What worries me the most about autopilot is that inexperienced drivers will blindly use it but fail to notice all the times it's making mistakes, not understanding its limitations.
I've been a passenger in a Model 3 for around 240 miles for two return trips between Colchester and London. I find the auto pilot system mildly scary at times. It doesn't deal with problems at the early stage, rather it reacts late and brakes sharply, not a driving test pass in my opinion. In start stop traffic it makes me feel uncomfortable as it accelerates and brakes too sharply for minor movements. However, it keeps itself in the middle of a lane better than most drivers, as long as the road markings are clear.
To me the Tesla road mapping is purely built for USA roads. They have much larger roads and the sensors have an easier time identifying road markings. But in the UK we have narrow and tight roads. Plus the fading/faded road markings, so I'm not surprised its having a hard time trying to drive on our roads. In your road trips, how did it handle on the motorways? I feel like that's when it would be most useful for those super long drives on the motorway.
as it's illegal to drive a car without a licence ,auto driver systems should be illegal as well , or we can go back to the original NO LICENCE REQUIRED..
Using the full width of your lane can be very advantageous particularly on twisty roads where the vehicle should be positioned to gain a maximum sight line of the road ahead. This is something that is taught especially for advanced motorcycling and it translates to bigger vehicles as well. Good driving is about anticipation and reading the road ahead, which clearly the Tesla doesn't do. As a practical example, try riding a bicycle focusing on a point a good distance in front, you will react more quickly and it will be a smoother ride. Now ride along focusing on the road a few yards in front and on the front wheel and you will find that you will wobble all over the place because you are reacting instantaneously to what you see. It has been proven that experienced high performance drivers have their focus up to twice as far ahead as normal drivers even at the same speed.
@@clivewilliams3661 An analogy comes to mind: My math teacher advised we students years ago that when drawing a circle or other shape by hand, don't look at where the pen is on the paper but rather at the end point to join. This guides the hand much better.
That’ll be on the A12? An awful road anyway! How does the autopilot deal with the massive potholes? And how does it deal with all the cars that sit in the overtaking lane?
Good question. It is almost like a beginner student driver that does not quite have the experience in all situations. Auto Pilot is one small step above normal cruise control where it will auto follow the roads. Other than that, it is clueless in allot of situations. Use it at your discretion and be very alert to take over manually. This video is a year old so there maybe some small improvements being it is now 2023.
Absolutely Ashley! Just got my Model 3 and tried driving it through Chelmsford on autopilot. I’m an old chap (70) but a very experienced and careful driver. I had exactly the same experience as you. I was constantly on edge as was my passenger wife. I guess it was fine on the dual carriage way but other than that, forget it! I could even hear the nervousness in your voice as you were talking. I know what a good driver you are so that’s good enough for me. I’m sure this system is great in the US. Thank you so much for making this video. I thought it was me being over-cautious. Very reassuring if a little disappointing!
I totally agree with your review of both systems. I’ve had my Model 3 since September 2021. I’ve tried Autopilot twice. First time on the A1M, it tried to steer me into the middle lane from the slow lane for no reason. I was travelling at 70. Fortunately there was nothing on my offside. It scared the living daylights out of me. Second time I was driving along a country B road, the road ahead veered slightly to the right and the car continued heading towards the grass verge. I don’t trust it at all and have never tried using it since. Other than that I love the car. No regrets at all
Auto pilot is more for our dual carriageways and motorways imho. No way I’d trust it on our other roads in U.K. You covered every reason in this video 🙂👍🏻
And yet we have the paradox that learners are allowed on ordinary roads from the first lesson, but until recently they were not allowed on motorways at all, and even now only with an instructor.
@@Alan_Clark True. But when a learner is on a motorway or duel carriageway they are with a qualified driving instructor and are likely in the instructor's car that is fitted with dual controls.
Well that scared the bejesus out of me. You're an excellent driver and could immediately see its many shortcomings, what about the average driver who can't? I predict this system will cause far more accidents than it actually gets itself into by swerving or braking heavily when a normal, compete driver wouldn't. Not for me, ever.
I think your assessment is totally fair. My mindset is similar, after a year and 11,000 miles of driving one, although I am more comfortable with using it on the motorway. I feel that it _can_ be a great boon to an attentive and proactive driver; when it's on, on a suitable road, I'm spending fewer brain cycles focusing on steering input and more brain cycles on maximising awareness and forward planning. I am still keeping a careful eye on what the car's doing, and I find that I can very quickly feel if the car starts to input an unexpected steering angle. Overall, I find the benefits to outweigh the few hiccups I've had. But only on motorways and well-marked dual carriageways. The adaptive cruise is mostly fine on single carriageways and longer well-marked city streets but useless otherwise. FYI, Ashley: the car "detects" that you have your hands on the wheel by measuring the torque on the wheel, it expects a (very) small amount of torque to identify that you're holding it - far less than you'd need to steer the car out of autopilot, but enough to tell that there's weight on the wheel. If your grip is very light, it might not feel it.
I have had a Tesla since 2018, and would like to think myself a safe driver, not having had an accident in 40 years of driving. Autopilot works best on motorways and major roads with good road markings without other hazards such as parked cars on road, or lanes splitting. For those it is a godsend - you can drive long distances with little effort, but I tend to treat it as a learner Co-driver from who I may have to take over anytime and with use you get to know the situations where it is likely to fail. Must be used with great caution in urban areas, but where I find major benefit is in stop and go traffic with car nicely following traffic in front starting and stopping without intervention. For slowing for corners, it works well on some roads and not others, must depend on GPS data. Don’t be so sure that autopilot will not advance rapidly in the future. Watch videos of Tesla FSD beta in the USA- it is not quite there, but is advancing rapidly. May even work without intervention by 2023. Remember this is software, and not human learning. It can completely change overnight with a firmware update. For touching steering wheel, it monitors tension - you can avoid all prompts by simply resting your hand at 5 o’clock or 7 o’clock on wheel.
Exactly this. On my second Model S, six years using autopilot. It’s best on dual carriageways / motorways. It loathes British suburban roads with traffic parked each side where you have to drive down the middle- can’t handle it, not even on adaptive cruise only. It has little/ no foresight or risk management... although from the beta tester videos in the States, the FSD system is acquiring that ability, thinks ahead and lets other drivers go first - so ultimately we may see that on later iterations.Current basic autopilot doesn’t do traffic lights, or roundabouts, or roadworks very well... it recognises lots of cones and tries to pick a lane where it doesn’t have to deal with cones. On the Model S, you can readily vary the follow distance by twisting the end of the autopilot control stick - a feature that was moved to the centre screen in the Model 3. This makes it easier to get it to slow earlier (by increasing follow distance) or to speed up faster (by reducing distance). Potentially it can react faster to threats and judge the speed of a braking car ahead better than you can - so optimally, you turn it on but watch it carefully. My system is autopilot plus, so can pick lanes and decide intelligently when to come off a motorway based on your planned route - so won’t move you off the motorway at the wrong junction. I got this as complimentary feature - not worth spending money for imho. Full self driving is definitely far closer now than when I got my first Model S. From what I can see on the FSD beta videos they are making rapid progress and the system handles busy suburban streets better than I thought possible. It is streets ahead than the basic autopilot, which tbh is little different now than it was six years ago. I think it’ll be a few years more before we are passengers, but less than a decade.
"Really bad driver but boss at reacting." I don't like the sound of that at all. One thing I've learned from this channel is not to get into situations where you have to rely on your reactions!
Equally, that’s in part because human reactions are slow. Assuming the Autopilot is infallible, it *can* safely navigate these reaction based scenarios. Unfortunately it isn’t infallible
The autopilot will kick in without it being on if needed. If it sees any danger, like any other car, it will kick in to protect you, like auto swerving, braking etc
@@james-cucumber was going to say something similar but you've beaten me to the punch. Its kinda like Windows come to think of it (before 8 onwards). Good but not infallible....god I miss 7.
@@james-cucumber Even if the 'autopilot' is super fast to react, the human drivers around it aren't. So adding another highly reactive 'driver' to the roads will just make things worse. It's the "boy racer" mistake, assuming that everybody else on the road has razor sharp reactions too so you don't think you're doing anything "bad" to other drivers when you make fast, sudden moves.
18:20 the restriction on steering effort that the autopilot can input is due to an EU regulation. The US version of autopilot will manage sharp corners.
@@yashmann That's intentional. The EU designed the regulations so that autopilot will cope with the slight bends on motorways, but not with sharper turns on country and urban roads. This is to prevent drivers being overly reliant on autopilot in these higher-risk environments.
I think auto pilot is more of a "collective feature" for the future. What I mean by that is, at the moment an auto pilot car right now isn't likely going to be driving close to another auto piloted car. But once there's more cars running auto pilot, I don't doubt that Starlink/ 5G+ would allow all Auto piloted cars to communicate with each other to know what is happening and how they can respond/ drive with each other (Which car is decelerating and others avoiding stuff in the road). Almost like how we use the "waze" app to let others know of difficulties on the road so you can plan ahead. I believe that the UK and EU will have issues with Auto pilot just because our roads are smaller, bendy and more difficult to navigate. Where as America have straight roads and wide lanes meaning it's easier for the car to locate where it is on the road (Seeing road markings, whereas our parked cars on the curbs make it harder to see). Most people, such as yourself, who partake in auto pilot are of the understanding it's a "Be cautious" when driving feature, but that's the right people in place (Because you also provide feedback which Tesla highly appreciate it, good or bad). If it was easily handed out then I'm sure that as much as the data provided from Auto pilot would increase greatly, we'd see some more unfortunate difficulties with those who don't understand what a beta feature entails. Either way, as of right now, It's (human & AI) work in progress to a safer future for vehicles.
I think you are being over-optimistic even so - since not every vehicle will be auto-pilot - for example, classic or historic vehicles, ones with faulty systems, 'modded' ones, other vehicles like bin-lorries; let alone the fact cyclists and pedestrians (and e-scooter riders) will still be as human and unpredictable as ever; and the major problem is that it appears to be too reactive, as Ashley said. It's like the cruise control on my 2002 Volvo - if I have it set to 50, then need to slow down to 30, when I re-engage it it'll accelerate too harshly back up to 50, when all I want is a steady motor back up to speed, so I usually don't re-engage it until I've manually brought it back almost up to it anyway. If an experienced driver like Ashley is still on tenterhooks when it's on, it's just confirmed what I've thought up to now - I'll be ignoring the option or even avoiding it for a long way into the foreseeable future.
@@ukeleleEric The rate of technology is something that will surprise you then. As we agree it's work in progress towards a better, safer and more efficient future. The more people who use it, the more it'll experience the goods and bads to get better. Take a look at iphones. From when they were introduced to now they've changed phenomenally due to the amount of experience and great technology that comes along the way, making it easier to use, faster and more accessible for anyone (Kids can use them with little to no hassle). It's totally fine to refuse AI but It's only going to get better and it will become a part of the safer roads. AI will work perfectly with the car industry as it already is, but each to their own. At the end of the day an AI car will react to someone/ something about to hit them as opposed to a human controlled car about to hit a human controlled car.
Automatic headlights aren't even reliable yet, let alone autonomous driving! Auto headlight users, please turn your lights on manually when its raining, Sincerely, All of the people behind you.
Awesome vid Ash. This is a massive concern for me. I've been driving since about 1990 and I dont feel safe with adaptive cruise, never mind this. If I'm driving, I'm driving.
It's less tiring, it makes such easy work of motorways that you can go hundreds of miles without getting tired. It is really only good on motorways though.
A really useful video on the Tesla Autopilot from the UK perspective. I have just watched a video by a CZcamsr called Dirty Tesla. He's testing the Beta system in the US along with around 100000 drivers in the US and Canada. He has been trying out roundabouts in his latest video and it coped reasonably well, much better than previously, so improvements are being implemented!
Yes, as a non Tesla driver it explains for me that the human driver of Teslas are likely to be very much more predictable drivers when they are in full control - when autopilot is in control, the Tesla is likely to behave erratically! ***Advice*** don't tail-gate a Tesla! Also, these being electric cars, they often have fantastic rates of acceleration - and, it seems, deceleration(!). For those who prefer to drive in an eco-friendly manner, this is counter-intuitive!
@@RiverMersey Given that economical driving requires good observation and planning, I'd be interested to know the cost, in mpg, of each of the Autopilot functions when compared to Ashley in full manual control. Sadly, even if Ashley wanted to run this test, it doesn't appear that he can trust the automation for long enough to do so
We've had our model 3 for a year now and have had a very similar experience. The worst by far is the car deciding to shoot you off the motorway at a random exit, 70mph and a hard turn is a recipe for disaster. That said like you shared, the adaptive speed is very useful. I find the full auto pilot works better when it can "cheat" and follow another car
My model 3 actually saved me from running into a car that had pulled out of a side road on the a38 near Lichfield, I only really use autopilot on motorways because of the issues you mention in this video, however the car is amazing overall & it will only get better with future updates.
Serious and uncritical question. Would you have avoided the car pulling out of the side road if you had full control of your vehicle? If so the system didn't save you from the collision.
I have never liked the idea of self driving cars. You're an expert and you have put into words the very reservations I have. I'll drive my car myself. Thanks, Ashley.
5:50 blue bin lorry. Excellent example, it reacts but it doesn’t anticipate. You perceived body language from the lorry that made you want to take a cautionary measure, but it carried on regardless.
Totally agree only TACC (traffic aware cruise control / intermediately autopilot) is the only one I use on city streets. The manual states motorways are the only place you should use autopilot, and it's not rated for anywhere else. I do use full Autopilot 90-95% of the time I'm on motorways, A and B roads and I''m generally happy with it. It considerably reduces driving fatigue for me. I have paid for the FSD (full self driving package), which I am frustrated with. Long story short, it doesn't do anything more than your version of autopilot right now than stop for traffic lights or change lanes on motorways. Our UK versions of autopilot have effectively been feature locked for 2-3 years, while all of the company's efforts are focused on the self-driving functionality in the US and canada which gets big updates every 2-3 weeks. The expanded version is supposed to come to our country this year and only to those with the FSD option. However, even with Brexit, we still inherit a number of regulations that 'dumb down' our autopilot. Your car not being able to take sharper curves is one result of those regs.
Fair review. I personally use autopilot on the motorway pretty much all the time. I find it an absolute dream for longer trips. I have quite a lot of confidence in it but am always ready to intervene if necessary and sometimes do need to. Autopilot is definitely not mean for UK minor roads. I work in tech and personally think fully self driving cars will be on the roads in approx. 10 years. Tesla's FSD AI has come a long way in the last few years.
@@maskofsan1ty I disagree. All the hardware is there, cameras with close enough resolution to see clearly what's going on around the car. If anything, much better vision than a single human with a single pair of eyes. It's purely a software problem to translate the video feed and understand what's going on around the car and it's environment and then to make intelligent decisions to decide the right course of action.
I doubt that it was designed for use in UK residential streets, more for US freeway driving, even our motorways are mostly too congested for a system like that
@@ArminGrewe They certainly are around SF where my sister lived for a while - her 'local' freeway had 5+ lanes each way (plus a dual carriageway alongside for local traffic) but was still liable to be at walking pace at any time of day. And the lane markings generally were more worn than in UK, the surface was awful, and there were odd tricks like lanes randomly ending, very short merging lanes at 'on-ramps', etc etc. Worse than the M25, in my experience.
@@dickhelling3529 that's pretty much what I was thinking of. I lived in LA for a year in the early 90s and visited SF a couple of times in the late 90s and early 2000s. Massive multi lane freeways which in particular during rush hour and during other busy times (eg weekend getaways) were completely clogged up. I suspect that won't have changed much, if anything it probably got worse. Too long ago to remember anything about lane markings, but from what I've read about the US infrastructure in general I suspect it isn't much better than the UK, if not worse.
I drive a VW ID.3 and I use the ACC a lot but it does have the same pitfalls that you’ve described. Its main benefit is preventing me from exceeding the speed limit. I mainly drive on 20/30/40 mph speed limit roads. The ACC works best when I’m in heavy traffic on a straight road.
Jaguar I-Pace driver here. My car had adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist. The two systems can be used together or independently. Lane keeping assist is useless on anything other than a motorway or duel carriageway but even then it can get confused at exits when in lane one. I think the key thing is to understand the limitations of the systems and be prepared to step in when needed. I find the adaptive cruise great in town and on the motorway. If you are following another vehicle and it comes to a stop, it will automatically move off again if the other vehicle moves within 3 seconds, otherwise you have to tap the accelerator. Its great in stop / start traffic
I don’t have a Tesla, I have a new model Golf with adaptive cruise control + Lane Assist and every complaint you’ve had with your Tesla I’ve got with my Golf. It can be very good in some scenarios but for a lot it’s very reactive. One of the roads I drive on has lots of parked cars on a steady bend and the car can sometimes see the parked cars as a danger and it will slam on the brakes when it does. When it works however, it’s very impressive.
Great review Ashley. I don't use AP on anything less than a Dual Carriageway or Motorway, and only when I'm driving chilled and sitting in the left lane, it just handles the lane keep for you. I am constantly disengaging it if traffic gets busy or I need to change lanes. You're spot on though, it drives you into risk ALL the time, sits happily in lorry blind spots for miles etc, but I know what it's going to do and disengage early on. It's worrying that new drivers won't spot this and get into trouble using it. I would never ever use AP in town, or even country roads. I think I disagree about 30 years for autonomous cars though, the FSDBeta programme although still as dodgy as hell is steadily improving. The bigger question is why would I want my car autonomous? I love driving.
When the software is fully finished it will have more advanced features. For example it will detect traffic approaching a roundabout a little quickly, accelerate into it for added drama, blast the horn, a voice synthesiser will bellow "yer on dashcam mate" and then it will automatically save and upload the footage to CZcams
I especially are enthousiastic about the improvements at mini roundabouts. Accelerate 10 mph over the speed limit and trying to catch as much people out by going left without indicating. And then the resolution enhancements with the 360 camera's make it a real funpark ride for the youtube watchers.
Would have been good to have a heart rate monitor on you with auto pilot on and off. I have a feeling there may have been a few spikes around lane splits, merges, lights, junctions etc.
Great review. I think it says it all when you said you were going to turn autopilot off and chill out. Far from making for a more relaxing driving experience, it seems to add stress.
Although I'm on the righthand side of the world (the Netherlands) I like the way you, as a driving instructor, approach FSD. I've seen any FSD Beta drivers, but NEVER a driving instructor. You provide a totally new perspective! I think you're right on multiple levels: FSD should react better to possible risks and should adapt better to other road users expectations and to it's environment.
Picked up my first Tesla today and drove 150 miles home via a mix of motorway, dual carriageway, fast A road and very minor country lanes. Provided you're sensible with just using on Motorway and dual carriageway, it surpassed my expectation to be honest. I would have preferred to not have to indicate to give 'permission' to make lane changes, but if I went with the car's request everytime it made it and didn't try second guessing, it was pretty good.
Great report Ashley completely honest and evidence based. I live in south Wiltshire and roads would be unsuitable for autopilot, no lane markings, many give way and even stop line markings have been eroded. The main issue I identified from this video is when the system 'gives up' and hands control back to the driver. I envisage many drivers not staying alert to that and ending up, as Ashley said, in a hedge. That seems very scary. Adaptive cruise control is a great feature however but, again as said, available on many, and an increasing number of, cars. Tesla have come out of nowhere and are producing great fully battery powered cars but agree don't buy, in the UK at least, for the self driving features. Without improved roads and signage, and cost will mean that's not going to happen, autopilot benefits will be limited. I doubt a 100% autopilot road network will ever exist therefore a 100% autopilot car will never exist.
Bad driver, boss reactions. EXACTLY. I know I am not quoting word for word, but you really hit the nail right on the noggin, there. It has been echoing around my head since this video came out. Today, I realised that analysis describes why I don't like so many of these "new fangled" systems, like AEB, lane keep assist....they aren't "active" in the true sense of the word. The are all re-active. Something has to go wrong before they intervene. Instead of reading and predicting traffic, they merely wait for an obstuction and slam on the anchors. Yes, AEB is a boon when the driver is an inattentive buffoon, but AEB isn't solving the actual problem or doing anything to prevent it, it only tries to lessen the damage when the inevitable happens. I have held my license for almost 30 years now, and I have lost count of the number of times I have prevented big-city pedestrians from ending up on my bonnet by spotting them early, reducing my speed and hence being able to brake smoothly/moderately when they stumble onto the road without looking over their shoulder. AEB doesn't do that. It may well be able to react faster than me (now 46 years old), but it doesn't see a dangerous situation when it starts. There is something about certain people's body language, you just KNOW they aren't paying attention. It goes for drivers too, of course, not only pedestrians. Really liking your channel !
Very nice vid Ash. You highlight a lot of solid points, and I agree that we are a good distance off any kind of autonomous vehicles on the open roads (closed systems like docks/large factories etc are certainly more doable). Like other comments have mentioned, it needs huge investment in civil infrastructure to compliment and enable such systems,. From my experience using adaptive cruise control on an HGV, I think I would much prefer to go back to the earlier systems of a simple 'speed hold'. There are simply too many instances where the system does, or doesn't do what it should be - or just gets confused and slams the anchors on (a bin bag drifting across the road, or the sun blinding it are classics). What these systems will be good at, is eliminating silly 'human' errors, or negating tiredness or lack of attention issues - much like an autopilot on an aircraft. But as any pilot will tell you, and many users of a SatNav have found out - trust it too much or ask it to do silly things and prepare to reap the consequences...
solid review, Im sticking with my Skoda Superb Estate ... 2.0 150 Diesel auto. 30k miles a year.. 60mpg. Like driving an armchair with a heated seat. I have adaptive cruise... use it when appropriate.. so far so good. Dirty diesel & happy for it... other than the £189.9 per litre
Good explanation. I live in South Florida and it’s easier to use as most of our city roads are dual carriage ways, so I can use Autopilot on these city streets, but it is reactive rather than pre active coming up to vehicles stopped at traffic lights, and if there are no stopped vehicles in front of you and if the lights are red you have to react and takeover, the cameras can detect the lights but won’t stop the car. The most annoying thing here is if at a traffic lights ahead a car coming from opposite direction does a U turn cutting in front of you, it overreacts and brakes unnecessarily hard and you need to step on the accelerator to override. But on the US interstate highways with their wide lanes and good markings it excels, it’s immensely helpful on longer highway driving. I do agree it’s just won’t excel on UK roads as Neal indicated. One thing Neal got wrong is that full self driving will take forty years to work correctly. I think it’ll be only another 5 years here in USA, with Beta versions working well in 2 years. For UK roads I think around ten years would be a good bet. I think once government traffic departments realize that FSD is inevitable, they’ll cooperate to ensure compatible traffic lane markings and signs are placed to a worldwide standard to enable full self driving vehicles can operate in a more safe way than human drivers. Present roads, lane markings, road junctions often are designed to impede excess speeds and therefore aren’t ideal for FSD. That’s the thing that will slow down adoption of FSD, the AÍ solution is very close to being available and will work well in countries whose road systems are presently the most compatible with FSD, probably USA and Canada.
I'm amazed to read "can detect the lights but won’t stop the car." Is that why there are hundreds of videos on CZcams of drivers (I think mostly in US) going through red lights? I had assumed it was drivers using cruise-control in city streets, which I (certainly in UK) would never risk.
@@rogerukw3513 The lights are detected and displayed on the screen. The screen is a presentation of the FSD Full Self Driving screen which helps with collision avoidance. But the Full Self Driving upgrade costs $12K or $200 per month a a subscription service. And I don’t have that. For the moment only special release of FSD Beta can drive on city streets and that will stop and obey traffic lights. Going through a traffic light on red is illegal, and not anything to do with Teslas, just bad or inattentive drivers. Using cruise control on city streets is not the reason either, many low end cars don’t have cruise control, once again inattentive or just plain bad drivers as any where else cause the accidents. Here in USA there aren’t many roundabouts, in their place are many traffic lights, another reason that running the red light will be more prevalent in the USA. And, yes they certainly do have a high rate of fatal / serious accidents at some of these Traffic light controlled crossroads, especially here in South Florida.
Interesting bid Ashley, thank you. I joined a web chat last week talking about the possibility of allowing full self-driving in the UK, discussing the various laws that might surround it and whether it was ultimately a good idea. There very much seemed to be two camps. On the one hand people were saying that the system has faster reaction times and can "see" more than a human, so it must be safer than allowing (yes, one person actually said "allowing") a human to drive. In the other camp were people mainly from motoring backgrounds voicing the concerns you've mostly addressed here. It can react very quickly and detect a lot of things to react to, but it cannot predict. The old mantra about driving to what you can see, what you can't see, and what you can reasonably expect to happen goes totally out of the window. The other big concern was that a huge number of people can't be trusted to pay attention properly when they're driving normally and really should be concentrating. If people can't concentrate when they are in full control of the vehicle, how can we trust them to concentrate when they know (or THINK) that the vehicle is in control?
Hi Sid. It's interesting about the two camps and how they seem to be split along "professional" lines as it were. I wonder how much experience the non-professional people have had of these systems as they seem to be talking from a position of theory. I agree that the system will have faster reaction times but it certainly can't see more (with the exception of dark, rainy and foggy conditions, perhaps) and it certainly can't currently predict nearly as well as the human brain can. An observant person has a far better physics engine at its disposal than any current computer which will almost certainly always reduce the need for the faster reactivity of the computer. I can see that quite soon we will have a situation where automated driving systems are better than the worst drivers and that in a minority of road conditions they are superior to all drivers. The pressure will then be on to adopt or even mandate automated driving systems because the elimination of some accidents and deaths wil be hard to argue against. The big problem here is if the system causes a death where a person would have avoided the situation. We cannot be in a position where these systems are mandated but the driver still has the responsibility. Put the responsibility back on the manufacturer and let's see how willing they are in reality to have them mandated.
The fact Tesla made the (crazy) decision to remove radar and rely only on camera's means it doesn't really 'see' any better than humans, and the AI can be fooled. In the US there are now 3 cases of motorcycle riders being killed by a Tesla not seeing them and many close calls. IMO this tech shouldn't be rolled out until fully proven, or driver's take the full responsibility of manslaughter should their car cause a fatality.
Cars are meant to be driven by the user. I’m going to make a very general assumption here and say that most Tesla drivers are pretty educated and sensible people. Imagine having auto pilot cars that are used by inexperience d and reckless drivers? A completely pointless ‘technological advancement’ in my opinion. Really honest review of it mate. I would not feel comfortable with an autopilot car!!
You also said that you couldn't imagine having reckless and inexperienced drivers with autopiloted vehicles then went on to say you wouldn't be any good in one so are you either not sensible experienced or are you reckless and inexperienced. Lol
I drive a Hyundai Kona Electric, it has Lane Follow Assist and ACC. I enjoy it on non-busy roads and motorways, I take over steering or disengage if it gets busy. What I don't like about it is that it doesn't tell you when it stops working and when you ignore the hands-on-wheel-warnings; it just disengages, and the car takes you directly into an accident, if you for example are incapacitated. But what I normally use is the speed-limiter, just set it and forget it until the speed-limit changes. Just drive as normal, but you don't have to watch your speed all the time, taking your eyes off the road. Very relaxing. Other than that, I agree with everything you said, and wouldn't use autopilot in the scenarios you pointed out. Cheers
The adaptive cruise control is useful for motorway driving and particularly where you have to go through road works at a lower fixed speed. The semi-autopilot system is a not really very good for use on European roads. Ive experimented with it but it always finds something to spook it - like a horse that suddenly sees a plastic bag. Not found the issue with going around corners but generally I dont use it. Mostly, I feel it takes away the fun from driving. As a (former) software engineer of 40+ years working with real-time control systems, was always suspicious of the Autopilot and particularly the Full Self Driving. I think there is not enough computing power, even with the dedicated additional system, to do FSD. There are so many factors to take into account and generate the proper risk assessment. Having taken the car abroad, it struck me that there are many different signage systems for temporary speeds, road closures and different types of street furniture to spook it that I find it difficult to see how anyone can contemplate an autonomous vehicle system to cope with it. My recommendation - dont buy a Tesla for these features and dont buy the FSD system. Use the cruise control when it helps but dont spoil your fun of driving a car. It is a very nice car to drive around and mostly you only need to use one pedal. They have established their own fast charging infrastructure and that featured high-up in my choice for having this car. (even though they've opened it to non-Tesla cars in some places these days)
I personally think if you're going to drive, then drive. If you not, get a bus or taxi. I won't trust an automated system. My last car had adaptive cruise control....I think I used it once. Like you Ashley, I want to control the car, can you imagine a judge in court after a collision hearing a driver say, 'I didn't do that you honour, the car did'. Yeah, good luck making that stick. Or am I being just old fashioned as I am a driver of 40 odd years. Nice honest review btw.
Hey Ashley, just a quick little tip. When you engage autopilot you don't have to "crunch" down on the gear select you can just give it a little press as if you were going from reverse to neutral. :)
Watching this reminds me of last Thursday. My wife needed to go somewhere for work. After we completed the day, we returned to hired car. The chap that drove us home, made me feel as you did in this video. He just dove much faster, much closer to the car in front, took curves much too fast, stopped in the pedestrian crossing at the lights...
I don't drive a Tesla but I do have a Mercedes with adaptive cruise and lane keep assist. It also has collision avoidance which is on at all times but I've only had a couple of mis-fires with this system (there's a poorly constructed junction near me where one lane entering one of those round and through roundabouts aims directly at a concrete bollard. You can imagine the chaos when the Merc emergency stopped!!). Given what you have described, I would not claim that the Tesla system is an auto-pilot system at all. In reality, it is very close to the functionality that I have in my Mercedes and I agree with everything you have said about its limitations. In a year of experimentation I have only found one situation where lane keep assist is actually beneficial - creeping traffic on motorways or dual carriageways. Not even A roads in the majority of situations. This is also where adaptive cruise is at its best. Fortuitously, the Mercedes does not insist on you touching the wheel if you are doing less than 20mph. With both systems engaged, I did a very relaxing 12 mile crawl along the M25 the other day.... Neither adaptive cruise nor lane keep assist functionality is at all suited to urban use for all the reasons you have said. They are only suitable for motorways, dual carriageways and certain large A roads and even then, you still need to be aware of their limitations and be ready to take over. Right now, these systems are pretty useless and need to be supervised at all times and turned off or driven around. They are only for observant drivers who want to relax a little in the right circumstances. Or where you are stuck on the M25 :-)
I'm honestly surprised that the "autopilot" is that twitchy on the Tesla. I see so many people raving on about it. And on Wham Bam TeslaCam, you see so many Teslas on autopilot, even on twisty, busy, A type roads. My Peugeot has adaptive cruise control with lane assist. Essentially an autopilot without the side sensors to avoid folk merging into you. It works fine on the city streets I've used it on (always with my hands resting on the wheel). So long as there is a decent centre line, it seems to cope. On the motorway it works very, very, well. Has no issues keeping in lane, even in the twisty mountain section of the M74, south of Glasgow. Has no issues staying in lane going past slip roads either. It doesn't freak out when there is traffic all around the car either. Just keeps it's distance from the vehicle in front and stays in lane. (I always have my hands on the wheel and observe my surroundings as I normally would). It even adapts its response to slower vehicles in front depending on the rate of closure. The faster the rate of closure, the earlier it breaks and the hard it does so too. Just did an Edinburgh to Bradford and back run over a long weekend and it was a doddle. Didn't need to take the cruise control off once during the motorway sections.
I tried autopilot on a model 3 in New Zealand and came to the same conclusions. If I had expressed my feelings and said to it “Don’t you think you are a bit too confident?” If it could I thought that it might reply “Don’t worry old man, I’m on top of this as my reaction times are far quicker than yours.” It made me tense. Additionally I tried it on a windy coast road set to the 50 kph speed limit. Notable was how accurately it positioned the vehicle in the centre of the lane. I felt it drove too fast on some of the tighter bends which was exacerbated by not straightening the corners by using more of the lane width. Throughout I was ready to take over which was just as well as it got confused when reaching a parking bay on the left. The kerb veered away to the left and the left lane marking was worn. Most unrelaxing!.
I drive a diesel Ford Galaxy. It has ACC and lane-keeping. Very happy with it after 2 years. Its designed for you to always keep your hands on the wheel still but you can set how soon it applies the brakes and it'll just give the wheel a gentle nudge to stay in lane. Very comfortable with it.
The steering around corners is because of your laws. They put in a limit to how much steering the auto systems can input. Does the info screen for autopilot not say for highways/motorways anymore? It used to specifically mention it was not for surface streets. And it doesn't work well on surface streets, imagine that.
Great video Ashley. I've had an M3 SR+ for a couple of month now and completely agree with your findings. I use enhanced cruise a lot to stop me speeding but am always ready to brake or accelerate as I find phantom braking a big concern and could be dangerous. Enhanced autopilot on motorways is great and takes some stress away but I still have my foot over the brake! Also it knows the speed limits but won't slow down when, say, limit drops from 50 to 30. Bloody annoying though you can tap the speed limit symbol on the screen and it will adjust. Why can't it do this itself??? And yes it's totally reactive. Scared the hell out of me a couple of times with late braking and can confuse other drivers with slow starts at traffic lights. On the good side it is like having an extra pair of eyes looking out for you.
When I was an engineering student in the 80s, there was no way we would have video calls on our phones in the furure. A audio call was needing a 4 kHz band width, while a video call would need more than 1 MHz. Impossible... I think it is a matter of time and will plus intelligent roads and interaction between cars.
Agree it pushes you into risk. On the motorway it’s fine most times but doesn’t account for merging traffic etc so yes I turn it on an off. Never had it not take a corner on a motorway though. Definitely brakes way later than I like. It’s great in creeping traffic but sucks if there are any parked cars.
I don't use it in the street and would only use it on an empty motorway. The lane maintenance did activate for me on the motorway when overtaking vehicles were coming close. American roads are straight, that's what this is useful for, multiple lanes makes it go nuts.
Another tip - if you hold down the AP stalk the car will set the speed to the current speed limit, without you having to use the steering wheel controls to do it.
My Citroen C5 Hybrid, does this. On a fast road such as a motorway, engage adaptive cruise control and it also steers the car 🚗 Hands must stay on the wheel for safety, but it steers.
I’d say in an age where there are far more distractions on the road self driving cars are a bad idea currently, there’s no way I’d trust that system, too many people will use self drive as a way to use their “smartphone” behind the wheel, it’s ok Tesla was driving.. will Tesla be admissible in the event that the self drive causes an accident? I think your analogy is spot on 👍
They already enabled interior camera in recent SW update and are tracking driver's eye/head movements, consequently disabling autopilot (in US for now).
I have no confidence at all in the adaptive cruise in my model 3. Ive had around half a dozen phantom braking episodes in the 3 months I’ve had it, the worst of which was a 70 to 30 mph slam on in the middle lane of the M1 (I think maybe the shadow of a bridge caused it but not sure)
I have a Model 3 and for long journeys on motorway especially in Europe the autopilot is brilliant as it takes a lot of effort off the driver and makes long journeys much less tiring. Also the M3 is a very comfortable car so makes these long distance journeys very easy.
Mine (Toyota) is quite pleasant. When going slow it will follow the car in front. When faster it seems to still look at car movement to distinguish lanes for adaptive cruise control. Thanks to lax lane painting the lane lane keeping hardly triggers in town, but it is also very gentle in the force needed/applied. More of a nudge than even a suggestion
I hate the toyota lane assist and wish I could turn it of permanently. It has pushed me out of my lane on multiple locations. The adaptive cruise control also can't handle cars in front slowing down after they moved lanes. Always have to press the accelerator to keep it from slowing down.
Totally fair review. My Audi's adaptive cruise control/lane assist stresses out at times when I pass slip roads and I would only ever use that feature on a motorway, no idea how any of this is supposed to work with old small UK roads.
That surprises me! I'd have thought the system on an Audi would be better than the system on my Peugeot. Yet, my car handles the motorway and slip roads without issue. Just did 600 miles over a long weekend down the M74/M6 and up again, done it a few times since I've had the car. No problems with the slip roads. Even handles the roadworks fine!
@@bmused55 it's possible it might be down to the road markings, ie faded lines perhaps. I generally only really use the adaptive cruise on motorways or extremely slow moving traffic where the automatic stop start removes some of the tedium from driving. I think the lane assist system is more for safety with the Audi, if it sees you moving across a lane or towards a car.
Would you test this again when they release the Full self driving software? The FSD beta is so much more advanced than the current version you're on so maybe another test next year?
@@ashley_neal Is this the super fantastic FSD that is nowhere near Full Self Driving and is instead classed as Level 2 automation? I'd say that might be even more of a risk, especially when we have private consumers beta testing dodgy software on public roads for a private company not willing to actually create a functional product as advertised before shipping.
According to Elon Musk in 2019. It already has FSD. He said you can call for your car even if its in the next town and it will drive to you automatically. Strange since he cannot get the FSD to work in his own one way tunnels.
I have no experience with autopilot but it does not look anywhere near being fit for purpose, I'd even go so far to say it looks dangerous and should not be currently available to select. The adaptive cruise seems to do what I would expect. I agree with you, we are probably several decades away in the UK.
Ashley I don’t know much about self driving cars, so can you show us in a later vlog the sensors etc. And will a dirty car or bad weather ( heavy rain or snow) cause issues with the sensors. Keep up your hard work buddy. 👍🏻
Hey Ashley, thanks for another excellent episode. I completely agree with your comments concerning Autopilot in the Tesla Model 3. The Model 3 is awesome. Best car I've ever owned. But Autopilot is rather less than awesome. I bought my Tesla Model 3 Long Range new in July 2019 and... I'm an ADI using it as a tuition car to teach learner drivers. They're taking and passing driving tests in this car. What's more, I optioned 'Full Self Driving' (FSD) on my Model 3. Yes, I was stupid or curious enough (take your pick) to spend the extra on the FSD option. The issue with Autopilot as I see it is that it is 95% reliable on Motorways and Dual Carriageways. I've learned not to engage Autopilot on any other roads because it causes too many heart stopping moments. And that's the issue isn't it? 95% is not good enough. In fact, it's sodding dangerous. With the FSD option on my Tesla, if I engage Navigate On Autopilot, the car automatically offers to overtake slower moving vehicles. You are required to confirm by applying the right indicator to carry out the manoeuvre and it mostly carries this out safely. Mostly. When it does, it's impressive. But, from time to time, it will abandon an overtaking manoeuvre half way through and switch back to the lane we were moving out from, for no apparent reason. Eliciting a "WTF" comment! And then there's 'Phantom Braking'. Only yesterday, in Lane 2 of the M5 near Frankley Services with Navigate On Autopilot engaged, I had the car decelerate suddenly from 70mph to 25mph. I'm guessing because it 'saw' a truck in Lane 1 that was perfectly positioned and being driven safely. Why this truck and not others? The car had already passed dozens of trucks on my way from Cheltenham to Birmingham without any issue, but then 'decided' it didn't like this one... without warning me first! Maybe Tesla will get this sorted in due course. After all my car, like yours, is continually transmitting data to the Tesla servers in Austin Texas. Anyway, we're assured that Tesla is accumulating 'billions of miles' of driving data from the entire fleet worldwide. Elon Musk recently announced that full self driving "better than human ability" will become available "before the end of the year". Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it. I've already challenged him on Twitter to consistently navigate the Swindon Magic Roundabout in all directions on Full Self Driving safely, with due care and consideration for all other road users. I reckon that would be reasonable test! Only then will I believe. Maybe it would also be a good idea for the Tesla software engineers to study and consider The Highway Code! I'm not convinced they have. Yes, I agree with you Ashley. Full Self Driving is tens of years away. So, let's forget Autopilot and Full Self Driving. However, in every other respect the Tesla Model 3 is completely awesome. And my learner drivers absolutely love driving it. With FSD switched out in their Driver Profiles.
@@ashley_neal Only 10 driver profiles. The driver profiles are super for getting the pupil set up and into the lesson quickly. But only for 9 of them. I've set up a driver profile named 'Learner Driver' for the rest. I've asked Elon in a tweet to add 30 driver profiles... because I'm a driving instructor!
I’ve used standard cruise control for many years, and on motorways it’s great. The Tesla autopilot and adaptive cruise control looks like it turns a pleasant drive into an angst ridden nightmare.
Ashley Neal becomes Jack Massey Welsh! About 3 years ago, I remember Ashley recommending Jack's Tesla channel - now we come full circle! Many thanks Ashley!!!
@@ashley_neal - yes, unlike with Jack, I imagine that your better half would refuse to dress-up as a road cone, and any of your friends refuse to be locked in the frunk!
Use it on motorways and dual carriageways, only normal cruise on other roads. Very good on motorway, only has a moment occasionally changing from lane 3 to 2 if a lorry is on lane 1, sometimes thinks lorry may pull out so brakes, other than that it is amazing in traffic jams, and the steering wheel doesn't have sensors, it detects your hand by resistance, so of you drive holding wheel, it never comes on so knows if you aren't
About 15 years ago I was asked for my opinion of self driving vehicles, by a guy who was involved in designing them. I voiced my concern regarding anticipation, preempting and decision making. It looks like it may be some time before professional license holders need to worry about their jobs.
Interesting review. I suspect the Autopilot feature is best left for dual carriageways and motorways rather than running around town. It's very cool to hear you talking about what you're observing from other road users as you drive around - there was a van around 14 minutes that you observed had pulled out expecting you to turn off and you saw him looking in his mirrors - That kind of information is invaluable for drivers to obtain for themselves while driving and it's something an autopilot will never be able to do
Sooner or later, autonomous driving will become our everyday life, and when it does, I'll get my motorcycle license. Here in Germany, if you are over 25 and have had your class B license (car) for 5 years, you can make the B196 extension for relatively little effort and money, which allows you to drive light motorcycle up to 125 cc and 11 kW. These motorcycle cost no tax and very little insurance, but are fast enough for everyday use and are even allowed on the motorway.
Hi Ashley, would love to see a reaction video to the Full Self Driving Beta tests in America, of course not nearly applicable to UK roads but would be good to have an instructors POV on it There are lots to choose from on here!
This is not aimed at you personally, Ashley, but it still blows my mind that a company can ask US to pay for testing a Beta feature, instead of the other way around! And not just ask, but people are happily paying for it! And not just paying for it, but paying 10 f🤘cking grand for it! (The price of owning another pretty great second hand car!?! 🤯 ) This will *never* become normal or sane in my common sense. 😁🤷♂
The purchase would be for the feature forever. It would be upgraded over time and the more people who have it, it will help its ability to become a common and safer feature amongst owners in the future. It might be £10k now but in the future it will be priced higher.
They are all pioneers. I haven't paid, but have autopilot on at all times when possible, so the wrinkles are sent to their servers and ironed out for the day when FSD is released in UK (sadly not soon enough due to regulations.. but hopefully before EU:)) Even the free autopilot has already improved drastically in UK over the last 18 months since I had the car.
I would rather just drive the car. Except for the emergency braking response I don't see any advantage and wouldn't be able to relax. I did drive a Ford Focus estate for a while when working and appreciated the 'collision avoidance' on it. But that's all I liked lol.
Same. I can see some advantages for elderly drivers but again that's about it. No way is this a fully autonomous car (again level 2 AI. My pet robot Vector is more autonomous and he's offline!). They should rename it from autopilot to assisted driving or something.
The only time that my Ford activated emergency braking was when I was slowly edging into a parking space and there was a wall in front of me. I was about three feet away from the wall when the brakes were suddenly stamped on. Utterly useless.
@@rogerking7258 I can't see how that would be an emergency. It worked for me when a security guard stepped out of his hut in front of me, and another time when I was accelerating on slip road to match traffic speed and the car in front of me suddenly slowed. The reaction was so quick, I'm sure I couldn't have done the same. But I could have stopped or slowed in plenty of time. It would possibly have prevented a less aware driver having an accident.
Most new cars have a similar system. My Yaris will keep you in your lane, braking and accelerating. You can adjust the distance from the car in front before it brakes. I've used it a couple of times. It could be handy if there is a long stretch of road with a speed limit with cameras.
8:40 it shows all objects it sees on the screen, and if any of them are on collision course, it will paint them red, chime alert, and apply brakes if you won't.
Spot on description, a bad driver that can react like lightning. The only time I use full auto is on the motorway. The problem is if a lorry drifts (only very slightly) then it can brake sharply in the middle lane, not good. But for fun, drop the activation lever 5 times quickly…..Rainbow Road anyone? Thanks Ashley, another great video.
My sixth senses were on-edge watching this. It reminds me of cycling with your hands off the handlebar, something I don't do, because of those same sixth-senses, and I have an extremely well balanced and responsive bike. That being said, even having music blaring while driving is a distraction to me. Perhaps for some people, this is an advantage. I suspect over-all, it will cause more accidents than prevent. *Audio warnings* however can be very valuable....but with hands-on.
I've driven a few cars with adaptive cruise control and they're fine on the motorway for the most part (when moving at normal speeds), however I'd never use it in town because there are just too many variables. You need to be far more predictive of the odd things that other vehicles are likely to do in town whereas the adaptive controls can only ever be reactive
Nice summary. As you have said the system is reactive and has no road sense that a good driver should. There’s a real risk of being rear ended even on the basic ACC as it just panics to a situation and performs an unnecessary emergency brake.
Totally agree about ACC use and my MG Pilot system. I use the ACC 90% of the time with a manual input for speed in bends and for risk etc. It is useful as an anti speeding method and it does react really quickly if other road users do crazy things. The full MG Pilot is good for motorways and long straight routes without complex lane structures. The only time it stopped working was on a very curvy motorway join M1 to A42 south. My system is a proprietary Bosch one.
The problem with Machine Intelligence is that they have absolutely zero understanding. I read about an MI which was trained to distinguish photos of animals from photos which did not contain animals. It did a goods job, but when they investigated exactly what it was doing it turned out that it was not looking for animals, it was simply looking for an out-of-focus background, which animal photos tend to have. If you gave it a photo of a teapot with an out-of-focus background it would say it was an animal! This is the kind of idiotic mistake that even a child of two would never make. For this reason it is impossible to even guess if and when they will be as competent as a skilful human driver, which would require genuine understanding, because it would require a radical new development, which is impossible to predict.
Yes, that was a problem. It is easily solved with better and larger datasets. It is now a solved problem though. You'd have to work very hard to find such a corner case nowadays with the latest and largest systems.
I’ve got adaptive cruise and lane assist on my A5. Only use the lane assist on the motorway, can be annoying on a good straight road where you barely need any steering input as the sensor panics when it thinks you’re not holding the wheel even though you are. I use the adaptive cruise on all my journeys, it takes into account of changes in speed limit and will even slow down for bends in country lanes. You probably have to be more alert when using it, but I find it stops me speeding and I find it very relaxing.
What I believe is required to enable fully autonomous vehicles is for traffic lights and road signage to be upgraded to transmit information to the oncoming vehicles, rather than relying on cars to detect and react. Obviously one problem with any system is vehicle on the road that pre-date the technology and don't behave in the same way as the new generation of vehicles.
Good demonstration - I'm glad you did that so that we don't have to! The limitations are clear from this and it certainly doesn't look like it would be very useful in any kind of traffic build up, just being slightly better than regular cruise control. Personally, I wouldn't even think of using that system around town, even on relatively large roads. As you said, a system that doesn't react to potential hazards is going to be too stressful. There may yet be some significant legal difficulties on the horizon for Tesla regarding Autopilot and striking emergency service vehicles at incidents (CNN, 09.06.22 "Federal investigators expand probe into Tesla Autopilot crashes"). What does it do for red traffic lights if you're the first car?
Owning a model 3 myself, i would at it's current state never use it outside of motorways, especially as shown it needs the clear markings. The funny part is if the markings end it will attempt to keep autopilot on but center itself on the whole road (so right over the implied center line) On the traffic lights, the basic system both me and Ashley have won't stop for them, however the full self driving upgrade (which is not fully implemented as stated in other comments) will stop at both lines, stop lines and give way signs, currently requiring the user to use the right stalk to confirm going through
I enjoy driving.Always have. Bought a car that did everything for itself. 2 months later sold it.(Lost a lot of money.) But it took the fun out of driving.Sitting there like a spare prick at a wedding.Feeling totally superfluous. Just waiting for the car to make a mistake so I could prove my worth. Give me a car with a manual gear box, no sensors, no figure hugging seats anyday. I learnt to drive so" I could drive "not be a passenger. Probably another reason why I like my motorbikes so much.
Agree with virtually everything you've said. The one area where the autosteer is a real godsend is in traffic jams, particularly on motorways. In the scenario where you are sat in mostly stationary traffic which moves occasionally for a few hundred metres at 20 mph, the ability to let the car monitor the traffic around you and initiate the simple start/stop maneuvers is fantastic. It turns a normally quite stressful driving experience into a fairly relaxing one. Still need to supervise it though so no nodding off!
This is ACC and Lane assist, its not self driving. Its not designed to anticipate that the drivers job. In my opinion, its to aid drivers on long motorway drives.
I have a Nissan Juke which has the pro pilot. After watching the video, it’s broadly similar to the Tesla. It seems to need the white lane markings before it activates so it only generally comes on when I’m somewhere that has really good lines. It works really well on dual carriageways but isn’t keen if it’s very windy as I think gusts can overwhelm it a little. It’s great for longer distances as I only touch the wheel every ten seconds or so but it does require a different level of concentration. When I have it only on adaptive cruise control, I can adjust the distance sensitivity, but in heavy traffic I do often switch it off. I think that’s also because in heavy traffic, the safe gap that the car leaves tends to encourage other drivers to move into that gap. So I either throttle override it or switch it off. Perhaps Ashley could test drive some different versions of auto pilot on different cars sometime?
What worries me the most about autopilot is that inexperienced drivers will blindly use it but fail to notice all the times it's making mistakes, not understanding its limitations.
yeah it is really dodgy and arguably unsafe for a non experienced or inattentive driver
You mean they will use it as an excuse to look at their phone for a few minutes?
@@Rover200Power That happens anyway in regular cars.
@@B0BHW but at least in that case the driver is not under the illusion that the car will drive itself.
This is the perfect mirror of how society works nowadays.
I've been a passenger in a Model 3 for around 240 miles for two return trips between Colchester and London. I find the auto pilot system mildly scary at times. It doesn't deal with problems at the early stage, rather it reacts late and brakes sharply, not a driving test pass in my opinion. In start stop traffic it makes me feel uncomfortable as it accelerates and brakes too sharply for minor movements. However, it keeps itself in the middle of a lane better than most drivers, as long as the road markings are clear.
To me the Tesla road mapping is purely built for USA roads. They have much larger roads and the sensors have an easier time identifying road markings. But in the UK we have narrow and tight roads. Plus the fading/faded road markings, so I'm not surprised its having a hard time trying to drive on our roads.
In your road trips, how did it handle on the motorways? I feel like that's when it would be most useful for those super long drives on the motorway.
as it's illegal to drive a car without a licence ,auto driver systems should be illegal as well , or we can go back to the original NO LICENCE REQUIRED..
Using the full width of your lane can be very advantageous particularly on twisty roads where the vehicle should be positioned to gain a maximum sight line of the road ahead. This is something that is taught especially for advanced motorcycling and it translates to bigger vehicles as well.
Good driving is about anticipation and reading the road ahead, which clearly the Tesla doesn't do. As a practical example, try riding a bicycle focusing on a point a good distance in front, you will react more quickly and it will be a smoother ride. Now ride along focusing on the road a few yards in front and on the front wheel and you will find that you will wobble all over the place because you are reacting instantaneously to what you see. It has been proven that experienced high performance drivers have their focus up to twice as far ahead as normal drivers even at the same speed.
@@clivewilliams3661 An analogy comes to mind: My math teacher advised we students years ago that when drawing a circle or other shape by hand, don't look at where the pen is on the paper but rather at the end point to join. This guides the hand much better.
That’ll be on the A12? An awful road anyway! How does the autopilot deal with the massive potholes? And how does it deal with all the cars that sit in the overtaking lane?
Glad you mentioned proactive driving (good driving) compared to reactive driving (bad driving)
I think that's one of the best explanations I've heard of why we watch all these videos, I really don't want to be the latter.
If you have to concentrate harder to monitor auto-pilot than you do to actually drive the car; where's the point?
Good question. It is almost like a beginner student driver that does not quite have the experience in all situations. Auto Pilot is one small step above normal cruise control where it will auto follow the roads. Other than that, it is clueless in allot of situations. Use it at your discretion and be very alert to take over manually. This video is a year old so there maybe some small improvements being it is now 2023.
Absolutely Ashley! Just got my Model 3 and tried driving it through Chelmsford on autopilot. I’m an old chap (70) but a very experienced and careful driver. I had exactly the same experience as you. I was constantly on edge as was my passenger wife. I guess it was fine on the dual carriage way but other than that, forget it! I could even hear the nervousness in your voice as you were talking. I know what a good driver you are so that’s good enough for me. I’m sure this system is great in the US. Thank you so much for making this video. I thought it was me being over-cautious. Very reassuring if a little disappointing!
I totally agree with your review of both systems. I’ve had my Model 3 since September 2021. I’ve tried Autopilot twice. First time on the A1M, it tried to steer me into the middle lane from the slow lane for no reason. I was travelling at 70. Fortunately there was nothing on my offside. It scared the living daylights out of me. Second time I was driving along a country B road, the road ahead veered slightly to the right and the car continued heading towards the grass verge. I don’t trust it at all and have never tried using it since. Other than that I love the car. No regrets at all
Auto pilot is more for our dual carriageways and motorways imho. No way I’d trust it on our other roads in U.K. You covered every reason in this video 🙂👍🏻
And yet we have the paradox that learners are allowed on ordinary roads from the first lesson, but until recently they were not allowed on motorways at all, and even now only with an instructor.
@@Alan_Clark yes but learners cannot go unattended on any road so your point is kinda mute (assuming said learner is learning to drive a car).
@@hikaru9624 It is still considered safer for a learner to be on a normal road than a motorway, the opposite of autopilot.
@@Alan_Clark True. But when a learner is on a motorway or duel carriageway they are with a qualified driving instructor and are likely in the instructor's car that is fitted with dual controls.
@@Alan_Clark >paradox
Well that scared the bejesus out of me. You're an excellent driver and could immediately see its many shortcomings, what about the average driver who can't? I predict this system will cause far more accidents than it actually gets itself into by swerving or braking heavily when a normal, compete driver wouldn't. Not for me, ever.
I think your assessment is totally fair. My mindset is similar, after a year and 11,000 miles of driving one, although I am more comfortable with using it on the motorway. I feel that it _can_ be a great boon to an attentive and proactive driver; when it's on, on a suitable road, I'm spending fewer brain cycles focusing on steering input and more brain cycles on maximising awareness and forward planning. I am still keeping a careful eye on what the car's doing, and I find that I can very quickly feel if the car starts to input an unexpected steering angle. Overall, I find the benefits to outweigh the few hiccups I've had. But only on motorways and well-marked dual carriageways.
The adaptive cruise is mostly fine on single carriageways and longer well-marked city streets but useless otherwise.
FYI, Ashley: the car "detects" that you have your hands on the wheel by measuring the torque on the wheel, it expects a (very) small amount of torque to identify that you're holding it - far less than you'd need to steer the car out of autopilot, but enough to tell that there's weight on the wheel. If your grip is very light, it might not feel it.
This is exactly my opinion of it too.
I have had a Tesla since 2018, and would like to think myself a safe driver, not having had an accident in 40 years of driving. Autopilot works best on motorways and major roads with good road markings without other hazards such as parked cars on road, or lanes splitting. For those it is a godsend - you can drive long distances with little effort, but I tend to treat it as a learner Co-driver from who I may have to take over anytime and with use you get to know the situations where it is likely to fail. Must be used with great caution in urban areas, but where I find major benefit is in stop and go traffic with car nicely following traffic in front starting and stopping without intervention. For slowing for corners, it works well on some roads and not others, must depend on GPS data. Don’t be so sure that autopilot will not advance rapidly in the future. Watch videos of Tesla FSD beta in the USA- it is not quite there, but is advancing rapidly. May even work without intervention by 2023. Remember this is software, and not human learning. It can completely change overnight with a firmware update. For touching steering wheel, it monitors tension - you can avoid all prompts by simply resting your hand at 5 o’clock or 7 o’clock on wheel.
Exactly this. On my second Model S, six years using autopilot. It’s best on dual carriageways / motorways. It loathes British suburban roads with traffic parked each side where you have to drive down the middle- can’t handle it, not even on adaptive cruise only.
It has little/ no foresight or risk management... although from the beta tester videos in the States, the FSD system is acquiring that ability, thinks ahead and lets other drivers go first - so ultimately we may see that on later iterations.Current basic autopilot doesn’t do traffic lights, or roundabouts, or roadworks very well... it recognises lots of cones and tries to pick a lane where it doesn’t have to deal with cones.
On the Model S, you can readily vary the follow distance by twisting the end of the autopilot control stick - a feature that was moved to the centre screen in the Model 3. This makes it easier to get it to slow earlier (by increasing follow distance) or to speed up faster (by reducing distance). Potentially it can react faster to threats and judge the speed of a braking car ahead better than you can - so optimally, you turn it on but watch it carefully.
My system is autopilot plus, so can pick lanes and decide intelligently when to come off a motorway based on your planned route - so won’t move you off the motorway at the wrong junction. I got this as complimentary feature - not worth spending money for imho.
Full self driving is definitely far closer now than when I got my first Model S. From what I can see on the FSD beta videos they are making rapid progress and the system handles busy suburban streets better than I thought possible. It is streets ahead than the basic autopilot, which tbh is little different now than it was six years ago. I think it’ll be a few years more before we are passengers, but less than a decade.
"Really bad driver but boss at reacting." I don't like the sound of that at all. One thing I've learned from this channel is not to get into situations where you have to rely on your reactions!
Equally, that’s in part because human reactions are slow. Assuming the Autopilot is infallible, it *can* safely navigate these reaction based scenarios. Unfortunately it isn’t infallible
The autopilot will kick in without it being on if needed. If it sees any danger, like any other car, it will kick in to protect you, like auto swerving, braking etc
@@james-cucumber was going to say something similar but you've beaten me to the punch. Its kinda like Windows come to think of it (before 8 onwards). Good but not infallible....god I miss 7.
@@james-cucumber Even if the 'autopilot' is super fast to react, the human drivers around it aren't. So adding another highly reactive 'driver' to the roads will just make things worse. It's the "boy racer" mistake, assuming that everybody else on the road has razor sharp reactions too so you don't think you're doing anything "bad" to other drivers when you make fast, sudden moves.
@@hikaru9624 Oh lordy, not "Clippy for Roads". "Hi! You appear to be trying to road rage tailgate someone. Do you want help with that?"
18:20 the restriction on steering effort that the autopilot can input is due to an EU regulation. The US version of autopilot will manage sharp corners.
Ye but here as shown it cant even take a moderate corner, only a slight corner or a straight road.
@@yashmann That's intentional. The EU designed the regulations so that autopilot will cope with the slight bends on motorways, but not with sharper turns on country and urban roads. This is to prevent drivers being overly reliant on autopilot in these higher-risk environments.
I think auto pilot is more of a "collective feature" for the future. What I mean by that is, at the moment an auto pilot car right now isn't likely going to be driving close to another auto piloted car. But once there's more cars running auto pilot, I don't doubt that Starlink/ 5G+ would allow all Auto piloted cars to communicate with each other to know what is happening and how they can respond/ drive with each other (Which car is decelerating and others avoiding stuff in the road). Almost like how we use the "waze" app to let others know of difficulties on the road so you can plan ahead.
I believe that the UK and EU will have issues with Auto pilot just because our roads are smaller, bendy and more difficult to navigate. Where as America have straight roads and wide lanes meaning it's easier for the car to locate where it is on the road (Seeing road markings, whereas our parked cars on the curbs make it harder to see). Most people, such as yourself, who partake in auto pilot are of the understanding it's a "Be cautious" when driving feature, but that's the right people in place (Because you also provide feedback which Tesla highly appreciate it, good or bad). If it was easily handed out then I'm sure that as much as the data provided from Auto pilot would increase greatly, we'd see some more unfortunate difficulties with those who don't understand what a beta feature entails.
Either way, as of right now, It's (human & AI) work in progress to a safer future for vehicles.
I think you are being over-optimistic even so - since not every vehicle will be auto-pilot - for example, classic or historic vehicles, ones with faulty systems, 'modded' ones, other vehicles like bin-lorries; let alone the fact cyclists and pedestrians (and e-scooter riders) will still be as human and unpredictable as ever; and the major problem is that it appears to be too reactive, as Ashley said. It's like the cruise control on my 2002 Volvo - if I have it set to 50, then need to slow down to 30, when I re-engage it it'll accelerate too harshly back up to 50, when all I want is a steady motor back up to speed, so I usually don't re-engage it until I've manually brought it back almost up to it anyway. If an experienced driver like Ashley is still on tenterhooks when it's on, it's just confirmed what I've thought up to now - I'll be ignoring the option or even avoiding it for a long way into the foreseeable future.
@@ukeleleEric The rate of technology is something that will surprise you then. As we agree it's work in progress towards a better, safer and more efficient future. The more people who use it, the more it'll experience the goods and bads to get better. Take a look at iphones. From when they were introduced to now they've changed phenomenally due to the amount of experience and great technology that comes along the way, making it easier to use, faster and more accessible for anyone (Kids can use them with little to no hassle). It's totally fine to refuse AI but It's only going to get better and it will become a part of the safer roads. AI will work perfectly with the car industry as it already is, but each to their own. At the end of the day an AI car will react to someone/ something about to hit them as opposed to a human controlled car about to hit a human controlled car.
Automatic headlights aren't even reliable yet, let alone autonomous driving!
Auto headlight users, please turn your lights on manually when its raining,
Sincerely,
All of the people behind you.
Awesome vid Ash. This is a massive concern for me. I've been driving since about 1990 and I dont feel safe with adaptive cruise, never mind this. If I'm driving, I'm driving.
I cannot understand why anyone would want to drive a car on autopilot...your video was spot on.
It's less tiring, it makes such easy work of motorways that you can go hundreds of miles without getting tired. It is really only good on motorways though.
A really useful video on the Tesla Autopilot from the UK perspective. I have just watched a video by a CZcamsr called Dirty Tesla. He's testing the Beta system in the US along with around 100000 drivers in the US and Canada. He has been trying out roundabouts in his latest video and it coped reasonably well, much better than previously, so improvements are being implemented!
This is a really useful video for all of us who don't own a Tesla. We now know to be super-vigilant whenever we encounter one on the road.
Yes, as a non Tesla driver it explains for me that the human driver of Teslas are likely to be very much more predictable drivers when they are in full control - when autopilot is in control, the Tesla is likely to behave erratically! ***Advice*** don't tail-gate a Tesla!
Also, these being electric cars, they often have fantastic rates of acceleration - and, it seems, deceleration(!). For those who prefer to drive in an eco-friendly manner, this is counter-intuitive!
@@RiverMersey Given that economical driving requires good observation and planning, I'd be interested to know the cost, in mpg, of each of the Autopilot functions when compared to Ashley in full manual control. Sadly, even if Ashley wanted to run this test, it doesn't appear that he can trust the automation for long enough to do so
We've had our model 3 for a year now and have had a very similar experience. The worst by far is the car deciding to shoot you off the motorway at a random exit, 70mph and a hard turn is a recipe for disaster. That said like you shared, the adaptive speed is very useful. I find the full auto pilot works better when it can "cheat" and follow another car
My model 3 actually saved me from running into a car that had pulled out of a side road on the a38 near Lichfield, I only really use autopilot on motorways because of the issues you mention in this video, however the car is amazing overall & it will only get better with future updates.
Serious and uncritical question. Would you have avoided the car pulling out of the side road if you had full control of your vehicle? If so the system didn't save you from the collision.
I have never liked the idea of self driving cars. You're an expert and you have put into words the very reservations I have. I'll drive my car myself. Thanks, Ashley.
5:50 blue bin lorry.
Excellent example, it reacts but it doesn’t anticipate.
You perceived body language from the lorry that made you want to take a cautionary measure, but it carried on regardless.
AI must've realised it was going to actually stop, so just got on with it lol
Totally agree only TACC (traffic aware cruise control / intermediately autopilot) is the only one I use on city streets. The manual states motorways are the only place you should use autopilot, and it's not rated for anywhere else. I do use full Autopilot 90-95% of the time I'm on motorways, A and B roads and I''m generally happy with it. It considerably reduces driving fatigue for me.
I have paid for the FSD (full self driving package), which I am frustrated with. Long story short, it doesn't do anything more than your version of autopilot right now than stop for traffic lights or change lanes on motorways. Our UK versions of autopilot have effectively been feature locked for 2-3 years, while all of the company's efforts are focused on the self-driving functionality in the US and canada which gets big updates every 2-3 weeks.
The expanded version is supposed to come to our country this year and only to those with the FSD option. However, even with Brexit, we still inherit a number of regulations that 'dumb down' our autopilot. Your car not being able to take sharper curves is one result of those regs.
Fair review. I personally use autopilot on the motorway pretty much all the time. I find it an absolute dream for longer trips. I have quite a lot of confidence in it but am always ready to intervene if necessary and sometimes do need to. Autopilot is definitely not mean for UK minor roads. I work in tech and personally think fully self driving cars will be on the roads in approx. 10 years. Tesla's FSD AI has come a long way in the last few years.
I feel it's the hardware that's going to limit Tesla. No amount of ai will be able to account for the limitations that cameras have.
@@maskofsan1ty I disagree. All the hardware is there, cameras with close enough resolution to see clearly what's going on around the car. If anything, much better vision than a single human with a single pair of eyes. It's purely a software problem to translate the video feed and understand what's going on around the car and it's environment and then to make intelligent decisions to decide the right course of action.
@@superjke718 but the cameras don't do anything for distance calculating. You need LiDAR and beyond for this to be fully autonomous.
I doubt that it was designed for use in UK residential streets, more for US freeway driving, even our motorways are mostly too congested for a system like that
Aren't the freeways in the US, especially around urban areas, just as congested if not more than the UK motorways?
@@ArminGrewe They certainly are around SF where my sister lived for a while - her 'local' freeway had 5+ lanes each way (plus a dual carriageway alongside for local traffic) but was still liable to be at walking pace at any time of day. And the lane markings generally were more worn than in UK, the surface was awful, and there were odd tricks like lanes randomly ending, very short merging lanes at 'on-ramps', etc etc. Worse than the M25, in my experience.
@@dickhelling3529 that's pretty much what I was thinking of. I lived in LA for a year in the early 90s and visited SF a couple of times in the late 90s and early 2000s. Massive multi lane freeways which in particular during rush hour and during other busy times (eg weekend getaways) were completely clogged up. I suspect that won't have changed much, if anything it probably got worse. Too long ago to remember anything about lane markings, but from what I've read about the US infrastructure in general I suspect it isn't much better than the UK, if not worse.
I drive a VW ID.3 and I use the ACC a lot but it does have the same pitfalls that you’ve described. Its main benefit is preventing me from exceeding the speed limit. I mainly drive on 20/30/40 mph speed limit roads. The ACC works best when I’m in heavy traffic on a straight road.
Jaguar I-Pace driver here. My car had adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist. The two systems can be used together or independently.
Lane keeping assist is useless on anything other than a motorway or duel carriageway but even then it can get confused at exits when in lane one.
I think the key thing is to understand the limitations of the systems and be prepared to step in when needed.
I find the adaptive cruise great in town and on the motorway. If you are following another vehicle and it comes to a stop, it will automatically move off again if the other vehicle moves within 3 seconds, otherwise you have to tap the accelerator. Its great in stop / start traffic
I don’t have a Tesla, I have a new model Golf with adaptive cruise control + Lane Assist and every complaint you’ve had with your Tesla I’ve got with my Golf. It can be very good in some scenarios but for a lot it’s very reactive. One of the roads I drive on has lots of parked cars on a steady bend and the car can sometimes see the parked cars as a danger and it will slam on the brakes when it does. When it works however, it’s very impressive.
Great review Ashley. I don't use AP on anything less than a Dual Carriageway or Motorway, and only when I'm driving chilled and sitting in the left lane, it just handles the lane keep for you. I am constantly disengaging it if traffic gets busy or I need to change lanes. You're spot on though, it drives you into risk ALL the time, sits happily in lorry blind spots for miles etc, but I know what it's going to do and disengage early on. It's worrying that new drivers won't spot this and get into trouble using it. I would never ever use AP in town, or even country roads. I think I disagree about 30 years for autonomous cars though, the FSDBeta programme although still as dodgy as hell is steadily improving. The bigger question is why would I want my car autonomous? I love driving.
When the software is fully finished it will have more advanced features. For example it will detect traffic approaching a roundabout a little quickly, accelerate into it for added drama, blast the horn, a voice synthesiser will bellow "yer on dashcam mate" and then it will automatically save and upload the footage to CZcams
I especially are enthousiastic about the improvements at mini roundabouts. Accelerate 10 mph over the speed limit and trying to catch as much people out by going left without indicating. And then the resolution enhancements with the 360 camera's make it a real funpark ride for the youtube watchers.
Would have been good to have a heart rate monitor on you with auto pilot on and off. I have a feeling there may have been a few spikes around lane splits, merges, lights, junctions etc.
Great review. I think it says it all when you said you were going to turn autopilot off and chill out. Far from making for a more relaxing driving experience, it seems to add stress.
Although I'm on the righthand side of the world (the Netherlands) I like the way you, as a driving instructor, approach FSD. I've seen any FSD Beta drivers, but NEVER a driving instructor. You provide a totally new perspective! I think you're right on multiple levels: FSD should react better to possible risks and should adapt better to other road users expectations and to it's environment.
Picked up my first Tesla today and drove 150 miles home via a mix of motorway, dual carriageway, fast A road and very minor country lanes. Provided you're sensible with just using on Motorway and dual carriageway, it surpassed my expectation to be honest. I would have preferred to not have to indicate to give 'permission' to make lane changes, but if I went with the car's request everytime it made it and didn't try second guessing, it was pretty good.
Great report Ashley completely honest and evidence based. I live in south Wiltshire and roads would be unsuitable for autopilot, no lane markings, many give way and even stop line markings have been eroded.
The main issue I identified from this video is when the system 'gives up' and hands control back to the driver. I envisage many drivers not staying alert to that and ending up, as Ashley said, in a hedge. That seems very scary. Adaptive cruise control is a great feature however but, again as said, available on many, and an increasing number of, cars. Tesla have come out of nowhere and are producing great fully battery powered cars but agree don't buy, in the UK at least, for the self driving features.
Without improved roads and signage, and cost will mean that's not going to happen, autopilot benefits will be limited. I doubt a 100% autopilot road network will ever exist therefore a 100% autopilot car will never exist.
Bad driver, boss reactions. EXACTLY. I know I am not quoting word for word, but you really hit the nail right on the noggin, there. It has been echoing around my head since this video came out.
Today, I realised that analysis describes why I don't like so many of these "new fangled" systems, like AEB, lane keep assist....they aren't "active" in the true sense of the word. The are all re-active. Something has to go wrong before they intervene. Instead of reading and predicting traffic, they merely wait for an obstuction and slam on the anchors.
Yes, AEB is a boon when the driver is an inattentive buffoon, but AEB isn't solving the actual problem or doing anything to prevent it, it only tries to lessen the damage when the inevitable happens.
I have held my license for almost 30 years now, and I have lost count of the number of times I have prevented big-city pedestrians from ending up on my bonnet by spotting them early, reducing my speed and hence being able to brake smoothly/moderately when they stumble onto the road without looking over their shoulder. AEB doesn't do that. It may well be able to react faster than me (now 46 years old), but it doesn't see a dangerous situation when it starts.
There is something about certain people's body language, you just KNOW they aren't paying attention. It goes for drivers too, of course, not only pedestrians.
Really liking your channel !
Very nice vid Ash.
You highlight a lot of solid points, and I agree that we are a good distance off any kind of autonomous vehicles on the open roads (closed systems like docks/large factories etc are certainly more doable). Like other comments have mentioned, it needs huge investment in civil infrastructure to compliment and enable such systems,.
From my experience using adaptive cruise control on an HGV, I think I would much prefer to go back to the earlier systems of a simple 'speed hold'. There are simply too many instances where the system does, or doesn't do what it should be - or just gets confused and slams the anchors on (a bin bag drifting across the road, or the sun blinding it are classics).
What these systems will be good at, is eliminating silly 'human' errors, or negating tiredness or lack of attention issues - much like an autopilot on an aircraft. But as any pilot will tell you, and many users of a SatNav have found out - trust it too much or ask it to do silly things and prepare to reap the consequences...
solid review, Im sticking with my Skoda Superb Estate ... 2.0 150 Diesel auto. 30k miles a year.. 60mpg. Like driving an armchair with a heated seat. I have adaptive cruise... use it when appropriate.. so far so good. Dirty diesel & happy for it... other than the £189.9 per litre
Good explanation. I live in South Florida and it’s easier to use as most of our city roads are dual carriage ways, so I can use Autopilot on these city streets, but it is reactive rather than pre active coming up to vehicles stopped at traffic lights, and if there are no stopped vehicles in front of you and if the lights are red you have to react and takeover, the cameras can detect the lights but won’t stop the car. The most annoying thing here is if at a traffic lights ahead a car coming from opposite direction does a U turn cutting in front of you, it overreacts and brakes unnecessarily hard and you need to step on the accelerator to override. But on the US interstate highways with their wide lanes and good markings it excels, it’s immensely helpful on longer highway driving. I do agree it’s just won’t excel on UK roads as Neal indicated. One thing Neal got wrong is that full self driving will take forty years to work correctly. I think it’ll be only another 5 years here in USA, with Beta versions working well in 2 years. For UK roads I think around ten years would be a good bet. I think once government traffic departments realize that FSD is inevitable, they’ll cooperate to ensure compatible traffic lane markings and signs are placed to a worldwide standard to enable full self driving vehicles can operate in a more safe way than human drivers. Present roads, lane markings, road junctions often are designed to impede excess speeds and therefore aren’t ideal for FSD. That’s the thing that will slow down adoption of FSD, the AÍ solution is very close to being available and will work well in countries whose road systems are presently the most compatible with FSD, probably USA and Canada.
I'm amazed to read "can detect the lights but won’t stop the car." Is that why there are hundreds of videos on CZcams of drivers (I think mostly in US) going through red lights? I had assumed it was drivers using cruise-control in city streets, which I (certainly in UK) would never risk.
@@rogerukw3513 The lights are detected and displayed on the screen. The screen is a presentation of the FSD Full Self Driving screen which helps with collision avoidance. But the Full Self Driving upgrade costs $12K or $200 per month a a subscription service. And I don’t have that. For the moment only special release of FSD Beta can drive on city streets and that will stop and obey traffic lights. Going through a traffic light on red is illegal, and not anything to do with Teslas, just bad or inattentive drivers. Using cruise control on city streets is not the reason either, many low end cars don’t have cruise control, once again inattentive or just plain bad drivers as any where else cause the accidents. Here in USA there aren’t many roundabouts, in their place are many traffic lights, another reason that running the red light will be more prevalent in the USA. And, yes they certainly do have a high rate of fatal / serious accidents at some of these Traffic light controlled crossroads, especially here in South Florida.
Interesting bid Ashley, thank you. I joined a web chat last week talking about the possibility of allowing full self-driving in the UK, discussing the various laws that might surround it and whether it was ultimately a good idea.
There very much seemed to be two camps. On the one hand people were saying that the system has faster reaction times and can "see" more than a human, so it must be safer than allowing (yes, one person actually said "allowing") a human to drive.
In the other camp were people mainly from motoring backgrounds voicing the concerns you've mostly addressed here. It can react very quickly and detect a lot of things to react to, but it cannot predict. The old mantra about driving to what you can see, what you can't see, and what you can reasonably expect to happen goes totally out of the window.
The other big concern was that a huge number of people can't be trusted to pay attention properly when they're driving normally and really should be concentrating. If people can't concentrate when they are in full control of the vehicle, how can we trust them to concentrate when they know (or THINK) that the vehicle is in control?
Hi Sid. It's interesting about the two camps and how they seem to be split along "professional" lines as it were. I wonder how much experience
the non-professional people have had of these systems as they seem to be talking from a position of theory. I agree that the system will have faster reaction times but it certainly can't see more (with the exception of dark, rainy and foggy conditions, perhaps) and it certainly can't currently predict nearly as well as the human brain can. An observant person has a far better physics engine at its disposal than any current computer which will almost certainly always reduce the need for the faster reactivity of the computer.
I can see that quite soon we will have a situation where automated driving systems are better than the worst drivers and that in a minority of road conditions they are superior to all drivers. The pressure will then be on to adopt or even mandate automated driving systems because the elimination of some accidents and deaths wil be hard to argue against. The big problem here is if the system causes a death where a person would have avoided the situation. We cannot be in a position where these systems are mandated but the driver still has the responsibility. Put the responsibility back on the manufacturer and let's see how willing they are in reality to have them mandated.
The fact Tesla made the (crazy) decision to remove radar and rely only on camera's means it doesn't really 'see' any better than humans, and the AI can be fooled. In the US there are now 3 cases of motorcycle riders being killed by a Tesla not seeing them and many close calls. IMO this tech shouldn't be rolled out until fully proven, or driver's take the full responsibility of manslaughter should their car cause a fatality.
Cars are meant to be driven by the user. I’m going to make a very general assumption here and say that most Tesla drivers are pretty educated and sensible people. Imagine having auto pilot cars that are used by inexperience d and reckless drivers? A completely pointless ‘technological advancement’ in my opinion. Really honest review of it mate. I would not feel comfortable with an autopilot car!!
How do you come to the conclusion that teslas are driven by educated and sensible drivers?
You also said that you couldn't imagine having reckless and inexperienced drivers with autopiloted vehicles then went on to say you wouldn't be any good in one so are you either not sensible experienced or are you reckless and inexperienced.
Lol
I drive a Hyundai Kona Electric, it has Lane Follow Assist and ACC. I enjoy it on non-busy roads and motorways, I take over steering or disengage if it gets busy. What I don't like about it is that it doesn't tell you when it stops working and when you ignore the hands-on-wheel-warnings; it just disengages, and the car takes you directly into an accident, if you for example are incapacitated.
But what I normally use is the speed-limiter, just set it and forget it until the speed-limit changes. Just drive as normal, but you don't have to watch your speed all the time, taking your eyes off the road. Very relaxing.
Other than that, I agree with everything you said, and wouldn't use autopilot in the scenarios you pointed out.
Cheers
The adaptive cruise control is useful for motorway driving and particularly where you have to go through road works at a lower fixed speed. The semi-autopilot system is a not really very good for use on European roads. Ive experimented with it but it always finds something to spook it - like a horse that suddenly sees a plastic bag. Not found the issue with going around corners but generally I dont use it. Mostly, I feel it takes away the fun from driving.
As a (former) software engineer of 40+ years working with real-time control systems, was always suspicious of the Autopilot and particularly the Full Self Driving. I think there is not enough computing power, even with the dedicated additional system, to do FSD. There are so many factors to take into account and generate the proper risk assessment. Having taken the car abroad, it struck me that there are many different signage systems for temporary speeds, road closures and different types of street furniture to spook it that I find it difficult to see how anyone can contemplate an autonomous vehicle system to cope with it.
My recommendation - dont buy a Tesla for these features and dont buy the FSD system. Use the cruise control when it helps but dont spoil your fun of driving a car. It is a very nice car to drive around and mostly you only need to use one pedal. They have established their own fast charging infrastructure and that featured high-up in my choice for having this car. (even though they've opened it to non-Tesla cars in some places these days)
Already thought autopilots are not and very likely never for me and this just confirmed it . Thank you .👍
I personally think if you're going to drive, then drive. If you not, get a bus or taxi. I won't trust an automated system. My last car had adaptive cruise control....I think I used it once. Like you Ashley, I want to control the car, can you imagine a judge in court after a collision hearing a driver say, 'I didn't do that you honour, the car did'. Yeah, good luck making that stick. Or am I being just old fashioned as I am a driver of 40 odd years. Nice honest review btw.
Hey Ashley, just a quick little tip. When you engage autopilot you don't have to "crunch" down on the gear select you can just give it a little press as if you were going from reverse to neutral. :)
Watching this reminds me of last Thursday. My wife needed to go somewhere for work. After we completed the day, we returned to hired car. The chap that drove us home, made me feel as you did in this video. He just dove much faster, much closer to the car in front, took curves much too fast, stopped in the pedestrian crossing at the lights...
I don't drive a Tesla but I do have a Mercedes with adaptive cruise and lane keep assist. It also has collision avoidance which is on at all times but I've only had a couple of mis-fires with this system (there's a poorly constructed junction near me where one lane entering one of those round and through roundabouts aims directly at a concrete bollard. You can imagine the chaos when the Merc emergency stopped!!).
Given what you have described, I would not claim that the Tesla system is an auto-pilot system at all. In reality, it is very close to the functionality that I have in my Mercedes and I agree with everything you have said about its limitations. In a year of experimentation I have only found one situation where lane keep assist is actually beneficial - creeping traffic on motorways or dual carriageways. Not even A roads in the majority of situations. This is also where adaptive cruise is at its best.
Fortuitously, the Mercedes does not insist on you touching the wheel if you are doing less than 20mph. With both systems engaged, I did a very relaxing 12 mile crawl along the M25 the other day....
Neither adaptive cruise nor lane keep assist functionality is at all suited to urban use for all the reasons you have said. They are only suitable for motorways, dual carriageways and certain large A roads and even then, you still need to be aware of their limitations and be ready to take over.
Right now, these systems are pretty useless and need to be supervised at all times and turned off or driven around. They are only for observant drivers who want to relax a little in the right circumstances. Or where you are stuck on the M25 :-)
I'm honestly surprised that the "autopilot" is that twitchy on the Tesla. I see so many people raving on about it. And on Wham Bam TeslaCam, you see so many Teslas on autopilot, even on twisty, busy, A type roads.
My Peugeot has adaptive cruise control with lane assist. Essentially an autopilot without the side sensors to avoid folk merging into you.
It works fine on the city streets I've used it on (always with my hands resting on the wheel). So long as there is a decent centre line, it seems to cope.
On the motorway it works very, very, well. Has no issues keeping in lane, even in the twisty mountain section of the M74, south of Glasgow.
Has no issues staying in lane going past slip roads either. It doesn't freak out when there is traffic all around the car either. Just keeps it's distance from the vehicle in front and stays in lane. (I always have my hands on the wheel and observe my surroundings as I normally would).
It even adapts its response to slower vehicles in front depending on the rate of closure. The faster the rate of closure, the earlier it breaks and the hard it does so too.
Just did an Edinburgh to Bradford and back run over a long weekend and it was a doddle. Didn't need to take the cruise control off once during the motorway sections.
I tried autopilot on a model 3 in New Zealand and came to the same conclusions. If I had expressed my feelings and said to it “Don’t you think you are a bit too confident?” If it could I thought that it might reply “Don’t worry old man, I’m on top of this as my reaction times are far quicker than yours.” It made me tense. Additionally I tried it on a windy coast road set to the 50 kph speed limit. Notable was how accurately it positioned the vehicle in the centre of the lane. I felt it drove too fast on some of the tighter bends which was exacerbated by not straightening the corners by using more of the lane width. Throughout I was ready to take over which was just as well as it got confused when reaching a parking bay on the left. The kerb veered away to the left and the left lane marking was worn. Most unrelaxing!.
I drive a diesel Ford Galaxy. It has ACC and lane-keeping. Very happy with it after 2 years. Its designed for you to always keep your hands on the wheel still but you can set how soon it applies the brakes and it'll just give the wheel a gentle nudge to stay in lane. Very comfortable with it.
The steering around corners is because of your laws. They put in a limit to how much steering the auto systems can input. Does the info screen for autopilot not say for highways/motorways anymore? It used to specifically mention it was not for surface streets. And it doesn't work well on surface streets, imagine that.
Great video Ashley. I've had an M3 SR+ for a couple of month now and completely agree with your findings. I use enhanced cruise a lot to stop me speeding but am always ready to brake or accelerate as I find phantom braking a big concern and could be dangerous. Enhanced autopilot on motorways is great and takes some stress away but I still have my foot over the brake!
Also it knows the speed limits but won't slow down when, say, limit drops from 50 to 30. Bloody annoying though you can tap the speed limit symbol on the screen and it will adjust. Why can't it do this itself???
And yes it's totally reactive. Scared the hell out of me a couple of times with late braking and can confuse other drivers with slow starts at traffic lights. On the good side it is like having an extra pair of eyes looking out for you.
It slows down fine for me. It even accelerated again to 50 after leaving 30 zone after recent SW update.
When I was an engineering student in the 80s, there was no way we would have video calls on our phones in the furure.
A audio call was needing a 4 kHz band width, while a video call would need more than 1 MHz. Impossible...
I think it is a matter of time and will plus intelligent roads and interaction between cars.
The 80s were 40 years ago, so that does fit with Ash's prediction of how long we might have to wait for reliably safe full autonomy.
@@PedroConejo1939 I refuse to accept the 80s were 40 years ago. Please never say that again.
@@OldQueer Lol. Other numbers are available.
@@PedroConejo1939 well, arguably the 80s were "only" 33 years ago. But then again I think that makes little difference for this argument
Seems to me that the system increases your stress levels, rather than decreasing them which is what I thought it was supposed to do...
Agree it pushes you into risk. On the motorway it’s fine most times but doesn’t account for merging traffic etc so yes I turn it on an off. Never had it not take a corner on a motorway though.
Definitely brakes way later than I like. It’s great in creeping traffic but sucks if there are any parked cars.
I don't use it in the street and would only use it on an empty motorway. The lane maintenance did activate for me on the motorway when overtaking vehicles were coming close. American roads are straight, that's what this is useful for, multiple lanes makes it go nuts.
Another tip - if you hold down the AP stalk the car will set the speed to the current speed limit, without you having to use the steering wheel controls to do it.
My Citroen C5 Hybrid, does this. On a fast road such as a motorway, engage adaptive cruise control and it also steers the car 🚗 Hands must stay on the wheel for safety, but it steers.
very good review, thank you. Look forward to more in future
clear testing
I’d say in an age where there are far more distractions on the road self driving cars are a bad idea currently, there’s no way I’d trust that system, too many people will use self drive as a way to use their “smartphone” behind the wheel, it’s ok Tesla was driving.. will Tesla be admissible in the event that the self drive causes an accident? I think your analogy is spot on 👍
They already enabled interior camera in recent SW update and are tracking driver's eye/head movements, consequently disabling autopilot (in US for now).
I have no confidence at all in the adaptive cruise in my model 3. Ive had around half a dozen phantom braking episodes in the 3 months I’ve had it, the worst of which was a 70 to 30 mph slam on in the middle lane of the M1 (I think maybe the shadow of a bridge caused it but not sure)
I have a Model 3 and for long journeys on motorway especially in Europe the autopilot is brilliant as it takes a lot of effort off the driver and makes long journeys much less tiring. Also the M3 is a very comfortable car so makes these long distance journeys very easy.
Mine (Toyota) is quite pleasant. When going slow it will follow the car in front. When faster it seems to still look at car movement to distinguish lanes for adaptive cruise control. Thanks to lax lane painting the lane lane keeping hardly triggers in town, but it is also very gentle in the force needed/applied. More of a nudge than even a suggestion
I hate the toyota lane assist and wish I could turn it of permanently. It has pushed me out of my lane on multiple locations. The adaptive cruise control also can't handle cars in front slowing down after they moved lanes. Always have to press the accelerator to keep it from slowing down.
Totally fair review. My Audi's adaptive cruise control/lane assist stresses out at times when I pass slip roads and I would only ever use that feature on a motorway, no idea how any of this is supposed to work with old small UK roads.
Bet these systems would have a field day on single track roads.
That surprises me! I'd have thought the system on an Audi would be better than the system on my Peugeot. Yet, my car handles the motorway and slip roads without issue. Just did 600 miles over a long weekend down the M74/M6 and up again, done it a few times since I've had the car. No problems with the slip roads. Even handles the roadworks fine!
@@bmused55 it's possible it might be down to the road markings, ie faded lines perhaps. I generally only really use the adaptive cruise on motorways or extremely slow moving traffic where the automatic stop start removes some of the tedium from driving. I think the lane assist system is more for safety with the Audi, if it sees you moving across a lane or towards a car.
Very, very instructive video Ashley!
Would you test this again when they release the Full self driving software? The FSD beta is so much more advanced than the current version you're on so maybe another test next year?
Absolutely!
@@ashley_neal Is this the super fantastic FSD that is nowhere near Full Self Driving and is instead classed as Level 2 automation? I'd say that might be even more of a risk, especially when we have private consumers beta testing dodgy software on public roads for a private company not willing to actually create a functional product as advertised before shipping.
Lovely to see you too here, man. 😉👍
According to Musk full self driving cars are always 1 year away!
According to Elon Musk in 2019. It already has FSD.
He said you can call for your car even if its in the next town and it will drive to you automatically.
Strange since he cannot get the FSD to work in his own one way tunnels.
I have no experience with autopilot but it does not look anywhere near being fit for purpose, I'd even go so far to say it looks dangerous and should not be currently available to select.
The adaptive cruise seems to do what I would expect.
I agree with you, we are probably several decades away in the UK.
Brilliant analysis, as per usual. Thanks!
Take care & stay safe 😉
Ashley I don’t know much about self driving cars, so can you show us in a later vlog the sensors etc. And will a dirty car or bad weather ( heavy rain or snow) cause issues with the sensors. Keep up your hard work buddy. 👍🏻
Hey Ashley, thanks for another excellent episode. I completely agree with your comments concerning Autopilot in the Tesla Model 3. The Model 3 is awesome. Best car I've ever owned. But Autopilot is rather less than awesome.
I bought my Tesla Model 3 Long Range new in July 2019 and... I'm an ADI using it as a tuition car to teach learner drivers. They're taking and passing driving tests in this car. What's more, I optioned 'Full Self Driving' (FSD) on my Model 3. Yes, I was stupid or curious enough (take your pick) to spend the extra on the FSD option.
The issue with Autopilot as I see it is that it is 95% reliable on Motorways and Dual Carriageways. I've learned not to engage Autopilot on any other roads because it causes too many heart stopping moments. And that's the issue isn't it? 95% is not good enough. In fact, it's sodding dangerous.
With the FSD option on my Tesla, if I engage Navigate On Autopilot, the car automatically offers to overtake slower moving vehicles. You are required to confirm by applying the right indicator to carry out the manoeuvre and it mostly carries this out safely. Mostly. When it does, it's impressive. But, from time to time, it will abandon an overtaking manoeuvre half way through and switch back to the lane we were moving out from, for no apparent reason. Eliciting a "WTF" comment!
And then there's 'Phantom Braking'. Only yesterday, in Lane 2 of the M5 near Frankley Services with Navigate On Autopilot engaged, I had the car decelerate suddenly from 70mph to 25mph. I'm guessing because it 'saw' a truck in Lane 1 that was perfectly positioned and being driven safely. Why this truck and not others? The car had already passed dozens of trucks on my way from Cheltenham to Birmingham without any issue, but then 'decided' it didn't like this one... without warning me first!
Maybe Tesla will get this sorted in due course. After all my car, like yours, is continually transmitting data to the Tesla servers in Austin Texas. Anyway, we're assured that Tesla is accumulating 'billions of miles' of driving data from the entire fleet worldwide. Elon Musk recently announced that full self driving "better than human ability" will become available "before the end of the year". Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it. I've already challenged him on Twitter to consistently navigate the Swindon Magic Roundabout in all directions on Full Self Driving safely, with due care and consideration for all other road users. I reckon that would be reasonable test! Only then will I believe. Maybe it would also be a good idea for the Tesla software engineers to study and consider The Highway Code! I'm not convinced they have.
Yes, I agree with you Ashley. Full Self Driving is tens of years away. So, let's forget Autopilot and Full Self Driving. However, in every other respect the Tesla Model 3 is completely awesome. And my learner drivers absolutely love driving it. With FSD switched out in their Driver Profiles.
Thanks for your comment 👊 Are there any limit to the number of driver profiles you can have?
@@ashley_neal Only 10 driver profiles. The driver profiles are super for getting the pupil set up and into the lesson quickly. But only for 9 of them. I've set up a driver profile named 'Learner Driver' for the rest. I've asked Elon in a tweet to add 30 driver profiles... because I'm a driving instructor!
EV's are for clown's 🤡🤡 who have to much money
I’ve used standard cruise control for many years, and on motorways it’s great. The Tesla autopilot and adaptive cruise control looks like it turns a pleasant drive into an angst ridden nightmare.
Ashley Neal becomes Jack Massey Welsh!
About 3 years ago, I remember Ashley recommending Jack's Tesla channel - now we come full circle!
Many thanks Ashley!!!
Can't compete with Jack!
@@ashley_neal - yes, unlike with Jack, I imagine that your better half would refuse to dress-up as a road cone, and any of your friends refuse to be locked in the frunk!
Use it on motorways and dual carriageways, only normal cruise on other roads. Very good on motorway, only has a moment occasionally changing from lane 3 to 2 if a lorry is on lane 1, sometimes thinks lorry may pull out so brakes, other than that it is amazing in traffic jams, and the steering wheel doesn't have sensors, it detects your hand by resistance, so of you drive holding wheel, it never comes on so knows if you aren't
About 15 years ago I was asked for my opinion of self driving vehicles, by a guy who was involved in designing them.
I voiced my concern regarding anticipation, preempting and decision making. It looks like it may be some time before professional license holders need to worry about their jobs.
Interesting review. I suspect the Autopilot feature is best left for dual carriageways and motorways rather than running around town.
It's very cool to hear you talking about what you're observing from other road users as you drive around - there was a van around 14 minutes that you observed had pulled out expecting you to turn off and you saw him looking in his mirrors - That kind of information is invaluable for drivers to obtain for themselves while driving and it's something an autopilot will never be able to do
Sooner or later, autonomous driving will become our everyday life, and when it does, I'll get my motorcycle license. Here in Germany, if you are over 25 and have had your class B license (car) for 5 years, you can make the B196 extension for relatively little effort and money, which allows you to drive light motorcycle up to 125 cc and 11 kW.
These motorcycle cost no tax and very little insurance, but are fast enough for everyday use and are even allowed on the motorway.
Hi Ashley, would love to see a reaction video to the Full Self Driving Beta tests in America, of course not nearly applicable to UK roads but would be good to have an instructors POV on it
There are lots to choose from on here!
Well, it would certainly make a good tool for training PDIs to be on their toes to intervene when required!
This is not aimed at you personally, Ashley, but it still blows my mind that a company can ask US to pay for testing a Beta feature, instead of the other way around! And not just ask, but people are happily paying for it! And not just paying for it, but paying 10 f🤘cking grand for it! (The price of owning another pretty great second hand car!?! 🤯 ) This will *never* become normal or sane in my common sense. 😁🤷♂
I'm not suprised at Tesla owners doing this as they bought the car in the first place.
The purchase would be for the feature forever. It would be upgraded over time and the more people who have it, it will help its ability to become a common and safer feature amongst owners in the future. It might be £10k now but in the future it will be priced higher.
They are all pioneers. I haven't paid, but have autopilot on at all times when possible, so the wrinkles are sent to their servers and ironed out for the day when FSD is released in UK (sadly not soon enough due to regulations.. but hopefully before EU:))
Even the free autopilot has already improved drastically in UK over the last 18 months since I had the car.
I would rather just drive the car. Except for the emergency braking response I don't see any advantage and wouldn't be able to relax. I did drive a Ford Focus estate for a while when working and appreciated the 'collision avoidance' on it. But that's all I liked lol.
Same. I can see some advantages for elderly drivers but again that's about it. No way is this a fully autonomous car (again level 2 AI. My pet robot Vector is more autonomous and he's offline!). They should rename it from autopilot to assisted driving or something.
The only time that my Ford activated emergency braking was when I was slowly edging into a parking space and there was a wall in front of me. I was about three feet away from the wall when the brakes were suddenly stamped on. Utterly useless.
@@rogerking7258 I can't see how that would be an emergency. It worked for me when a security guard stepped out of his hut in front of me, and another time when I was accelerating on slip road to match traffic speed and the car in front of me suddenly slowed. The reaction was so quick, I'm sure I couldn't have done the same. But I could have stopped or slowed in plenty of time. It would possibly have prevented a less aware driver having an accident.
Most new cars have a similar system. My Yaris will keep you in your lane, braking and accelerating. You can adjust
the distance from the car in front before it brakes. I've used it a couple of times. It could be handy if there is a long
stretch of road with a speed limit with cameras.
8:40 it shows all objects it sees on the screen, and if any of them are on collision course, it will paint them red, chime alert, and apply brakes if you won't.
Spot on description, a bad driver that can react like lightning. The only time I use full auto is on the motorway. The problem is if a lorry drifts (only very slightly) then it can brake sharply in the middle lane, not good. But for fun, drop the activation lever 5 times quickly…..Rainbow Road anyone? Thanks Ashley, another great video.
My sixth senses were on-edge watching this. It reminds me of cycling with your hands off the handlebar, something I don't do, because of those same sixth-senses, and I have an extremely well balanced and responsive bike.
That being said, even having music blaring while driving is a distraction to me. Perhaps for some people, this is an advantage. I suspect over-all, it will cause more accidents than prevent.
*Audio warnings* however can be very valuable....but with hands-on.
A big shout out to the M62 Rocket there. One of regular road trips for many years back in the day.
I've driven a few cars with adaptive cruise control and they're fine on the motorway for the most part (when moving at normal speeds), however I'd never use it in town because there are just too many variables. You need to be far more predictive of the odd things that other vehicles are likely to do in town whereas the adaptive controls can only ever be reactive
Nice summary. As you have said the system is reactive and has no road sense that a good driver should. There’s a real risk of being rear ended even on the basic ACC as it just panics to a situation and performs an unnecessary emergency brake.
Totally agree about ACC use and my MG Pilot system. I use the ACC 90% of the time with a manual input for speed in bends and for risk etc. It is useful as an anti speeding method and it does react really quickly if other road users do crazy things. The full MG Pilot is good for motorways and long straight routes without complex lane structures. The only time it stopped working was on a very curvy motorway join M1 to A42 south. My system is a proprietary Bosch one.
I love car driving itself is just getting on with it
The problem with Machine Intelligence is that they have absolutely zero understanding.
I read about an MI which was trained to distinguish photos of animals from photos which did not contain animals. It did a goods job, but when they investigated exactly what it was doing it turned out that it was not looking for animals, it was simply looking for an out-of-focus background, which animal photos tend to have. If you gave it a photo of a teapot with an out-of-focus background it would say it was an animal! This is the kind of idiotic mistake that even a child of two would never make.
For this reason it is impossible to even guess if and when they will be as competent as a skilful human driver, which would require genuine understanding, because it would require a radical new development, which is impossible to predict.
Yes, that was a problem. It is easily solved with better and larger datasets. It is now a solved problem though. You'd have to work very hard to find such a corner case nowadays with the latest and largest systems.
I’ve got adaptive cruise and lane assist on my A5. Only use the lane assist on the motorway, can be annoying on a good straight road where you barely need any steering input as the sensor panics when it thinks you’re not holding the wheel even though you are.
I use the adaptive cruise on all my journeys, it takes into account of changes in speed limit and will even slow down for bends in country lanes. You probably have to be more alert when using it, but I find it stops me speeding and I find it very relaxing.
What I believe is required to enable fully autonomous vehicles is for traffic lights and road signage to be upgraded to transmit information to the oncoming vehicles, rather than relying on cars to detect and react.
Obviously one problem with any system is vehicle on the road that pre-date the technology and don't behave in the same way as the new generation of vehicles.
Good demonstration - I'm glad you did that so that we don't have to!
The limitations are clear from this and it certainly doesn't look like it would be very useful in any kind of traffic build up, just being slightly better than regular cruise control. Personally, I wouldn't even think of using that system around town, even on relatively large roads.
As you said, a system that doesn't react to potential hazards is going to be too stressful. There may yet be some significant legal difficulties on the horizon for Tesla regarding Autopilot and striking emergency service vehicles at incidents (CNN, 09.06.22 "Federal investigators expand probe into Tesla Autopilot crashes").
What does it do for red traffic lights if you're the first car?
Owning a model 3 myself, i would at it's current state never use it outside of motorways, especially as shown it needs the clear markings. The funny part is if the markings end it will attempt to keep autopilot on but center itself on the whole road (so right over the implied center line)
On the traffic lights, the basic system both me and Ashley have won't stop for them, however the full self driving upgrade (which is not fully implemented as stated in other comments) will stop at both lines, stop lines and give way signs, currently requiring the user to use the right stalk to confirm going through
I enjoy driving.Always have.
Bought a car that did everything for itself.
2 months later sold it.(Lost a lot of money.)
But it took the fun out of driving.Sitting there like a spare prick at a wedding.Feeling totally superfluous.
Just waiting for the car to make a mistake so I could prove my worth.
Give me a car with a manual gear box, no sensors, no figure hugging seats anyday.
I learnt to drive so" I could drive "not be a
passenger.
Probably another reason why I like my motorbikes so much.
I still remember the guy a view years back who drives his Tesla from the back seat. You might find the video still on CZcams.
Ashley, Compared with your fantastic level of concentration, it was noticeable how quickly your focus was on the screen with eyes off the road.
Agree with virtually everything you've said. The one area where the autosteer is a real godsend is in traffic jams, particularly on motorways. In the scenario where you are sat in mostly stationary traffic which moves occasionally for a few hundred metres at 20 mph, the ability to let the car monitor the traffic around you and initiate the simple start/stop maneuvers is fantastic. It turns a normally quite stressful driving experience into a fairly relaxing one. Still need to supervise it though so no nodding off!
That's honestly a scenario that I haven't tried it out and it's one that I can see would be quite successful!
This is ACC and Lane assist, its not self driving. Its not designed to anticipate that the drivers job. In my opinion, its to aid drivers on long motorway drives.
I have a Nissan Juke which has the pro pilot. After watching the video, it’s broadly similar to the Tesla. It seems to need the white lane markings before it activates so it only generally comes on when I’m somewhere that has really good lines. It works really well on dual carriageways but isn’t keen if it’s very windy as I think gusts can overwhelm it a little. It’s great for longer distances as I only touch the wheel every ten seconds or so but it does require a different level of concentration. When I have it only on adaptive cruise control, I can adjust the distance sensitivity, but in heavy traffic I do often switch it off. I think that’s also because in heavy traffic, the safe gap that the car leaves tends to encourage other drivers to move into that gap. So I either throttle override it or switch it off. Perhaps Ashley could test drive some different versions of auto pilot on different cars sometime?