Yeah so I don't care about the blutooth because my car DRIVES ITSELF a big percent of the time. it's fundamentally changed how I view driving. Stop and Go traffic no longer makes me mad. Road trips no longer exhaust me.
There's probably some issues but none that I care about. It feels like driving the future. It's an absolute joy to drive.
> Yeah so I don't care about the blutooth because my car DRIVES ITSELF a big percent of the time.
See, this worries me. Almost all of the Model 3 owners I know tell me that not supporting bluetooth features isn't a big deal because they can safely use their phone while driving. This is completely false. When I last drove in a friend's Model 3 he had to make several manual corrections while using auto pilot on California highways; it's still not good enough for people to be messing with their phone while driving.
I don’t think that was the implication. It’s that Tesla is focused on hitting the high order bits and so has earned a little forgiveness about smaller things.
I don't believe you. I own an AP1 Tesla as well as a nominally "FSD computer equipped" AP2 Tesla.
You would be injured or killed if you tried taking an unmonitored trip of any reasonable length - ON THE HIGHWAY - in either, with autopilot on and with the nag disabled using a weight. If you think you don't have to routinely make manual corrections to save yourself from dying I think you are either lying or delusional.
You're stretching quite a bit here...None of the things you said were implied by the previous poster.
> If you think you don't have to routinely make manual corrections to save yourself from dying I think you are either lying or delusional.
What makes you think owners are not aware of this? Try asking that question on the /r/rteslamotors subreddit and you'll see that owners will quickly educate you and tell you to keep your eyes on the road.
You also get a visual warning to do so, whenever you engage Autopilot.
They said their car drives itself every day. "Drives itself" means that the car does all of the work of driving without requiring human intervention or involvement. And that technology, of course, does not exist in any car at the moment.
> Also Teslas are the safest cars. Not sure what you're talking about
In other words being on your phone isn't a big deal because you'll be safe. But those other people you might hit? What about them? Do you have any care in that direction?
I'm driving a Toyota Corolla with lane assist which does 95% of what Tesla "Self Driving" does. It accelerates and brakes for me in traffic, and correct courses to stay in my lane. This is a 18k$ car and I would not accept trading Bluetooth issues with fancy parking summon features.
If so, it’s constantly disengaging to the point it seems unusable. This is not anywhere remotely 95% of what AutoPilot does.
Look at Autonomous Day presentations on things like cut-in detection and lane changes. Look at what the active accident avoidance technology accomplishes in the real world. The Toyota system is not even trying to do any of that.
Having driven a car with Toyota's smart driving features... I view them as a negative. Cruise control keeps me too far back from whatever vehicle is in front of me. Dealbreaker with no clear way to disable. I'll stick with my 7 year old Yaris (which also has shitty Bluetooth)
Hi. Safe following distance is the distance required to safely stop at whatever speed you are going. At a typical speed of 90km/hr (that's usually when this "feature" gets engaged - slowing me to 10km/hr under the limit because that's what someone in front of me is doing), the safe stopping distance is around 80-90 meters (perception+braking in good conditions). The shortest follow distance setting I seemed able to find was around double this distance.
tl;dr: I do not find that the adaptive cruise control is engaged at a safe following distance. Indeed, I think it makes me less safe as a driver, because it slows me down arbitrarily without any visual or auditory notification.
The LONGEST following distance maintained by Toyota's adaptive cruise control is 50m (at 80 km/h). The short and medium settings are 30m and 40m.
So either (a) the car you drove was defective or (b) you are radically misjudging your following distance. I know you are inclined to assume the former, but keep in mind that humans are terrible at judging distances when moving at high speeds, and most people leave way too little space between them and the car in front of them.
I make a habit of counting seconds between cars (particularly in light traffic, which is also the only time I'm using cruise control), aiming for the standard 5s follow. At 90km/hr (25m/s), you're telling me Toyota's cruise control has a maximum follow distance of 2 seconds? That is incorrect from my experience (and unsafe from standard driving practice). Where did you get that number?
I looked it up in the owners manual for the Toyota Corolla available online.
(While I haven't driven a Toyota Corolla with adaptive cruise control, I have driven a Subaru Forester, which uses roughly the same following distance; I find it to be a little closer than I'd prefer on my own, but accept it for the convenience and because I assume it can get away with a shorter following distance, since it is not reliant on human reflexes to stop in an emergency.)
You are not going to get to your destination faster by staying closer to the car in front of you. You'll still be restricted to 90 minus 10 km/h.
Not that this is even a problem in the fist place, I've used dozens of cars with ACC, no Toyota in particular though, and all of them allow adjusting within almost armreach close to a long 5sec gap. Put closer distance in heavy traffic to prevent lane jumping in front of you and 5 sec for comfortable highway cruising.
Most of my cruise control driving is on very low traffic volume divided highways. With regular cruise control, if the distance to a car gets smaller, I know there is a speed differential and I can slow down or pass, as appropriate. With the adaptive cruise control, the system as decided for me that slowing down is the correct option, generally before I've gotten close to where I would normally pull out to pass. With the long follow distance and the very gentle deceleration, I generally don't realize the system has slowed me down. This would be good as long as slowing down is the decision I want, but my cruise is generally set at the speed limit and I'm slowed by someone driving slower when the conditions don't warrant.
I leave quite a reasonable distance. The issue to me is it slows down before that with no cue, so I occasionally look down to find i'm somehow going 20km under the speed limit, a hundred meters behind whatever is in front of me.
This notion, particularly among Tesla owners, that active lane centering and steering is a Tesla exclusive, is at times wilfully blindered, to the obnoxious.
The last time I went through this was with a Tesla owner who swore that every other car's Blind Spot monitoring sucked, because "only Tesla paid attention to the speed of the car in the blind spot", which is... false. Even my 2015 A4 had adaptive blind spot monitoring.
Most to all mid to high end vehicles have all this stuff. Tesla isn't miraculous in automotive technology. Which isn't to say they haven't done great things. But even reading this list... ugh. Was the ability to watch Netflix or sing "Car-aoke" the most demanded of new features for Tesla owners?
> This notion, particularly among Tesla owners, that active lane centering and steering is a Tesla exclusive, is at times wilfully blindered, to the obnoxious.
Autopilot is more than just "active lane centering and steering" (known as LKAS) Autopilot is a combination of a lot of things (TACC + Autosteer + Auto Lane Change + Auto Lane Keep + NOA etc...)
Autosteer is also way ahead of everything else out there right now. The competition is mainly just TACC and basic LKAS.
For example, I am yet to see so other cars perform in conditions like this:
> Most to all mid to high end vehicles have all this stuff
Yeah mostly an extra option and costs $$$. Basic autopilot and a ton of safety features are FREE on Tesla. It's actually pathetic how other car manufacturers charge for advanced safety features.
> Autopilot is more then just "active lane centering and steering" (known as LKAS) Autopilot is a combination of a lot of things (TACC + Autosteer + Auto Lane Change + Auto Lane Keep + NOA etc...)
Yes, it is. The parent just made a dismissive, " Does it steer and lane center in general, besides when you drift out of lane?", implying that other cars don't.
Other cars also have other features beyond LKAS, too. That's just the focus of this article.
> For example, I am yet to see so other cars perform in conditions like this:
"Removed because there's no way to verify it was actually autopilot performing the maneuver. We are going to make a rule where future dashcam autopilot vids will be removed."
> Yeah mostly an extra option and costs $$$. Basic autopilot and a ton of safety features are FREE on Tesla.
And basic intelligent services and safety are free/standard on most new cars too. While advanced features might cost money, so too does advanced autopilot on a Tesla too, so let's not act like there's that much of a difference. What are some of these "basic safety features" that are free on a Tesla that "other manufacturers [pathetically] charge for"?
A lot of cars offer that nowadays, although it may be an optional upgrade. My VW van has ACC, lane assist, emergency breaking, warns you if it's not safe to change lanes by flashlight and steering wheel, even if the other car is 40+ meters away but approaching fast, automatic parking, automatic breaking when there is an obstacle or side traffic when parking. It's also a joy on long road trips and I can easily go double the distance than in my previous Audi before getting tired.
That said, I would probably trade it in for a Model S 7-seater if it did cost the same here :)
There's probably some issues but none that I care about. It feels like driving the future. It's an absolute joy to drive.
No gas stations is pretty nice too.