On a recent trip up Highway 1 in Northern California we decided to test the limits of adaptive cruise and auto-pilot. Autopilot V2.1 performed as advertised and as we expected. It worked well on areas of the road with well defined lines, but struggled on line-less or eroded areas of the two lane highway.
What surprised us was the versatility of the adaptive cruise control. Anyone with a Tesla or other newer gen car is familiar with adaptive cruise control – the vehicle will adjust it’s speed to keep a safe distance to the vehicle in front of it, even coming to a stop if necessary. What we found with Tesla is adaptive cruise goes one step further.
We entered a turn rated at 25 MPH with adaptive cruse set at 45. As we proceeded deep into the turn the adaptive cruise responded to the conditions and lowered our speed to 25 MPH. We tested this out on several more turns rated at 35MPH and 25MPH respectively and without out fail the adaptive cruise responded with a reduction in speed as we reached the depth of the curve.
The dotted yellow line in the above image reflects the portion of the curve where adaptive cruise decreased speed in response to the curve.
What happens if you click the lever 3 times?
Once gives you Adaptive Cruise Control
Twice gives you (almost) Automatic Steering
Four times gives you music (briefly) and colour on the driver’s screen
But what does three times do?
I have never done 3 pulls intentionally but when I did it just did nothing.
I wonder if they will ever sneak something in at pull 3 if you wait long enough… that would be cool.