DAY 67: Autopilot Is Better -- In Ways You May Not Realize!

I'd imagine all Tesla owners remember the first day they experienced Autopilot in the wild. That sensation of watching the car turn by itself to follow the road, and that freak-out moment wondering if the car really will stop behind another stopped car... was thrilling! That "first" never get old.

But after a while, using it on a regular basis, you begin to learn its quirks and shortcomings. Tesla still brands their Autopilot as "Beta" and that's a good thing. No one needs to be rushing ahead with pretending a Tesla actually drive itself yet -- even if it might feel that way. But a seasoned Tesla owner (I'm not there yet, but slowly), knows the small nuances of what Autopilot is capable of.

I have a brutal commute going home from work. I wake up early to avoid traffic in the mornings, but most days, I'm caught in traffic coming back home... and I mean stop and go traffic half of my one-hour commute home. I used to own a manual transmission ICE car, so you can imagine how excited I was to try Autopilot in my Tesla on this route.

Here's my first experience, as captured by a "Pro Tip of the Week" that I was selected for on my favorite Tesla Podcast, Ride The Lightning, hosted by Ryan McCaffrey

(skip ahead to 58:18)



So I figured this out pretty quickly by the third day of ownership that setting my car length to 3 or higher does get Sparky to brake a little more gently. The level of gentleness increases with the car length setting. I also didn't realize I could press the accelerator while Autopilot was engaged. And in fact, that little tip has helped me in a lot of other situations as well! I am learning slowly how to do this thing called "EV Driving!"


BUT TODAY, I noticed something else on my stop and go commute. There's a good portion of my route where the road winds back and forth for most of the way. This is the route where I'm typically stuck in slow-moving traffic -- which makes Autopilot even more of a godsend. However, a few of the turns on this route are right at an intersection. So when you go through the intersection, you actually need to steer the car into a turn to arrive in the lane after the traffic light. And of course, the lane marking ends at a intersection and picks up again on the other side.

Well, let me tell you that in situations where a lane doesn't go straight, and then interrupts only to start again slightly off of the mark, Teslas can get really confused, and typically this is where owners will break it out of Autopilot and take over. In these intersections, you can picture the Tesla facing forward for a moment towards the shoulder of the road on the other side of the intersection. Often times it would look like it was drifting towards the shoulder, and then would quickly jerk itself back within the lane when it arrived on the other side.

(I'm going to update this blog with a picture from my dashcam the next time I get footage.)

There are three-to-four tricky turns on this route home just like this, and for almost all of them, my Tesla would get confused, and then do the quick "jerky" correction.

BUT THIS IS WHERE I'M GETTING EXCITED!!

I've had 3 software updates... count them... THREE!!!  And each time, I swear this abrupt corrective movement by my Tesla softened up considerably.

Well, 2 days ago was my most recent update, and today -- my first time back on this route home since that update -- I noticed that the jerking motion is virtually GONE! I mean, seriously... it's like Sparky has ridden this route so many times that he knows now how to make those tricky turns.

I am totally amazed! Yes, this car gets better over time in that I get cool new features and optimizations. But it's these little improvements that amaze me. My car is actually learning to drive itself out of "Beta-Mode" and I'm so, so excited!!!!

I think we need to have a graduation ceremony when the "beta" status is finally removed. :)

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The other new thing I noticed today was a new indicator on my centre console.

I charged my car at work today and increased the battery level to almost 100% to get ready for the road trip tomorrow. I probably got to about 97% before I left. And I noticed a dotted line in my energy status line:

I got a notice about ... "something"... I don't recall, but it had to do with regenerative braking and a request to adjust the charging limit. It was reset to 80% even though I had well over that in the battery.

Here's a snapshot after I got home...

My guess on that dotted line is that regenerative braking would only work until where the dotted line starts. After that, it's limited or not functional. But honestly, I'm not completely sure. (Feel free to comment if you know for sure what that dotted line represents).

Something new to take note of... always so much to discover. Sparky keeps my curiosity entertained, and that's great for a geek like me!!!

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Odometre Reading Today: 6611 kms

My Referral Code: somi22310