Thoughts on Tesla's "Enhanced Autopilot" (2019 version)

What it does well:
- It keeps the lane and the distance you set to the car ahead of you quite well in most circumstances.

• The open freeway with trucks and being passed by cars it was excellent. It knows what the speed limit is so you know if you are speeding (or how much you are speeding). Since we weren't in a hurry I usually set it for 3 over.
• In stop-and-go traffic it is amazing.  It will happily follow the car in front of you, stopping, starting, speeding up, slowing down - whatever the car in front is doing.

- It reduced my driving fatigue greatly

• I was able to focus on the other cars doing stupid things (which we saw a lot).
• I was able to pay more attention to cars overtaking us and was able to reliably make room for those entering the freeway.
• I did not need to worry if changing lanes was safe.  It would not let me change lanes if there was anything there. I just indicated and it would make the lane change. It did have issues with some of the lane changes some times though (see annoyances, below).

What it does not do well:
- Throughout the drive after an exit that we were not supposed to take, it would say that I should go from the slow to the fast lane to "stay on route". When I didn't do it, sometimes it would bing at me, but then after the on ramp it would stop saying I needed to move over.
- At every on ramp it would notice that the lane had suddenly gotten two lanes wide and move right to get in the middle of the lane.  This was just annoying at first, but after 2,000 miles of it, I was really ready for it to stop.
- When approaching some exits it acted like it thought we were supposed to take the exit, slowed down a lot and then decided that we were okay and sped back up. Luckily none of the times it did this were were being followed too closely.

Annoyances:
- Failed lane changes
- Breaking before a lane change when trying to do it quickly because the overtaking truck was 6" from my bumper and wanted past me. Seemed to mainly happen when I was changing back to the slow lane in front of a semi and I started the lane change "too close" for the autopilot system, so it's response was to slow down and then do the lane change. By slowing down, however, it was getting closer to the semi we were overtaking and it also got us ridiculously close the the tailgating truck wanting by.

All in all, totally worth it - especially when I compare it to the other "enhanced cruise" systems that are out there.  I've talked to people with the Honda, Toyota, & Lexus systems and they are not really happy with them when they hear what my car can do.

You see, they are trapped with the firmware that they were sold. My car gets updates and becomes more capable every time... THAT's the big difference.

2019 West Bound - Day 6

On our way back west I had planned for each day to be shorter to alleviate the stress of driving. I probably could have done it in 5 days easily, as this last day was quite easy... Basically driving from LA home.  Easy. Only 440 miles. We left the hotel late and got home at 4:13. We did pass 30,000 miles on the odometer though, that was a milestone.

At the Tejon Ranch supercharger there was a pair of stalls that were acting up.  So, of course, I had to choose them to try first. They would ramp up and then down, pause, then ramp up again. That was annoying since we arrived there with 4% left in the battery...  The third one was working well though 25 to 69% in 25 minutes.

Here are the drive details for today:

Totals for the day:

440.6 miles, 138.6 kWh, 315 Wh/mi (3.2 miles/kWh)

8 hrs 12 minutes total trip time (53.7 mph, including the lunch stop).
Actual drive time was 6 hrs, 57 minutes (63.4 mph)

Totals for the trip:
5,986.2 miles, 1,942.4 kWh, 324.5 Wh/mi (3.1 miles/kWh)
114 hrs 44 minutes total trip time (52.2 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 88 hrs, 54 minutes (67.4 mph)

2019 West Bound - Day 5

I had planned each day on the return as easier & shorter, and today was the shortest so far.  We drove from the town of our favorite Mexican restaurant ever (La Unica) to just East of LA today.  Two interesting things happened today. Number one was that we met a very interesting homeless guy at the supercharger in Quartzite Arizona. He was a very interesting guy and we had some great conversations over lunch at the Carl's Jr next to the supercharger. I wish I had more time to spend to hear his whole story...

The second interesting thing was that at the Cabazon supercharger while discussing which stall (original or temporary) had the best charging rate, I had a delightful conversation with Seal.  You know, the singer... He was a very nice guy and we chatted for a while. As he was leaving to go on his way he said that "it was nice talking with you brother".  Wow.

Here are the details for the day:

Totals for the day:

502.1 miles, 155.9 kWh, 311 Wh/mi (3.2 miles/kWh)

8 hrs 41 minutes total trip time (57.8 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 6 hrs, 49 minutes (73.7 mph)

Totals for the trip:
5,545.6 miles, 1,803.8 kWh, 325.3 Wh/mi (3.1 miles/kWh)
106 hrs 32 minutes total trip time (52.1 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 81 hrs, 57 minutes (67.7 mph)

2019 West Bound - Day 4

It was a pretty uneventful day except for the 50 minutes of sitting stopped on I-10 waiting for the accident to be cleared between Vn Horn & El Paso... Honestly, the worst part was driving into the setting sun at the end of the day. It was another light day with only 598.2 miles driven over 8 hours and 42 minutes. Lots of it was with the speed limit of 80, so my consumption numbers are pretty awful.

Wilcox, where we are staying for the night, is one of our favorite stops. it has our favorite Mexican restaurant - La Unica, and the hotel has the superchargers in the parking lot! Woo hoo!

Here are the drive and charge totals:

Totals for the day:

598.2 miles, 210.4 kWh, 352 Wh/mi (2.8 miles/kWh)

10 hrs 56 minutes total trip time (54.7 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 8 hrs, 42 minutes (68.8 mph)

Totals for the trip:
5,043.5 miles, 1,647.9 kWh, 326.7 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)
97 hrs 51 minutes total trip time (51.5 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 75 hrs, 8 minutes (67.1 mph)

2019 West Bound - Day 3

Of we went on our day-and-a-half drive across Texas.  Damn big state...

We were not able to meet up with Scott again this year in Kerrvile, since he is again working off shore when we drive by... 

The speed limit was 75 for the first part of the day, but then it was 80 after we left San Antonio. Like last year, we were definitely using more energy than the "rated miles" of the car.  I saw consumptions on some parts of the drive hitting 600 WattHours/mile when we were climbing a long hill at 85 mph, with averages well above 325 Wh/mi for the drives.

Here's a photo I took of the display after more than 30 minutes at 83 mph:

Check out the outside temp... 78F on December 3rd

You can see the consumption change on the drive data below:

Totals for the day:

618.1 miles, 149.5 kWh, 365 Wh/mi (2.7 miles/kWh)

8 hrs 30 minutes total trip time (72.7 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 6 hrs, 18 minutes (74.5 mph)

Totals for the trip:
4,445.3 miles, 1,437.5 kWh, 323.4 Wh/mi (3.1 miles/kWh)
86 hrs 55 minutes total trip time (51.1 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 66 hrs, 16 minutes (67.1 mph)

2019 West Bound - Day 2

Whew! Getting into Houston was something! Apparently a barge got loose during the last tropical storm or hurricane and it knocked out some of the supports of the I-10 bridge into Houston. That caused all of the traffic in both directions to be diverted to one side of the bridge. It took something like 2 hours to go 60 miles. And I thought traffic in the bay area was bad...

The drive through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana was uneventful.

It was great, as always, to spend the night at my in-laws house They are always so very welcoming. Last year we plugged into their dryer outlet so I could charge the car overnight. This year I (apparently) forgot to bring the plug adapter for their old-style (6-30) dryer outlet. Oh well, I charged on 120. There's a new supercharger on the way one exit down the road that I can top up tomorrow.

Here are the drive and charge details:

Totals for the day:
507.2 miles, 169.2 kWh, 334 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)

9 hrs 58 minutes total trip time (50.9 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 8 hrs, 34 minutes (59.2 mph)

Totals for the trip:
3,827.2 miles, 1,288 kWh, 336.5 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)
78 hrs 25 minutes total trip time (48.8 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 59 hrs, 58 minutes (63.8 mph)

2019 West Bound - Day 1

We left the farm late, at 9:00, due to a morning rainstorm. It was sad to leave it. We did a bunch of clearing and getting it ready for winter. We had a great big burn pile. It took two days to burn it all...  And on top of that our cousins (who we lease out the farmland to) harvested the ~30 acres of cotton. Very cool to watch...

During the drive to Mobile there were a couple of memorable events, the first was that there was actually a line at the supercharger station in Auburn. I think that's the first one I've seen.  It was a drag waiting for a charging slot, but it was great chatting with the folks in line there. That's something that has always made me smile.  Almost everyone at a supercharger is friendly and ready to chat while they wait. Many of the folks I met at the Auburn station I also saw at the Greenville station... And we were even pulling off the freeway along side a model S that we had chatted with at Auburn and Greenville (a young Navy man learning about P3 avionics in Biloxi).

The second was that there were several accidents on I85 & I65 that caused at least an hour of delay overall. It's not a good thing when cars touch...

Here are the details of the drives and charges along the way:

Totals for the day:
472.0 miles, 163.3 kWh, 346 Wh/mi (2.9 miles/kWh)

11 hrs 19 minutes total trip time (41.7 mph, including lunch & dinner stops & waiting at Auburn).
Actual drive time was 8 hrs, 4 minutes (58.5 mph)

Totals for the trip:
3,320.0 miles, 1,118.8 kWh, 336.7 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)
68 hrs 27 minutes total trip time (48.5 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 51 hrs, 24 minutes (64.6 mph)

2019 East Bound - Day 6

Last day!

We swung by Atlanta to grab some boxes for my sister to take to the farm. That's why I didn't take the more direct route.

Totals for the day:
320.0 miles, 101.0 kWh, 315.6 Wh/mi (3.2 miles/kWh)

6 hrs 33 minutes total trip time (48.9 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 5 hrs, 25 minutes (59.1 mph)

Totals for the trip:
2848.0 miles, 954.8 kWh, 335.3 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)
57 hrs 8 minutes total trip time (49.8 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 43 hrs, 20 minutes (65.7 mph)

2019 East Bound - Day 5

Last year we drove all the way to the farm from Meridian.  But this year we decided to make this a very short day and spend the night with an old childhood friend of mine (and his lovely wife Anne). They live in a very interesting house.

The bedrooms on either side are cantilevered out from the central living areas.

Larry had over his mom &dad and his brother (and his wife). They were like my extended family when we lived two houses down from them. It was also my first time to charge on 120 Volts.  Wow it is slow... They all wanted rides in the car - who am I to say no?

Because of the cold temps, no aero covers, and less efficient tires I ended up diverting some to Greenville to have a healthy margin of charge when I got to Auburn. I overshot my target charge level because I got to talking with a model X driver at the supercharger.  Here are the details:

Totals for the day:
240.5 miles, 79.3 kWh, 329.7 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)

5 hrs 15 minutes total trip time (45.8 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 4 hrs, 6 minutes (58.7 mph)

Totals for the trip:
2528.0 miles, 853.8 kWh, 337.7 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)
50 hrs 35 minutes total trip time (50.5 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 37 hrs, 55 minutes (66.7 mph)