Adaptive Cruise Control (experience post FW v6.1)

[tezzla]

Thanks for testing the limits for those of us (im)patiently waiting for the update notification!

Believe me, it's my pleasure! You guys are gonna love it!

 

[rlang59]

Perhaps all of the TACC and ACC discussion should be pulled into its own thread.

 

[wk057]

Went out to test TACC some more as well as auto high beam stuff.

First, the auto high beam control is pretty solid. Turns off the high beams a moment before I see on coming vehicles (presumably since the cam sits higher than my biological cams) and to my surprise works fairly well when vehicles are ahead of you in the same lane. Impressive feature. Better than any other auto high beam implementation I've seen by far. No others work consistently when following orher vehicles and seem limited to on coming vehicles. Tesla works on both.

TACC.... it needs to work on smoother stops for sure. On any following distance setting it stops more abruptly than I would normally. It tends to use the friction brakes more than I would also, which seems inefficient.

It freaks out a bit when a car in front is slowing for a turn and turns off the road. It slowed wayyy more than I would have and surprised the car behind me a bit it seemed. It also took a moment to continue after the parh was clear.

These were all 2-lane 50 MPH roads. I think on an interstate drive it will be much more useful, although in my testing I was able to go through town and lights and such with minimal pedal interactions.

Overall, still better than an other ACC setup I've used.

It seems tesla was able to remotely reset whatever caused my earlier issue. No problems since.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Perhaps all of the TACC and ACC discussion should be pulled into its own thread.

I second that motion.

As one with the antique P85+ and no AP features, we're pretty much left out of the discussion.

 

[Majerus]

Ah yeah, I have no issues with Tesla service. They're always great.

I was just hoping it was something they could reset remotely or something.

- - - Updated - - -

I'll note that when the TACC was working... it was pretty awesome. Better than any ACC I've ever used in other vehicles (only used a couple of others).

I was curious as to how it would handle coming to a stop on the closest setting, and the car in front of me came to a stop, I was ready with the brake pedal, and it took the pedal from me and slowed perfectly. So, it doesn't just use regen, it will actually use the friction brakes when needed. Worked when a car in front of me slowed to make a turn also, then when the car was out of the way it just sped back up to the set speed.

The fact that it can stay engaged after full stops and such is pretty neat. Just takes a tap of the pedal or lever to continue.

I look forward to using this more...

I had this issue where it keep coming up, then went to an interstate and it was fine not sure if it saw a 30mph speed limit sign and decided not to enable cruise.

 

[drsaab]

I'd love to hear how someone with this update experiences ACC when regen is limited due to cold. Does it still work?

Yes it still works.

 

[mgboyes]

It will be interesting to see over time how many people turn off tacc after trying it, and how the system improves with software updates rather than requiring updated hardware.

Can you turn it off? One of the most annoying limitations of the ACC on my previous Audi A8 was that it was always adaptive - there was no way to make it fall back to the non-adaptive variety. As a result of this you could also only set 5mph increments on the target speed in that car (since you never have to make fine adjustments to suit the traffic, since it's adaptive).

 

[tezzla]

Can you turn it off? One of the most annoying limitations of the ACC on my previous Audi A8 was that it was always adaptive - there was no way to make it fall back to the non-adaptive variety. As a result of this you could also only set 5mph increments on the target speed in that car (since you never have to make fine adjustments to suit the traffic, since it's adaptive).

I don't think you can turn it off. You can do 1 or 5 mile increments though.

 

[drsaab]

I do not see an off setting and never understood a reason you would want to either.

 

[Footbag]

I do not see an off setting and never understood a reason you would want to either.

A prior infiniti I had would allow you to disable it and return to normal cruise control. It was a good thing too, as the camera it used would easily get dirty and not function. My recent BMW did not allow ACC to be disabled (or I never found it). While it had much less issues with cameras getting obstructed, it did still occur a couple of times, and I was left with no cruise (as the car won't allow ACC when the sensors are obstructed). If Tesla defaults to regular CC when the camera is obstructed (which seems to happen easily), thats just fine, but it will be a bit annoying if you simply lose cruise entirely (ala BMW).

 

[drsaab]

Ah.. Good point. My Mb distronic plus only did not work a couple times in 30k miles and that was in heavy rain or snow where cruise was dangerous anyways.

My Tesla acc failed to turn on once already today for one segment of about 10 on my driving today.

 

[mgboyes]

I do not see an off setting and never understood a reason you would want to either.

ACC is brilliant when there are cars to follow.

But if you're on an empty freeway doing an 80mph cruise and you come up behind another car doing 65 then as soon as the ACC catches sight of the slower vehicle far ahead it starts slowing down, even though you know you are are obviously just going to pull out into the next lane and overtake it, and the only way to stop it from doing this is to start pulling out into the next lane comically early.

 

[MikeBur]

Isn't there a driver assist option you can set so car will stay within X mph of posted limit (as detected by mobileye)? My P85 doesn't have any of this driver assist stuff (of which I'm glad), but I had loaner for 2 days this week and I could swear I saw that.

I don't believe so. When using a 1/2 second (seems to be closer to 2) pull on the cruise control stick matches your cruise set point to the current speed limit +/- your override value, eg.

Observed behavior:
In 35 zone, enable cruise control, pull cruise stick for 1/2 sec+, release. Car cruises at 42mph (my override is 7 over speed limit, and I like 42 ;-)). Car enters 25 limit, car still cruises at 42, after telling you that speed limit has changed to 25... Result Mike quickly presses cruise stick down (all the way 3-4times), ie 42-40mph, 40-35, 35-30, then maybe 30-25 (if it's school zone, etc)

Utopic behavior (for me):
cruise override value is %of speed limit (eg 15% over), eg. 69 in 60, 40 in 35, 28 in 25 (assuming truncate), and car changes cruise control set point when moving between zones, both up and down.

Of course, my update did not complete successfully and I have Tesla service fixing next week, so maybe I'm out of sync here too?

 

[GetAmped]

ACC is brilliant when there are cars to follow.

But if you're on an empty freeway doing an 80mph cruise and you come up behind another car doing 65 then as soon as the ACC catches sight of the slower vehicle far ahead it starts slowing down, even though you know you are are obviously just going to pull out into the next lane and overtake it, and the only way to stop it from doing this is to start pulling out into the next lane comically early.

Did you try adjusting the distance allowed between your car and the car being tracked? It is done with the dial on the end of the Cruise Stalk. You can set the distance from 1 to 7 with 7 being the furthest distance.

 

[Saghost]

I don't believe so. When using a 1/2 second (seems to be closer to 2) pull on the cruise control stick matches your cruise set point to the current speed limit +/- your override value, eg.

Observed behavior:

In 35 zone, enable cruise control, pull cruise stick for 1/2 sec+, release. Car cruises at 42mph (my override is 7 over speed limit, and I like 42 ;-)). Car enters 25 limit, car still cruises at 42, after telling you that speed limit has changed to 25...

Result Mike quickly presses cruise stick down (all the way 3-4times), ie 42-40mph, 40-35, 35-30, then maybe 30-25 (if it's school zone, etc)

Utopic behavior (for me):

cruise override value is %of speed limit (eg 15% over), eg. 69 in 60, 40 in 35, 28 in 25 (assuming truncate), and car changes cruise control set point when moving between zones, both up and down.

Of course, my update did not complete successfully and I have Tesla service fixing next week, so maybe I'm out of sync here too?

I don't think you're out of sync or confused - your observed behavior is exactly what the release notes say the current version will do.

However, TACC is clearly a work in progress as they build toward full autopilot, and the October demo cars displayed your Utopic behavior, so I'm thinking you'll get what you wanted in due time.

I'm not sure why it wasn't in this update - possibly Tesla isn't that confident in the speed assist results yet after the car took the vandalized 35/85 mph sign?
Walter

 

[stevezzzz]

A couple more observations about 6.1 and tacc in my P85D.

- Normal cruise control (non-tacc) may now be set as low as 18 mph.

- WARNING: When you allow tacc to bring the car to a dead stop in traffic, don't forget that it's still armed: if you're the second car in line at a stop and the car ahead of you makes a right turn, you can't just ease forward to the stop line (creep OFF) because tacc will assume you want to resume traveling at speed as soon as you touch the accelerator. Surprised the heck out of me, though on reflection I should have been able to predict the behavior.

This is the first circumstance in which I've ever thought creep might be a good thing. :biggrin:

 

[anxman]

I used TACC for about 45 miles up 280/380/101 from Palo Alto to San Francisco. Works just as advertised and my drive felt more relaxing. I feel less tired from driving compared to how I would usually. I also averaged 290kw in my P85D compared to a normal of around 340.

One word of caution is that the system still requires oversight. I was approaching the end of 280N into SF and the car in front of me pulled into the right lane. The traffic in the left lane was fully stopped but beyond the end of the curve. The car started accelerating up to 70mph and wouldn't have had enough time to stop. I've found TACC to be excellent for pure highway driving but I would advise against using it anywhere else -- just like the case would be with any cruise control.

 

[wk057]

The speed assist stuff should be completely optional, honestly.

Honestly folks, does anyone *really* follow the speed limit? I'll be the first to say that the only time I do is in school zones and slow areas like 25 zones, and even then I'll do 5 over. In a 65 zone... 78. In a 55... 69. And even doing 13-14 over, I'm generally not the fastest on the road. If the car is going to make adjustments based on speed limit signs it is going to have to be 100% optional. I mean, has anyone been on a road like the NJ Turnpike? Speed limit 65... but if you're doing 65 you're going to get mowed down. Definitely not safe to do 65. 55 on 495 near DC? LOL.

I like the idea. And I like it as it stands, alerting me when I happen to bump over my set 13 MPH over... but it really should stop there, IMO. This feature is complete.

 

[berryja]

Got to play with the 6.1 features on my P85D today. ACC works great. I did have a feature happen I did not know it had. A car pulled in front of me across lanes while I was going around 50mph and my instrument display flashed a (red star I think) crash symbol and braked hard. Could be collision mitigation.

 

[wk057]

I used TACC for about 45 miles up 280/380/101 from Palo Alto to San Francisco. Works just as advertised and my drive felt more relaxing. I feel less tired from driving compared to how I would usually. I also averaged 290kw in my P85D compared to a normal of around 340.

One word of caution is that the system still requires oversight. I was approaching the end of 280N into SF and the car in front of me pulled into the right lane. The traffic in the left lane was fully stopped but beyond the end of the curve. The car started accelerating up to 70mph and wouldn't have had enough time to stop. I've found TACC to be excellent for pure highway driving but I would advise against using it anywhere else -- just like the case would be with any cruise control.

I think folks need to just realize that TACC is just another tool in the driver's toolbox. It is good for what it is supposed to do. But don't think it is the all-in-one of driving tools... be smart.