications for because it kinda freaks me out a little.


----------



## Bokonon (Apr 13, 2017)

MelindaV said:


> just asking because my neighborhood has a 2lane street, with cars parking on both sides - making it a one lane street that is hardly passible in places and have never gotten anything beyond the proximity sensors. maybe its speed related too... how fast are you going when it beeps?


Question for you and @Mistersandman: do the neighborhood streets you're each referring to have a painted center line? I get collision warnings on neighborhood streets with center lines and cars parked on the street, but do not get them if there is no center line.

Question for @PNWmisty: since changing your collision warning setting to Late, have you gotten any warnings at all? In particular, any that were warranted? I might try it for a while, but like @Mistersandman, my worry is that the "medium" setting has given me just the right amount of reaction time in a couple of sticky situations, so I wouldn't want "late" to be too much later.


----------



## willynillier (Oct 14, 2018)

Mistersandman said:


> I get the forward collision notification EVERY time I drive in my neighborhood. It's always when the street has a slight curve to it and there are cars parked on the curb on my right. I recognize that my situation is a difficult one to assess accurately but it sure does freak out the passengers. Other than my neighborhood it has worked pretty reliably and saved me a few times. I'm set to medium.


I have this exact scenario. Street with a slight right curve. Always the same cars parked in the same spots, and the warning goes off at the same time. It is so consistent that I don't think it is a malfunction so much as micalibration?

I also haven't changed the setting, because it only alarms on that one gentle curve. Considering a different route to get out of my neighborhood...
And - two lanes, no markers or painted lines.


----------



## Mistersandman (Sep 23, 2017)

Bokonon said:


> Question for you and @Mistersandman: do the neighborhood streets you're each referring to have a painted center line? I get collision warnings on neighborhood streets with center lines and cars parked on the street, but do not get them if there is no center line.


That is an interesting observation. I know for sure it does it on a couple points in my neighborhood that do have the painted center lines. I'll have to see if it does it on those areas without. It might not be possible to determine though because I suspect that the lines always appear in the sections of road that are winding. Might be a coincidence but I'll have to pay better attention next time I'm out and will report back.


----------



## Mistersandman (Sep 23, 2017)

MelindaV said:


> are you talking about the actual collision (4 loud beeps) alert, or the single beeps from when the proximity sensors pass something?
> just asking because my neighborhood has a 2lane street, with cars parking on both sides - making it a one lane street that is hardly passible in places and have never gotten anything beyond the proximity sensors. maybe its speed related too... how fast are you going when it beeps?


It's the 4 beeps alert and I'm usually going around 20 mph or so. That's odd though since my streets are wide enough to allow 2 way simultaneous traffic.


----------



## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Bokonon said:


> Question for you and @Mistersandman: do the neighborhood streets you're each referring to have a painted center line? I get collision warnings on neighborhood streets with center lines and cars parked on the street, but do not get them if there is no center line.
> 
> Question for @PNWmisty: since changing your collision warning setting to Late, have you gotten any warnings at all? In particular, any that were warranted?


No, no warnings, just how I like it. Because none were warranted. 

I still have Automatic Emergency Braking on and haven't experienced any surprising braking events.

I really think people shouldn't discount the desensitization that false alarms will cause. A person desensitized by false alarms probably doesn't react as quickly. I'm a big believer in the parable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".


----------



## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Bokonon said:


> Question for you and @Mistersandman: do the neighborhood streets you're each referring to have a painted center line? I get collision warnings on neighborhood streets with center lines and cars parked on the street, but do not get them if there is no center line.


no painted lines on my street, and have one 90 degree corner that normally has cars parked on both sides, often braking at the last moment for an approaching car since you can't see around the parked cars, but typical speed is under 15mph.


----------



## Dale Gardner (Jul 1, 2017)

MelindaV said:


> are you talking about the actual collision (4 loud beeps) alert, or the single beeps from when the proximity sensors pass something?
> just asking because my neighborhood has a 2lane street, with cars parking on both sides - making it a one lane street that is hardly passible in places and have never gotten anything beyond the proximity sensors. maybe its speed related too... how fast are you going when it beeps?


I have the exact same experience as Mistersandman. Curved residential road with cars parked on the right (only the right). No center line, two-way traffic. Speed anywhere from 15-30mph. Consistently a warning every time (the 4 loud beeps). I don't recall ever hearing a single beep, and I've passed vehicles within 10 inches. Is it because I have the parking sounds disabled? Under what circumstances does this single beep occur while driving? Just passing a vehicle too closely?



Allan said:


> I have mine set to early and I get alerts when I'm accelerating and the car in front of me is decelerating. Seemingly regardless of how much distance is between us. I'm ok with that.


Even on medium I would get an alert whenever I accelerated aggressively toward the vehicle in front of me (and that is when they are maintaining speed, not decelerating). Admittedly, that was me fooling around with the quick acceleration of my P-, but still. 

Similarly, every time the car in front of me turns right, I would get a collision alert (on medium).


----------



## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Dale Gardner said:


> I don't recall ever hearing a single beep, and I've passed vehicles within 10 inches. Is it because I have the parking sounds disabled? Under what circumstances does this single beep occur while driving? Just passing a vehicle too closely?


yeah - I think what I hear are what you have turned off. it's more of a soft 'bonk' sound than a beep.


----------



## YesSheKnowsItsAMultiPass (Jun 1, 2017)

Is it weird that after 8,000 miles, I've never heard the collision warning alert? After reading this thread I'm getting paranoid that it's not working!


----------



## Dale Gardner (Jul 1, 2017)

FosterTheCraig said:


> Is it weird that after 8,000 miles, I've never heard the collision warning alert? After reading this thread I'm getting paranoid that it's not working!


What is your setting, medium?


----------



## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

FosterTheCraig said:


> Is it weird that after 8,000 miles, I've never heard the collision warning alert? After reading this thread I'm getting paranoid that it's not working!


Try changing it to "Early", then try to run into the back of a car. 
By that, I mean, continue towards a car stopped at a red light at a constant speed, and plan to brake hard at the end. That should set it off.


----------



## Mistersandman (Sep 23, 2017)

I can confirm today that the 4 beep warning sounded both with and without a lane divider in the middle of the road.


----------



## BostonPilot (Aug 14, 2018)

After reading this thread I just set mine to late (it was medium).

It scared the crap out of me a few days ago driving at night on a dark rainy mountain road. Suddenly got the 4 beep warning, even though nothing was in sight. Just about had a heart attack. There really wasn't anything visible, so I'm not sure what it detected but it was definitely a false alarm.

I've gotten the automatic emergency braking while in TACC a bunch of times. It's not uncommon in Massachusetts for people waiting at an intersection to your right to pull across in front of you to enter the road to go the opposite direction as you are traveling. I guess drivers do this in every state, but maybe Massachusetts drivers cut it a little closer than most? Several times the person did this in plenty of time so that there would not have been a collision even without any speed reduction on my part, yet the system activated. (It's also not uncommon for them to do it fairly late so that you *do* have to slow down to avoid hitting the rear of their car). One problem is that it does an abrupt application of brakes, rather than just slowing down. This of course causes a certainly amount of consternation on the part of your passengers. I had to explain to my wife "it wasn't me, it was the car" because she got angry at the abrupt deceleration for no apparent reason (she's used to Massachusetts drivers).

It would be nice if it could detect this situation, but I think that's unlikely to happen - I'll probably just pop off TACC when I see a likely situation developing.


----------



## kort677 (Sep 17, 2018)

the car on occasion will see ghosts, you may even get the red screen of death. remember, it's only a beta do not depend on it to work properly, always be prepared to assume control at any moment.


----------



## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

kort677 said:


> the car on occasion will see ghosts, you may even get the red screen of death. remember, it's only a beta do not depend on it to work properly, always be prepared to assume control at any moment.


This is true. But keep in mind all the new cars with this kind of electronic safety aid have false alarms that will scare the bejesus outta you!

I was driving my mother and father-in-law on a rural road in their 2018 Volvo (not even being aware that it was equipped with AEB) and came around a bend at 35 or 40 mph when it started screeching like a banshee. Yes, there was a car parked on the side of the road but it wasn't over the line and there was no reason to brake. Scary stuff and Volvo doesn't say those features are in Beta!


----------



## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Coming home last night I finally heard the 4 LOUD beeps. 
Was in congested 3 lane traffic moving consistently at around 15 mph. I was not using TACC or EAP but had at least a car’s length (or slightly more) between me and the car I was following. On the screen, the car highlighted red was not the one I was following, but two ahead. 
So maybe that BEEEPBEEEPBEEPBEEP is so loud so the car I was following could hear it before they rear ended someone 
I thought it was interesting that this triggered the alert, but having a car directly cut in front of you with down to a foot of airspace doesn’t. Or in my case, it is measuring acute changes ahead, as if it measured the second car ahead slamming on its breaks, but the car I was following not.


----------



## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Bokonon said:


> Question for @PNWmisty: since changing your collision warning setting to Late, have you gotten any warnings at all? In particular, any that were warranted? I might try it for a while, but like @Mistersandman, my worry is that the "medium" setting has given me just the right amount of reaction time in a couple of sticky situations, so I wouldn't want "late" to be too much later.


Yesterday my collision warning sounded. It's still set to "late". I was using EAP at about 45 mph behind a pick-up on a two-lane road with a centerline. The truck was far enough ahead of me that TACC wasn't moderating my speed because of the truck in front. Then he signaled a left turn. As he slowed and started to turn onto the side street to the right I eased on the throttle because I didn't want TACC to go into regen. The warning sounded as the truck was only fractionally still in my lane. I was either maintaining 45 mph or slightly accelerating and the warning sounded with enough time to still stop had the truck been already stopped partially in my lane.

I'm sure the timing of the warning varies greatly depending upon the specific circumstance but, in this case, I was very comfortable with the amount of pre-warning the alert provided on the "late" setting.


----------



## Dale Gardner (Jul 1, 2017)

To better clarify, Tesla should rename the settings as follows.

Off: "Peace and quiet"
Late: "Tolerable, maybe useful"
Medium: "Scare the crap out of you randomly"
Early: "Texting while driving"


----------



## ig0p0g0 (Apr 27, 2018)

BostonPilot said:


> I had to explain to my wife "it wasn't me, it was the car" because she got angry at the abrupt deceleration for no apparent reason (she's used to Massachusetts drivers).
> 
> It would be nice if it could detect this situation, but I think that's unlikely to happen


I agree. A "spouse in the passenger seat" detector would be a huge win.


----------



## ADK46 (Aug 4, 2018)

For the record, I've not changed any settings from their "as-delivered" state, and I've not yet had a false alert. But I live in the sticks.

It's happened once in a different car, a 2017 model, where the EB system is not labeled "beta". I don't like the concept of a beta braking system. In software, the term means you might lose data. What's it mean for a braking system?


----------



## Dale Gardner (Jul 1, 2017)

ADK46 said:


> It's happened once in a different car, a 2017 model, where the EB system is not labeled "beta". I don't like the concept of a beta braking system. In software, the term means you might lose data. What's it mean for a braking system?


AEB in the Tesla is not labeled beta. I have AEB active in my car although I did not purchase EAP (Enhanced Autopilot). The settings at the top of the Autopilot page, which fall under EAP, are labeled beta.

Beta does not imply what you stated, even for software. It basically just means a pre-release or non-final version. Generally, it is also made available to a wider testing group (than an alpha release) which often includes at least some of the public. It is almost always opt-in. Meaning, folks that want to use the new goodies can opt-in and try them out, even though they are pre-release and may have issues. But regular customers on normal production release software, will not be default-enabled with any beta functionality. They would have to willingly accept the risks and go opt-in to a beta release/feature.


----------



## ADK46 (Aug 4, 2018)

Dale Gardner said:


> AEB in the Tesla is not labeled beta. I have AEB active in my car although I did not purchase EAP (Enhanced Autopilot). The settings at the top of the Autopilot page, which fall under EAP, are labeled beta.
> 
> Beta does not imply what you stated...


Thanks for the clarification on the status of AEB. Good.

What "beta" implies has changed over the decades. The public was not exposed to it at first. When it became more widely distributed, it was clearly risky - up to and including the worst: _losing data, _a fatal accident in this context. Then came "public betas", where determined people could get it and try it out, warned that it was "Not for production use." Clearly, it could not be horribly buggy for this, but - what, exactly? My impression is that Tesla is leading another step, where _everybody_ gets the beta and clearly expects most people to try it (judges will laugh at the lawyerly disclaimers). This seems kinda new for software, but dramatically new for software that controls a great deal of kinetic energy.

That's what I was referring to, wrongly for the case of the AEB system. But true for auto-pilot. It seems a little odd for life-critical software to be released as a beta version. It's a different sort of "beta", I guess.


----------



## Dale Gardner (Jul 1, 2017)

ADK46 said:


> My impression is that Tesla is leading another step, where _everybody_ gets the beta and clearly expects most people to try it (judges will laugh at the lawyerly disclaimers). This seems kinda new for software, but dramatically new for software that controls a great deal of kinetic energy.
> 
> That's what I was referring to, wrongly for the case of the AEB system. But true for auto-pilot. It seems a little odd for life-critical software to be released as a beta version. It's a different sort of "beta", I guess.


I disagree that Tesla is taking a step where everybody gets the beta. What I've observed from Tesla is that they are essentially following industry conventions and a lot of modern best practices. They release new software in deployment rings/waves. To canaries, employees, early adopters, and general public in carefully controlled waves. Tesla also makes good use of feature flags, and logging/metrics to diagnose issues and proactively make improvements. The beta labels and EAP disclaimer are also inline with expectation.

Disclaimers are important, both from a liability standpoint, and to offer fair and transparent warning to users. There are disclaimers and warnings across an abundance of products. There's a science to keeping people from killing themselves with machines, drugs, electricity, combustible products, and so forth.

However, I do concur that Autopilot is in uncharted territory, and I feel that Tesla is enabling too much even for willing beta users. I'm of the position that there should basically be full self-driving or you are in full manual mode. There are too many people that you give 'em an inch, and they take a mile. I'm reminded of the old Simpsons episode where Homer noticed "hey this car has cruise control", then instructs it "school please", proceeding to lean back and take his hands off the wheel.


----------



## firelegend (Jun 6, 2018)

I have a very curved road near my house in my neighborhood with loads of cars parked on the side of the road in front of the houses, something about how crowded it is with cars, and the curve of the road sets it off every time on that side of the road.


----------

