[MashinBenzin]

Originally Posted by pdk42

When everything is going its way Tesla's Autopilot can certainly pull a few tricks and impress the crowds, but at other times it's erratic and IMHO dangerous. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that Tesla have managed a Brexit-esque trick here in selling a mound of steaming manure as something special. Say "Tesla" and most people think of self-driving, but in truth it's a million miles from that; and actually worse in some ways than systems on much cheaper cars.

I'll give some examples below, but first a few basics on the Autopilot. Tesla have two "Autopilot" (AP) options now. Basic AP and "Full Self Driving" (FSD). The hardware is the same, it's only a software difference. On the Model 3, the price difference is just shy of £6k!

Basic AP does this:

- Traffic-aware cruise control (TACC). That is, it'll keep a set speed and adjust that speed to suit the car in front. That includes taking the car down to a stop and accelerating away again.

- Autosteer. This will keep the car in its lane, but won't change lane. This must be done by the driver and autosteer is cancelled as you do so, needing to be re-enabled once in your new lane. Interestingly, Autosteer is officially classed as a "beta" feature, and you need to accept a few pages of disclaimers on the UI when you turn it on. Nice!

- Emergency lane departure assistance. This will autosteer the car back to its lane if you wander. It's always on, whether you've engaged AP or not.

- Automated emergency braking. This will autobrake for pedestrians and bikes. Again, an always-on feature.


FSD adds:

- Autosteer with lane change. This will move the car over into an outer lane to overtake a vehicle and then return to the original lane.

- Summon mode - the car can be moved without a driver in the car for purposes of parking and retrieving the car. In the US it'll do this over a decent range - e.g. from one side of a car park to the other; but in the UK it's limited to the driver being a metre or so from the car and will basically just help you park and retrieve the car in a small space such as a tight parking space or a small garage.

- Auto park - the usual reverse parking trick into a space.

- Navigate on autopilot - this is US-only and allows autosteer to take the car off a highway onto an exit ramp and from an on-ramp onto the highway.

My car has basic AP only. As said earlier, it certainly works, but it has some pretty big problems, all of which are present in the FSD version too:

- Phantom Braking. The car will sometimes just brake for no apparent reason. It happens often, pretty much every time I've used it in fact. It's annoying for sure, but sometimes it can be dangerous too. For example, I was going down the M40 at night. The road was pretty empty. I had TACC set (not autosteer) at 70mph. I came up behind a car in the middle lane so moved into the outside lane to overtake. I then started moving back and noticed someone barreling up behind me (turned out to be an M4 ( ). No problem I thought, I'll be out of his way by the time he reaches me. But then the car just braked, quite firmly, when I was halfway back to the middle lane. The guy in the M4 had to brake fairly smartly and probably thought I was a complete cock. If the speed difference were higher and the road wet, it could have ended in a collision. I was nowhere near any other car so I've no idea why it braked. I've driven a Golf with adaptive cruise and it had none of these problems.

- Autosteer sometimes gets confused by UK road markings. For example, it often tries to move to the right of the dotted lines around a bus stop, pushing the car into the opposite carriageway.

- Emergency lane departure assistance sometime triggers when it shouldn't. I was moving over to avoid a pedestrian walking on the edge of the road. As I straddled the white line, the car tried to pull me back into the pedestrian!

The on top of that, the system struggles with things like obscured cameras (e.g. by early morning dew or heavy rain) and if the sun is low in the sky.

Having said all that, basic TACC on a Motorway is just about acceptable in most conditions. The phantom braking remains, but if you're ready for it,you can take over quickly. However, using non-motorways is a bit more hit and miss. Basic TACC is mostly OK, but I wouldn't let Autosteer do its stuff on a city street.

Very interesting post. As you say, Tesla's reputation with non-owners/non-enthusiasts is that autonomy is way ahead of everyone else.

If we can excuse a drift tangentially off topic to compare with another brand that has the opposite reputation for its advanced electronics...!

There are actually less features in AP than my Discovery has, plus it sounds like yours has more problems than the LR implementation. Over only 2000 miles so far, I've had no major issues with the driving aids. No phantom braking. My biggest complaint is that it brakes later than my natural early braking tendency, which is unsettling mentally when sat aboard 2.5 tonnes of metal, cow and plastic.

As an example, cruise assist on the LR keeps me centred in lane, then indicate to change lane (change lane manually) and it will re-engage automatically when it reaches the centre of the new lane. Park assist also standard, although I've no idea how to use it.

The one thing that does fool it is low, bright, sunlight on those former stud placement marks where roadworks used to be. Combined with badly worn real lane markings, it can be fooled into thinking those marks are the real lane markings. Easily compensated for as long as you are paying attention though, which of course we should be.