Well, in a real bummer, our two-week old MYP has had an unfortunately meeting with a concrete car parking pole during a reverse park into a perpendicular parking spot. The post-accident analysis has brought up a number of issues that contributed to this:
(1) Reversing camera guidelines are off by about 30-50cm. I'd appreciate if others could test this to see if this is "normal" for this vehicle or if mine is just off. Park the car on flat ground, turn the wheel full lock to the left or right. Place an object on the floor just outside of the guidelines a few metres back on the inside corner, in a location where the guidelines say you shouldn't crash into that object. Then reverse without rotating the steering wheel. In my vehicle, the car runs over the object. This was what led to the reversing accident. My previous vehicles (Lexus x 3) were all spot on; you could trust those lines, and I expected the same again. However, the Tesla told me I'd miss the pole, but it was wrong.
(2) Side mirror not recalling correct position on selecting reverse gear. I had set up my left side mirror position to tilt down & inwards to see the side of the car while in reverse, and saved them to my profile. However, on placing the vehicle into reverse, it doesn't recall that position. Instead, it just tilt down, still pointing outwards, so I can't see the left side of the car.
(3) Side cameras are hard to use in an indoor carpark with poor lighting. There's no depth perception as to how far away objects are. Perhaps this becomes easier with time, but right now they are very hard to understand.
(4) Using the accelerator at parking speeds is still not second nature. Previous decades of driving automatic vehicles means I'm used to my foot feathering the brake while parking. In an emergency stop, just push down hard. Now, my foot is on the accelerator during parking manoeuvres. This is fine when everything is calm, but when people in the car suddenly start yelling "stop!" & there's a moment of panic, the reaction was to push down hard momentarily before realising "oops, I'm not on the brake like I'm used to", and then moving to the other pedal, by which time it was too late. I'm sure this will eventually become second nature, but it's not there yet.
Items (1) & (2) are software problems. Especially item (1). That's really bad to be off so far. If you're going to put guidelines, they'd better be accurate. Otherwise, don't put them at all. It's better not to have any at all, than to have wrong ones. Ultimately, it's driver's responsibility, I'm happy to own up to it as a learning experience, & I'm thankful it was a pole & not a person, but trusting the poor camera guidelines alignment definitely contributed to the accident.
I've got a service appointment with Tesla next week & I"ll get them to check this out. And later, the panel beaters to replace the rear bumper & repair/replace the rear quarter panel, & respray the whole lot. In the meantime, can anyone else test (1) & (2) on their vehicles to see if this is "normal" or if mine has a fault?
(1) Reversing camera guidelines are off by about 30-50cm. I'd appreciate if others could test this to see if this is "normal" for this vehicle or if mine is just off. Park the car on flat ground, turn the wheel full lock to the left or right. Place an object on the floor just outside of the guidelines a few metres back on the inside corner, in a location where the guidelines say you shouldn't crash into that object. Then reverse without rotating the steering wheel. In my vehicle, the car runs over the object. This was what led to the reversing accident. My previous vehicles (Lexus x 3) were all spot on; you could trust those lines, and I expected the same again. However, the Tesla told me I'd miss the pole, but it was wrong.
(2) Side mirror not recalling correct position on selecting reverse gear. I had set up my left side mirror position to tilt down & inwards to see the side of the car while in reverse, and saved them to my profile. However, on placing the vehicle into reverse, it doesn't recall that position. Instead, it just tilt down, still pointing outwards, so I can't see the left side of the car.
(3) Side cameras are hard to use in an indoor carpark with poor lighting. There's no depth perception as to how far away objects are. Perhaps this becomes easier with time, but right now they are very hard to understand.
(4) Using the accelerator at parking speeds is still not second nature. Previous decades of driving automatic vehicles means I'm used to my foot feathering the brake while parking. In an emergency stop, just push down hard. Now, my foot is on the accelerator during parking manoeuvres. This is fine when everything is calm, but when people in the car suddenly start yelling "stop!" & there's a moment of panic, the reaction was to push down hard momentarily before realising "oops, I'm not on the brake like I'm used to", and then moving to the other pedal, by which time it was too late. I'm sure this will eventually become second nature, but it's not there yet.
Items (1) & (2) are software problems. Especially item (1). That's really bad to be off so far. If you're going to put guidelines, they'd better be accurate. Otherwise, don't put them at all. It's better not to have any at all, than to have wrong ones. Ultimately, it's driver's responsibility, I'm happy to own up to it as a learning experience, & I'm thankful it was a pole & not a person, but trusting the poor camera guidelines alignment definitely contributed to the accident.
I've got a service appointment with Tesla next week & I"ll get them to check this out. And later, the panel beaters to replace the rear bumper & repair/replace the rear quarter panel, & respray the whole lot. In the meantime, can anyone else test (1) & (2) on their vehicles to see if this is "normal" or if mine has a fault?
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