# Does autopilot get better with time?



## htrajan (Jun 19, 2017)

Just took delivery today (squeee!) and autopilot became available after about 40mi of driving. I activated it on a very standard highway (CA 101) and found it right away favoring far closer to the right edge of the lane than I'm comfortable with. There was also another situation where a bus was in the lane over to the left and came close to swerving into my lane (and hitting me) but AP just held steady. I gave that a nope and steered away from it, breaking out of AP. Anyone have similar experiences on the very first day or early into ownership in general?


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

Autopilot doesn’t get better with time in the sense that you’re asking. In other words it’s not learning your roads and preferences and directly apply that learning to the “next drive”. 

Tesla is recording the data though and uses all data coming into to improve autopilot with software updates. Often big improvements that go unannounced in fact.


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## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

htrajan said:


> Just took delivery today (squeee!) and autopilot became available after about 40mi of driving. I activated it on a very standard highway (CA 101) and found it right away favoring far closer to the right edge of the lane than I'm comfortable with. There was also another situation where a bus was in the lane over to the left and came close to swerving into my lane (and hitting me) but AP just held steady. I gave that a nope and steered away from it, breaking out of AP. Anyone have similar experiences on the very first day or early into ownership in general?


File a bug report through the vehicle when AP does something you don't like.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

htrajan said:


> Just took delivery today (squeee!)


Congrats!


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## Ken Voss (Feb 2, 2017)

htrajan said:


> Just took delivery today (squeee!) and autopilot became available after about 40mi of driving. I activated it on a very standard highway (CA 101) and found it right away favoring far closer to the right edge of the lane than I'm comfortable with. There was also another situation where a bus was in the lane over to the left and came close to swerving into my lane (and hitting me) but AP just held steady. I gave that a nope and steered away from it, breaking out of AP. Anyone have similar experiences on the very first day or early into ownership in general?


What you are experiencing is not a flaw in EAP, it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. What you are experiencing is a different behavior from your own human driving style. Many human drivers (myself included) naturally favor staying a little left in the lane while EAP keeps the car perfectly centered in the lane, when you are behind the wheel this definitely feels odd at first.

As human drivers when we pass a big truck. say in the lane to the right of us, even though the big truck is fully in its own lane, we tend to slide over to the left side of our lane to provide a few inches of extra space between us and the truck as we pass. This is a natural human fear based emotional reaction, however EAP only knows logic and has no emotion, no fear, so instead its logic says vehicle to my right in its own lane so I should stay the course and keep centered in my lane.

It takes time to get used to this and it "feels" unnatural at first but it is not wrong. Since getting my Model 3 and using EAP I have observed how badly human drivers really are.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Ken Voss said:


> What you are experiencing is not a flaw in EAP, it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.


I agree. But I think at some point in the future, EAP will be updated to perform this same sort of "stay away from the car beside me" logic. Having more space gives you (or the car) more time to react if something goes wrong, like that semi blowing a tire and suddenly veering towards you.


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## 3V Pilot (Sep 15, 2017)

garsh said:


> I agree. But I think at some point in the future, EAP will be updated to perform this same sort of "stay away from the car beside me" logic. Having more space gives you (or the car) more time to react if something goes wrong, like that semi blowing a tire and suddenly veering towards you.


Or this is the beginning of the machine teaching us how to accept it's behaviors before Skynet takes over. Either way, we're all doomed in the end...... Lol..... Yes, I'm just kidding!


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## htrajan (Jun 19, 2017)

Ken Voss said:


> What you are experiencing is not a flaw in EAP, it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. What you are experiencing is a different behavior from your own human driving style. Many human drivers (myself included) naturally favor staying a little left in the lane while EAP keeps the car perfectly centered in the lane, when you are behind the wheel this definitely feels odd at first.
> 
> As human drivers when we pass a big truck. say in the lane to the right of us, even though the big truck is fully in its own lane, we tend to slide over to the left side of our lane to provide a few inches of extra space between us and the truck as we pass. This is a natural human fear based emotional reaction, however EAP only knows logic and has no emotion, no fear, so instead its logic says vehicle to my right in its own lane so I should stay the course and keep centered in my lane.
> 
> It takes time to get used to this and it "feels" unnatural at first but it is not wrong. Since getting my Model 3 and using EAP I have observed how badly human drivers really are.


Ok yeah, I might have just been a little squeamish driving in a $50K (after taxes and incentives) vehicle for the first time (I've never owned a vehicle with a value in excess of 5k before). I'll try to be less pushy with it.


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## Maevra (Oct 24, 2017)

htrajan said:


> Ok yeah, I might have just been a little squeamish driving in a $50K (after taxes and incentives) vehicle for the first time (I've never owned a vehicle with a value in excess of 5k before). I'll try to be less pushy with it.


Congrats on getting your car! 

+1 to what the other folks said on here. AP does like to stick the car right smack in the center of a lane and sometimes it gets kinda hairy. I've been next to big trucks/buses and it's unnerving to see them so close, but AP will not move. I imagine the computer logic is like "hey I'm in the center of my lane, you're the one too far to the right/left so you move." At that point you just have to take over and adjust.

I naturally favor the left side, so whenever I turn on AP (or am behind other Teslas that activate AP) you can see the moment AP comes on because the car "moves over" at least a few inches to get in the middle of the lane.


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## SinginJer (Apr 25, 2018)

I just got my car Wednesday, and took it from the bay area to LA last night, so had a nice long ride using AP. I similarly thought it was driving more to the right of the lane than I expected. However, it felt like when it passed another vehicle, it moved slightly towards the left.

And, for me, AP was available very quickly. I drove from Fremont to my office near Levi's stadium, and I started noticing the AP Available icon on 85 before I got to 280 (for those familiar with the Bay Area highways). Maybe 15 miles total.


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## teslaliving (Apr 2, 2016)

The most annoying thing to me is if you're in a 3 lane divided highway on AP at almost every exit/entrance it swings right as the line disappears and then shifts back left again when the merge/exit is done. Its terrible behavior and pretty dumb. In the middle and left lanes it's wonderful, but the right its not really safe unless you're crawling.


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

teslaliving said:


> The most annoying thing to me is if you're in a 3 lane divided highway on AP at almost every exit/entrance it swings right as the line disappears and then shifts back left again when the merge/exit is done. Its terrible behavior and pretty dumb. In the middle and left lanes it's wonderful, but the right its not really safe unless you're crawling.


This must vary by location. That actually never happens to me here with the car continuing to go straight even in the right lane. The only time my car wavers in AP is if the lane widens before splitting.


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## Rich M (Jul 28, 2017)

teslaliving said:


> The most annoying thing to me is if you're in a 3 lane divided highway on AP at almost every exit/entrance it swings right as the line disappears and then shifts back left again when the merge/exit is done. Its terrible behavior and pretty dumb. In the middle and left lanes it's wonderful, but the right its not really safe unless you're crawling.





SoFlaModel3 said:


> This must vary by location. That actually never happens to me here with the car continuing to go straight even in the right lane. The only time my car wavers in AP is if the lane widens before splitting.


My car wants to take the exit most of the time, and it'll either drift right then back again, or AP disengages because it tried to actually exit and I held the wheel preventing it.
Edit: It does this to a lesser extent with on ramps. It must think "wow a really wide lane for 20 feet, I must stay exactly in the middle of it!"


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## htrajan (Jun 19, 2017)

Is AP generally not receptive to other cars wanting to merge in front of you in stop and go traffic? What will often happen is that my follow distance is large enough to allow a car to barely creep in after the car in front starts moving and puts some distance in front of me. The model 3 will start moving forward and continue that pace even as another car is intent on merging in front of me. That car is not visible on the screen even when it's halfway into the lane and AP shows no signs of reacting to it so I just hit the brakes and let it in. I didn't have the "guts" to just let AP handle this - I feared it would result in a fender bender.


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## Blee (Apr 27, 2018)

I took delivery yesterday, after about 40 miles was able to turn on. Speed was instantly set, but drifted into left adjacent lane right away. Turned off and tried again a few minutes later, same thing but drifted over the yellow line to the right this time. no movement or feel of movement on the wheel (had my hands on it) Should I report (if so, to whom) or does it need more miles to work better?


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## 3V Pilot (Sep 15, 2017)

Blee said:


> I took delivery yesterday, after about 40 miles was able to turn on. Speed was instantly set, but drifted into left adjacent lane right away. Turned off and tried again a few minutes later, same thing but drifted over the yellow line to the right this time. no movement or feel of movement on the wheel (had my hands on it) Should I report (if so, to whom) or does it need more miles to work better?


It sounds like you had TACC (traffic aware cruise control) on and activated but not EAP (Enhanced Autopilot). With only 40 miles on the car it's possible that EAP was not available yet. Did you get the blue steering wheel symbol in the upper left corner of the display? This indicates that Autopilot is active.

Just FYI once the system is active one click down on the right stalk is TACC, 2 clicks for EAP (actually it only takes 1/2 a click for either, no need to push the stalk fully down).


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## pacific dunes (Jan 6, 2018)

So hoping to see if anyone else is having this problem. In some highway stretches, autopilot appears to shutoff without any real reason. (I have semi-autopilot on a Volvo xc-90, so I have some minimal expectations. Volvo does not rely on a map database, but rather it's sensors and cameras.)

I can usually tell that the Model 3 autopilot is about to shut off as it starts jerking the steering wheel just before it gives up and shuts off. I've had this happen in long stretches where there is nothing but the lane markings, however I am doing about 8-10 mph over the limit. Any thoughts?


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

pacific dunes said:


> So hoping to see if anyone else is having this problem. In some highway stretches, autopilot appears to shutoff without any real reason. (I have semi-autopilot on a Volvo xc-90, so I have some minimal expectations. Volvo does not rely on a map database, but rather it's sensors and cameras.)
> 
> I can usually tell that the Model 3 autopilot is about to shut off as it starts jerking the steering wheel just before it gives up and shuts off. I've had this happen in long stretches where there is nothing but the lane markings, however I am doing about 8-10 mph over the limit. Any thoughts?


I have to start with - are your hands on the wheel providing resistance?

In my experience, if autopilot freaks out, it quickly expects you to take over, not gradually.


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## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

pacific dunes said:


> So hoping to see if anyone else is having this problem. In some highway stretches, autopilot appears to shutoff without any real reason. (I have semi-autopilot on a Volvo xc-90, so I have some minimal expectations. Volvo does not rely on a map database, but rather it's sensors and cameras.)
> 
> I can usually tell that the Model 3 autopilot is about to shut off as it starts jerking the steering wheel just before it gives up and shuts off. I've had this happen in long stretches where there is nothing but the lane markings, however I am doing about 8-10 mph over the limit. Any thoughts?


Yes. Use the bug report feature on said stretches of road so that Tesla can see what the sensors are seeing, why the computer thinks it needs to give up control, and what it should be doing instead.


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## pacific dunes (Jan 6, 2018)

SoFlaModel3 said:


> I have to start with - are your hands on the wheel providing resistance?
> 
> In my experience, if autopilot freaks out, it quickly expects you to take over, not gradually.


Yes - hands on the wheel all the time. There are some long stretches of interstates that have no issues.

Yes - it stops and cancels itself quickly, not gradually.


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## pacific dunes (Jan 6, 2018)

KarenRei said:


> Yes. Use the bug report feature on said stretches of road so that Tesla can see what the sensors are seeing, why the computer thinks it needs to give up control, and what it should be doing instead.


So is this different then the config setting to send in data to Tesla? Or can you drill this down in more detail? Thanks

Edited - ah, I see the bug report detail in the user guide. Thanks!


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## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

pacific dunes said:


> So is this different then the config setting to send in data to Tesla? Or can you drill this down in more detail? Thanks
> 
> Edited - ah, I see the bug report detail in the user guide. Thanks!


Everyone needs to know about this feature! It's very important for Tesla's developers.


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## lairdb (May 24, 2018)

KarenRei said:


> It's [in-car bug reporting] very important for Tesla's developers.


Do we have any supporting evidence for that? E.g. reliable reports of bug reports being followed up on for detail, or individually responded to? Yes, sometimes a report is filed and later on a fix appears, but that's a post hoc fallacy, not evidence of whether prayer works.


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## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

lairdb said:


> Do we have any supporting evidence for that? E.g. reliable reports of bug reports being followed up on for detail, or individually responded to? Yes, sometimes a report is filed and later on a fix appears, but that's a post hoc fallacy, not evidence of whether prayer works.


I imagine it's not so much that one individual bug report is important but collectively they can be used to allocate resources where it is most needed. It's like voting - damn right your one votes not going to throw the election but it's the collective votes that matter. If large portions of the electorate don't vote, we can end up with a government that only represents the values of the few.


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## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

lairdb said:


> Do we have any supporting evidence for that? E.g. reliable reports of bug reports being followed up on for detail, or individually responded to? Yes, sometimes a report is filed and later on a fix appears, but that's a post hoc fallacy, not evidence of whether prayer works.


Having done more than my time in terms of fixing software bugs, you can either trust me on this or not.  Getting bug reports with data that you can use to recreate the scenario cannot be overstated in terms of how important it is.

The feature isn't there for giggles.


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## lairdb (May 24, 2018)

KarenRei said:


> Having done more than my time in terms of fixing software bugs, you can either trust me on this or not.  Getting bug reports with data that you can use to recreate the scenario cannot be overstated in terms of how important it is.
> 
> The feature isn't there for giggles.


Sure -- I get that it contributes to the picture in some manner. I run a product development team for a living, and have done so at an executive level for most of my career.

That said, there's places where an intern reads the first two sentences of a bug report, makes a tick in the "map feedback" tally column, and closes the case -- versus places where the bug report gets in front of the eyeballs of someone who has the knowledge and skills to say "hmm -- i remember two similar reports last week; hey, ramesh, i bet we need to re-look at that sunlight rejection code".


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## pacific dunes (Jan 6, 2018)

called in to my local service, they opened a ticket and have asked that I bring it in, after they took a look at my logs along with new logs during a test I ran. Definitely not an intern deciding that there may be a radar sensor issue.


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## Bernard (Aug 3, 2017)

htrajan said:


> Is AP generally not receptive to other cars wanting to merge in front of you in stop and go traffic? What will often happen is that my follow distance is large enough to allow a car to barely creep in after the car in front starts moving and puts some distance in front of me. The model 3 will start moving forward and continue that pace even as another car is intent on merging in front of me. That car is not visible on the screen even when it's halfway into the lane and AP shows no signs of reacting to it so I just hit the brakes and let it in. I didn't have the "guts" to just let AP handle this - I feared it would result in a fender bender.


I don't use autosteer (does not work where I live, on Hawaii's big island), only the TACC system, but I've observed that same behavior many times on 2-lane undivided roads that have a merging lane -- TACC seems focused entirely on the car on front of it, does a great job at maintaining distance (I always use the maximum value, which I honestly find a bit short ;-), but appears to ignore any cars attempting to merge. I now always disengage TACC whenever I approach an area where the number of lanes (going in my direction) changes, or in town on a multiple-lane road.


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## He Chen (Jan 11, 2018)

Bernard said:


> I don't use autosteer (does not work where I live, on Hawaii's big island), only the TACC system, but I've observed that same behavior many times on 2-lane undivided roads that have a merging lane -- TACC seems focused entirely on the car on front of it, does a great job at maintaining distance (I always use the maximum value, which I honestly find a bit short ;-), but appears to ignore any cars attempting to merge. I now always disengage TACC whenever I approach an area where the number of lanes (going in my direction) changes, or in town on a multiple-lane road.


This goes back to human driving vs logical driving. Human driving says if a car is merging in front of you then you should apply the brakes. Logical driving says that car merging in front of you is using the accelerator pedal and is at the same or greater velocity than you and therefore you don't really need to do anything special (other than not speed up). Think about it, when you merge lanes, do you use the brake to reduce your velocity as you merge (and crash into the car behind you in the lane) or do you keep the same or greater velocity as the cars in the lane you are merging into (gracefully sliding into the lane and keeping speed)? You can also see many videos on YouTube where AP will do emergency braking or obstacle avoidance when a car merging into your lane would actually hit you if AP didn't do the emergency measures.

If you break down the logic/physics, you will see that if you maintain the same velocity AND merge into a lane, you actually feel like your speed is reduced. This is because prior to merging, you are traveling in one direction (forward) but when you are merging, you are traveling in a vector (forward and left/right). Let's say your speed was 65 MPH going straight forward prior to merging. When you merge to a lane and keep the same exact speed, your forward speed is not 65 MPH. It is less because merging means you are going forward AND left/right. If the car that is in the lane you are trying to merge into is also going 65 MPH and you keep your car going 65 MPH before, during and after the merge, you have some chances of hitting that car. This is a rough sketch of the physics. The point is that humans do not drive with pure logic for better or worse. AP can try to mimic human driving as much as possible, but obviously there is still much room for improvement. For now, AP is more logical than it is not, for better or worse.


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## scaots (Sep 13, 2017)

pacific dunes said:


> So hoping to see if anyone else is having this problem. In some highway stretches, autopilot appears to shutoff without any real reason. (I have semi-autopilot on a Volvo xc-90, so I have some minimal expectations. Volvo does not rely on a map database, but rather it's sensors and cameras.)
> 
> I can usually tell that the Model 3 autopilot is about to shut off as it starts jerking the steering wheel just before it gives up and shuts off. I've had this happen in long stretches where there is nothing but the lane markings, however I am doing about 8-10 mph over the limit. Any thoughts?


I have definitely had hard braking at strong shadows across the road in AP. And it sometimes seems to think that vehicles are over the line when I think because their shadow is. Also I think once on a much older firmware it seemed confused where there was some light rolling hills in the road and you get the mirage effect in the heat. Not sure if it was the mirage thing or the rolling where there might have been a slight turn to make it look confusing if you couldn't see the low point for continuous lines.


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