Following distance

[joebiker25]

I drive with AP on for 90%+ of my drive every day. Since the last 2 updates in January, it feels like the following distance has increased quite a bit. I used to keep the following distance at 2 or 3 car lengths but now I am firmly at 1 car length and even then it seems far off enough from the vehicle in front of me to be tempting the car in the next lane to cut in.
Anyone else notice this increased following distance?

 

[cinergi]

I drive with AP on for 90%+ of my drive every day. Since the last 2 updates in January, it feels like the following distance has increased quite a bit. I used to keep the following distance at 2 or 3 car lengths but now I am firmly at 1 car length and even then it seems far off enough from the vehicle in front of me to be tempting the car in the next lane to cut in.
Anyone else notice this increased following distance?

Yes - especially noticeable above 60 MPH but even with a setting of 1 it's staying back way farther than it used to.

 

[CHG-ON]

I also find mine to be variable when the setting is constant, but can't attribute it to speed variances. Maybe it has moods...

 

[MP3Mike]

I used to keep the following distance at 2 or 3 car lengths but now I am firmly at 1 car length

The setting isn't car lengths. It is unspecified time intervals. (So the distance should increase as your speed increases.)

 

[joebiker25]

The setting isn't car lengths. It is unspecified time intervals. (So the distance should increase as your speed increases.)

I am totally aware of that and was using car lengths as a term of reference. My point is that this distance between cars or "unspecified time intervals" have increased quite a bit from before at the same speeds.

 

[ACExpress]

When AP is engaged and someone cuts in the buffer space between your car and the car in front of you, how quickly does AP react? Does it require driver intervention?

I will likely take delivery in March and understand AP2 isn't quite there yet, but I want to manage my own expectations. In other words, how relaxed can I be in busy traffic with AP engaged?

(I know, I know - AP is in beta and I should be ready to intervene at any moment).

 

[csanders90D]

It depends on how close they are when merging in. I've had people merge over right at my front bumper where I took over to make room. I'm not sure how AP would have reacted, and I didn't want to push it. In the normal case of people merging in the middle of the buffer, I don't do anything and AP handles it smoothly. I've got AP1, so I'm not sure how AP2 handles things.

I agree about the buffer space feeling larger in the current version. I normally have it set to 5, but may tighten it up a notch to see how that feels.

 

[joebiker25]

AP tends to brake nearly every time someone cuts in (even if there is plenty of space) and then resumes speed as appropriate in order to maintain following distance. In really slow traffic, there is usually a DB Volt driver who will cut in with half a car length of available space and I take over to prevent rear ending said DB.

 

[BerTX]

When AP is engaged and someone cuts in the buffer space between your car and the car in front of you, how quickly does AP react? Does it require driver intervention?

I will likely take delivery in March and understand AP2 isn't quite there yet, but I want to manage my own expectations. In other words, how relaxed can I be in busy traffic with AP engaged?

(I know, I know - AP is in beta and I should be ready to intervene at any moment).

Beware of geographic differences that you get in opinions on this. California opinions are quite different because driving there is more of a competition. I have mine set to 7 and yes, people will occasionally cut in front of me, but it's ok. It really doesn't slow me down any. They are having fun slaloming in traffic and I'm having fun watching the car drive itself. They will zag back out of your lane soon, and you will safely move back to where you were before in traffic.

 

[Viking1]

I was playing with the numbers yesterday, but the following distance does not seem to vary much. 1 or 7 seem nearly the same.

I've noticed that TACC does not seem to react when a car moves in front, until they are fully in the lane. I've also noted that at further distances (higher speeds) it reacts less and if a car is passing through (from my right lane, to my lane, to the left lane) it seems to have little reaction.

 

[phaduman]

I don't agree 1 and 7 have similar distance...I would be on 3, and say traffic is going at 25mph, and then I change to 2, and I see the car closing the gap.

As my practice, I keep the setting to 3 for bumper to bumper driving (up to 45Mph speeds), and change to 5 at faster speeds. I think Tesla should have a way to remember this and auto-adjust it per driver preference. Might not be possible in current Teslas I think because the cruise stick has mechanical click counters and stops, on either side of the setting - so this cannot be auto-set in the software. In next rev, they might go down the s/w setting route only....

 

[ACExpress]

Beware of geographic differences that you get in opinions on this. California opinions are quite different because driving there is more of a competition. I have mine set to 7 and yes, people will occasionally cut in front of me, but it's ok. It really doesn't slow me down any. They are having fun slaloming in traffic and I'm having fun watching the car drive itself. They will zag back out of your lane soon, and you will safely move back to where you were before in traffic.

Dallas driving can be maddening. It might be my own brain that needs to learn how to deal with and accept it; not the car.

 

[TJtv]

I will likely take delivery in March and understand AP2 isn't quite there yet, but I want to manage my own expectations. In other words, how relaxed can I be in busy traffic with AP engaged?
.

If in March it's still working like it is now then you will not be able to relax AT ALL when driving with AP2. In fact you will need to be much MORE aware of your surroundings and ready to react at a moments notice than you would if you were driving manually. Driving manually the only thing you'd ever really need to do in an emergency is brake hard and quickly. With AP2 on that possibility still exists, but the alternate possibility of needing to hit the accelerator very quickly also exists incase AP2 decides to brake very hard for a phantom object and you want to avoid getting rear ended.

 

[CHG-ON]

@BerTX: California opinions are quite different because driving there is more of a competition.

Clearly you don't know New York drivers! . CA drivers are wimps compared to them! When I moved out here, I thought, why are they so damn polite?

 

[Hota]

I have a sense that following distances increase for the same settings when it's raining (wipers on) or when the temperature is pretty cold - below 40 degrees.

Anyone else get this sense that the car is compensating due to potential increased stopping distances due to weather?

 

[JohnnyG]

I can definitely confirm that following distance (or time) has increased with the update that I received back in December. They've extended the following distance for TACC so much that I only use a setting of 1 now, and even that is scary on the freeway, because people following you get pissed when they see such a large gap in front of you. I honestly used to change the setting depending on the surrounding, but now even on 1 it's too far back to avoid road rage from others.

 

[sdorn]

I don't have a frame of reference for how TACC worked previously, as I am on AP2 and have only had TACC for a few weeks now. I will say that the follow distance is quite large, even when set to a lower number. There is pretty much always room for at least 2 cars to merge in front of me simultaneously no matter what I have it set to, especially if I am going faster than 60mph. It doesn't really bother me though. If I was trying to get somewhere quickly I wouldn't be using TACC at all.

 

[Swift]

Same here. On AP2 car, following distance selector seems to have no impact at all.

 

[Viking1]

Although I don't think there is much difference, I set my TACC to 7 today due to rain.

I have had a few, short, phantom slow downs on TACC. Also, I've noted that when a car moves in front of me my car does not slow until the car has moved all the way into the lane. That is not how I react. I'm thinking I may need to turn this stuff off until it is more reliable. The catch 22 is that Tesla needs us unofficial beta testers to use these features to improve.

 

[xsi123]

Same here. On AP2 car, following distance selector seems to have no impact at all.

Same here. AP2. I was playing with different settings all day today, highway and in city traffic. It doesn't matter if I had it on 1 or 7. Absolutely no difference.