EAP getting better in Boston area

[ModelNforNerd]

With the recent .50 update now in wide release, I've noticed in my car at least, that some small quirks of EAP are getting cleaned up.

On Rt 2, the stretch between Lincoln and the Concord Rotary, with all of the at-grade intersections.....

EAP no longer veers towards the left turn lanes. It no longer veers towards the median when going through the intersections. In stop-and-go, the car's reaction time has improved, i.e. the awkward pause between the car in front of you moving, and you beginning to move has been decreased somewhat.


On regular highways at full-speed..when you are in the slow lane, and the markings are wide due to a merge lane, the car no longer attempts to hug the right-most line. It drifts maybe 1/4 of the car's width to the right, then re-orients itself to the line to the left.

All small improvements, but great news in the bigger picture.

Anything else anyone has noticed?


EDIT: I haven't logged a lot of NoA miles on the update yet, but I'm curious if some of that behavior has been improved. Notably: does the car still have a desire to immediately stuff itself into the guardrail when the turn lane begins?

Does the car go from 75 to 45 with people behind you....a 1/4 mile before the off-ramp?

 

[VT_EE]

I need to test out the slow lane behavior. That is my only complaint about Autopilot on the highway.

 

[wcorey]

Does the car go from 75 to 45 with people behind you....a 1/4 mile before the off-ramp?

That's so weird. I've heard that complaint elsewhere but never noticed it myself. To quite the contrary mine would the exit at 65 and, because the right lane widened at the exist, the car would head right into off the road to what is the land between the exit and the interstate. I have not tried this since .50 was installed a few days ago. #roadtrip !

 

[ModelNforNerd]

That's so weird. I've heard that complaint elsewhere but never noticed it myself. To quite the contrary mine would the exit at 65 and, because the right lane widened at the exist, the car would head right into off the road to what is the land between the exit and the interstate. I have not tried this since .50 was installed a few days ago. #roadtrip !

I've got a trip to Maine coming up this weekend. About 250 miles roundtrip. The exit I take up there...the car decided to take at full speed, and wanted to slam itself into the guardrail. As soon as the pavement widened for the ramp, it threw itself to the left and gave me "red hands"....I'm hoping to see some improvement there.

Also, where 16 and 4 split off from 95 in NH, just outside Portsmouth, the car wasn't a big fan of the wide middle lanes.

 

[EdA]

On the Mass Pike eastbound between roughly 495 and Framingham the pavement changes color for short sections where portions of the road (not all 3 lanes in general) were repaved. EAP at night in the section is a bit treacherous because the car loses track of the lanes. I let my trial expire because of this and other phantom problems.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

On the Mass Pike eastbound between roughly 495 and Framingham the pavement changes color for short sections where portions of the road (not all 3 lanes in general) were repaved. EAP at night in the section is a bit treacherous because the car loses track of the lanes. I let my trial expire because of this and other phantom problems.

At just the right time of twilight on Rt 2, headed west, the car can sometimes lose sight of the line markings as well, because the markings are pretty old and faded in that area. The car would ping pong in those situations, before seemingly deciding to just track the car in front of me. I'll keep an eye on that behavior for my evening commute.

 

[robarino]

EAP still completely screws up I95 North and Southbound travel at Exits 19 ABC. It consistently misses the final turnoff for the exit. I stopped reporting bugs and my voice is hoarse from it.
I also frequently have to take over as it downward revises the speed limit and I nearly get rear ended every time. EAP should be aware of cars behind it and do a more gradual slow down rather than the violent ones it opts for.

 

[minderbinder]

I tried EAP for exit ramps one time - trying to go from 495S to 93N. Scared the hell out of me, and it ended up taking the Lowell connector before I could do anything about it.

Honestly, I don’t know what the big deal is about autopilot & exit ramps. I mean, it’s a nice party trick, but it doesn’t really take that much driver intervention to turn off AP before exiting the highway. Moreover, there’s no way I’m going to let it merge on the highway at speed - I have no confidence that it can detect oncoming traffic at the distance necessary to do that safely.

Don’t get me wrong - I love AP for the highway (I use it every day), and ModelNForNerd’s noted improvements are quite welcome. I just don’t get why some people are so excited about the exit ramp feature, which represents such a small percentage of driving time.

 

[wcorey]

Don’t get me wrong - I love AP for the highway (I use it every day), and ModelNForNerd’s noted improvements are quite welcome. I just don’t get why some people are so excited about the exit ramp feature, which represents such a small percentage of driving time.

What I have found, pre-2018.50, is if I slow down, via the mouse wheel, approaching the exit behavior is quite predictable and correct. As I have FSD I will be getting the V3 chip and that should be enough to make the exits predictable. And, as you say, exits and interchanges are such a small percentage of drive time. I use EAP autoLane even on secondary roads.

 

[aronth5]

This past weekend I went from Rt 3 in Chelmsford to Kingston, Ma. As I compared 2018.50 with the original version I had 2018.08 there were 3 areas of significant improvement I've noticed over time.
First, If you recall Elon's comment about "smooth as butter" that aptly describes now how general lane keeping works. So much smoother then .08. Second, exit ramps while not perfect no longer try and take my car hostage. I recall times when I had to quickly take over or EAP would exit the highway. Still room for improvement but so much better. Third, driver initiated lane changes really work well just so long as they are initiated without cars right near me. I've also noticed that I am much better at preventing NAGS then I used to be. I don't believe Tesla has changed NAG just that I'm better at keeping a minimum amount of torque on the wheel.

Only had to take over 3 times. Once when I initiated a lane change and something spooked EAP and it refused to change lanes. And twice on Rt 3 near Pembroke/Mansfield when EAP wanted me to confirm a lane change needed to stay on my navigated course when I was staying on route 3 south and was 20+ miles from exiting.. EAP slowed and disgengaged. I've had this happen several times before so hopefully this will get addressed.

Exits for the most part are still poor especially when its' a tight exit. As a starter I would just like NoA to improve how fast it tries to take exits. Typically it goes too fast so when I take over it's not nearly as smooth as it should be. As far as letting EAP suggest lane changes, forget it. Wastes my time and NoA suggests lane changes that are simply stupid. So for now I have disengaged lane change confirmations. If I want to change lanes I look first and then turn on my blinker. Simple and it works really well. That is way easier then reacting to NoA's lane change confirmations where I still have to look.

Finally, the first time someone is in the car they marvel at the left hand panel showing the cars in front of, beside and behind me. Then they notice the goofy jumping of vehicles and are no longer are very impressed. However, displaying cars in front of me is a total waste of screen space and has little if no value. Please Tesla just display cars further behind me to add value when changing lanes.

 

[wcorey]

Exits for the most part are still poor especially when its' a tight exit. As a starter I would just like NoA to improve how fast it tries to take exits. Typically it goes too fast so when I take over it's not nearly as smooth as it should be. As far as letting EAP suggest lane changes, forget it. Wastes my time and NoA suggests lane changes that are simply stupid. So for now I have disengaged lane change confirmations. If I want to change lanes I look first and then turn on my blinker. Simple and it works really well. That is way easier then reacting to NoA's lane change confirmations where I still have to look.

What I found helps immensely with exit speeds is to, via right mouse wheel, manually slow the car from, say, 65 mph to 55 or 45mph.
As far as taking over, yes, doing so via a strong tug on the wheel is disruptive for the driver and probably spooky for anyone following. I have found simply raising the right stalk once will disengage EAP/NoA but keep TACC active. Well, I am reasonably sure TACC stays active. Point being it results in a seamless takeover of control without jerking the car.