Tesla rental

[CyberGus]

I’m in Philadelphia this weekend and rented a Tesla M3 from Hertz. They have several rows with AC chargers for their EVs:

Although, this has a Chevy Volt charging also, so it must be J1772.

Driving the Tesla has been great so far, but one-pedal driving is going to take an adjustment period.

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[Rutrow]

... one-pedal driving is going to take an adjustment period.

Make it a game. If you can snap off the accelerator at the exact moment that causes you come to a stop perfectly at the stop line, you get 10 points. Each second that you have to feather the accelerator pedal to make it to the line takes away a point. Each tap of the brake pedal takes away 5 points.

 

[ldjessee]

When my Leaf is fully charged I hate how it drives, because there is no regen, it just glides when I expect it to automatically start slowing down...

But engine braking on my motorcycle is more 'dramatic' that the Leaf's regen (we always drive it in the 'B' mode, which is the highest regen).

 

[HaulingAss]

Make it a game. If you can snap off the accelerator at the exact moment that causes you come to a stop perfectly at the stop line, you get 10 points. Each second that you have to feather the accelerator pedal to make it to the line takes away a point. Each tap of the brake pedal takes away 5 points.

I prefer to feather the pedal to come to a slower stop. It's not a race and the traffic in front of you will ensure you don't get there any sooner by braking last minute. If I see that I'm approaching a red light, I start gradually slowing down well in advance. Often the traffic will start moving as I'm getting close so I can blend in with it seamlessly without ever coming to a stop.

I did this even when I drove gas cars because it saves gas, reduces urban pollution and calms traffic patterns in a good way, helping those behind to achieve higher efficiency and a more relaxing drive. Most drivers are surprisingly unaware of what the traffic ahead, including the traffic signals, are doing. They just race up as fast as possible until they have to brake and come to a complete stop.

 

[cvalue13]

one-pedal driving is going to take an adjustment period.

turned it off, in my Lightning

no gracias

 

[JBee]

Driving a M3 perfermance in San Antonio atm. The regen is fairly strong, but the real game is to coast and not use regen at all. That is by far the most efficient way to drive an EV or ICE or hybrid.

So that means trying to drive the car so neither the acceleration nor the regen bar shows up whatsoever. If you show a green regen bar you are losing around 10-15% range in conversion losses, because it has to convert kinetic into electric and then chemical energy, and do that in reverse to accelerate again. Coasting using interia on the otherhand is 100% efficient.

So no white or green bar is 100%. Alternatively you can turn the one pedal off, but the effect is the same, just that you don't have to do much at all to get it to coast intstead. So really it's just a drving preference.

But I was thinking that there should be another option, which should be default, and that is that the autopilot uses distance sensing to vary thee rate of regen to make the smoothest stop possible to a preset distance behind the vehicle in front of you, when you completely lift your foot from the throttle. It should also take int account how fast the vehicle in front is decelerating, and then just switch to coast when the car in front pulls away. Essentially a semi auto-brake feature. Obviously, every time you use the brake you are in control, there would also probably need to be some failsafes for fringe cases like changing lanes etc. But otherwise it should work quite well, and should be loved by uber/taxi drivers until they are replaced by robotaxi.

 

[Rutrow]

I prefer to feather the pedal to come to a slower stop. It's not a race and the traffic in front of you will ensure you don't get there any sooner by braking last minute. If I see that I'm approaching a red light, I start gradually slowing down well in advance. Often the traffic will start moving as I'm getting close so I can blend in with it seamlessly without ever coming to a stop.

I did this even when I drove gas cars because it saves gas, reduces urban pollution and calms traffic patterns in a good way, helping those behind to achieve higher efficiency and a more relaxing drive. Most drivers are surprisingly unaware of what the traffic ahead, including the traffic signals, are doing. They just race up as fast as possible until they have to brake and come to a complete stop.

Oh, I don't mean all the time. Just when you're in a game playing, competitive, skills honing mood. I do it about 2% of the time. I've found that it is much easier to do these days than it was when one-pedal-driving first came out. I don't know if I'm better! or if FSD cameras are helping me nail the stop line better lately. (my right brain hemisphere believes the former, my stodgy left brain accepts the latter) Either way, occasionally playing the game does hone my skills. Makes me less likely to irritate people behind me if I slow too early, saving brake pad material if slow too late.

I understand why people don't like it, I was a bit sour on it at first, but now think they'd like it more if they got used to it and got good at it. I really hate driving my vehicle at work because I have to jump back and forth between pedals. #FirstWorldProblems

 

[HaulingAss]

Driving a M3 perfermance in San Antonio atm. The regen is fairly strong, but the real game is to coast and not use regen at all. That is by far the most efficient way to drive an EV or ICE or hybrid.

So that means trying to drive the car so neither the acceleration nor the regen bar shows up whatsoever. If you show a green regen bar you are losing around 10-15% range in conversion losses, because it has to convert kinetic into electric and then chemical energy, and do that in reverse to accelerate again. Coasting using interia on the otherhand is 100% efficient.

So no white or green bar is 100%. Alternatively you can turn the one pedal off, but the effect is the same, just that you don't have to do much at all to get it to coast intstead. So really it's just a drving preference.

But I was thinking that there should be another option, which should be default, and that is that the autopilot uses distance sensing to vary thee rate of regen to make the smoothest stop possible to a preset distance behind the vehicle in front of you, when you completely lift your foot from the throttle. It should also take int account how fast the vehicle in front is decelerating, and then just switch to coast when the car in front pulls away. Essentially a semi auto-brake feature. Obviously, every time you use the brake you are in control, there would also probably need to be some failsafes for fringe cases like changing lanes etc. But otherwise it should work quite well, and should be loved by uber/taxi drivers until they are replaced by robotaxi.

You absolutely *nailed* the way to the highest efficiency! Many EV drivers think that since regen is recharging their battery, they should use it as much as possible but, of course, that's an inaccurate way of looking at it and the highest efficiencies are achieved when as little braking as possible is done, regardless of whther it's regen or friction braking.

I think it would be possible to implement your idea for a regen setting, but it would not come without warts, as you rightly point out. My thinking on this is it should be saved for when the car drives itself because human drivers are not ready for a brake response that is so inconsistent depending upon what the cameras see ahead.

Similarly, many drivers didn't even like the fact that regen braking speed would vary with temperature and state of charge so Tesla provided another mode that blends in friction brakes to simulate the response you would get when your battery has optimum regen capacity for a consistent response when the accelerator pedal is lifted. I don't use that mode because I prefer to know whether I'm regen braking or friction braking and the variation in regen strength when the battery is cold or fully charged doesn't bother me one bit (because I know what to expect and the response changes very gradually).

When my battery is too cold to offer full regen strength, I just increase my follow distances and start slowing earlier to avoid having to friction brake. Others like the new feature that keeps everything 100% consistent. Different strokes for different folks!

 

[CyberGus]

The problem is that EV's using regen don't "coast". If you lift the throttle, it's like hard braking.

My foot is trained to incrementally increase throttle, but not to back off. Practice makes perfect I guess.

 

[Rutrow]

... But I was thinking that there should be another option, which should be default, and that is that the autopilot uses distance sensing to vary thee rate of regen to make the smoothest stop possible to a preset distance behind the vehicle in front of you, when you completely lift your foot from the throttle. It should also take int account how fast the vehicle in front is decelerating, and then just switch to coast when the car in front pulls away. Essentially a semi auto-brake feature. Obviously, every time you use the brake you are in control, there would also probably need to be some failsafes for fringe cases like changing lanes etc. But otherwise it should work quite well...

I think you underestimate how fine tuned you're "that's not the way I'd've done it" sensors are. Our brains are prediction machines. They have a VERY specific expectation about how the world outside will act and how its body will react to it. As long as everything goes according to prediction, brain activity is very quiet. Our brains only activate when things don't go to plan. This is why you can drive your morning commute thru rush-hour traffic, arrive at work and have no memory of your drive. Everything went to plan. A wreck, or a detour, or a new building going up along the way, may be the only reason your brain stored any new memories or details about the drive.

It's this prediction model that causes motion sickness, and why the driver of the car so rarely suffers from it. Paying attention to the road, the route, the obstacles that need to be avoided gives YOUR brain the chance to predict the small deviations that are about to occur and not have your stomach upset by these little forces. The reason the driver doesn't get car sick, the reason the front seat passenger doesn't suffer it as bad as rear seat passengers do is because of the different pre-warning each occupant gets. As driver, if you see a pot hole in the road ahead, you make the plan to slow a bit and steer around it. Your stomach anticipates a slight deceleration and a swerve to the left. The front seat passenger sees the pot hole too, expects the slowdown, but is expecting a swerve to the right instead of the left. The back seat folks can't see the road ahead so aren't expecting the slow down OR the swerve. Their stomachs are trying to figure out why its contents are sloshing back and forth when all their frames of reference (the interior of the car) aren't signaling any change of motion. A reasonable inference for the brain to conclude is that its body has eaten something poisonous, so a prudent reaction is nausea and vomit. Get that rancid meat out of your belly!!!

This is why I fear that FSD will never be as comfortable as driving yourself will be. If you're looking down at a book or your phone, or even if you're paying attention to the road, the small little decisions the computer will be making, even though its decisions are just as safe and efficient as the option you'd've chosen, any deviation from your expectation will be interpreted as "wrong". No computer will ever perfectly match the exact way you'd drive. I think the better a driver you are, the more annoyed you'll be for small discrepancies.

That's the way I am. I can't stand the way anybody else drives. It's a curse.

 

[cvalue13]

The problem is that EV's using regen don't "coast". If you lift the throttle, it's like hard braking.

turn it off - you’ll still regen when breaking

 

[JBee]

I think you underestimate how fine tuned you're "that's not the way I'd've done it" sensors are. Our brains are prediction machines. They have a VERY specific expectation about how the world outside will act and how its body will react to it. As long as everything goes according to prediction, brain activity is very quiet. Our brains only activate when things don't go to plan. This is why you can drive your morning commute thru rush-hour traffic, arrive at work and have no memory of your drive. Everything went to plan. A wreck, or a detour, or a new building going up along the way, may be the only reason your brain stored any new memories or details about the drive.

It's this prediction model that causes motion sickness, and why the driver of the car so rarely suffers from it. Paying attention to the road, the route, the obstacles that need to be avoided gives YOUR brain the chance to predict the small deviations that are about to occur and not have your stomach upset by these little forces. The reason the driver doesn't get car sick, the reason the front seat passenger doesn't suffer it as bad as rear seat passengers do is because of the different pre-warning each occupant gets. As driver, if you see a pot hole in the road ahead, you make the plan to slow a bit and steer around it. Your stomach anticipates a slight deceleration and a swerve to the left. The front seat passenger sees the pot hole too, expects the slowdown, but is expecting a swerve to the right instead of the left. The back seat folks can't see the road ahead so aren't expecting the slow down OR the swerve. Their stomachs are trying to figure out why its contents are sloshing back and forth when all their frames of reference (the interior of the car) aren't signaling any change of motion. A reasonable inference for the brain to conclude is that its body has eaten something poisonous, so a prudent reaction is nausea and vomit. Get that rancid meat out of your belly!!!

This is why I fear that FSD will never be as comfortable as driving yourself will be. If you're looking down at a book or your phone, or even if you're paying attention to the road, the small little decisions the computer will be making, even though its decisions are just as safe and efficient as the option you'd've chosen, any deviation from your expectation will be interpreted as "wrong". No computer will ever perfectly match the exact way you'd drive. I think the better a driver you are, the more annoyed you'll be for small discrepancies.

That's the way I am. I can't stand the way anybody else drives. It's a curse.

Lol we just drove through Little Rock two weeks ago! Nice place, best looking State Capitol building we've seen so far, clean tidy, polite people and town, not many homeless from what we could tell. The exact opposite of Memphis just down the road, which honestly I was a bit shocked about, that such a thing exists in the USA.

Even the Elvis Graceland setup there was a sham, still exploiting him years after his death, with the neighbouring slums encroaching onto the museum itself, gangs on the street, homeless and drugs evident everywhere. Honestly we only only got out of the Rv for graceland, that was it, the rest we just what we are now calling a "drive by", in that we stick the 360camera out the window and just drive through. ;-) They even put a wall up in front of the house so you have to pay entry to see it from the road...but I didn't want to pay them a cent out of principle, and got out my 12ft selfie stick with 360 camera instead. You know what they say about walls and having a higher ladder and all.

In fact in the whole trip I only saw one other guy with the same setup we had, so if you see a 6'6ft Aussie dude roaming your city streets waving a 12ft pole above his head with a blinking red light, that would be me! It's my "not a drone" setup, works really well, never have to frame a shot because it sees everything, and I can point the camera at what I want in post.

As for the self driving vs driving yourself, I agree. I'm a stickler for people driving too close, unless they are slipstreaming intentionally to save energy. I also don't mind using the whole road on a two way road and ignoring the lines around corners in the name of safety and smoother driving, let alone at higher speeds. Being raised in Germany, my driving style is sort of a mix between Australia and Germany, where to my eye everything looks like a high speed autobahn and needs to be straightened out. But I'm not a hoon, just a conscientious speedster, that drives according to the conditions and area I'm in. I never speed in town or around people, let alone schools etc, and I'm not one of those truck driving nutters I see here zigzagging their way between other vehicles without indicating, down the freeway at 100Mph.

In saying that, I do wonder what type of driving type self driving will be, or if you can set certain features to mimic your own driving style better. Maybe it will learn your driving style and mimic it by itself, in fact for more motion sensitive drivers, that may actually be necessary so that they can use self driving at all. Definitely something that will need to be addressed in some form. I know quite a few people I prefer "not" to drive with, so I think depending on how good self-driving is, it might be a case that some people could prefer some over others. Another item to consider here is of course what the car dynamics are, as each vehicle will be different, and the self driving of every vehicle will be tuned accordingly. So it might be the case that you like the self driving in a M3 but not in a CT for example. Definitely some challenges there still before it works as seamlessly as expected.

 

[uscbucsfan]

turn it off - you’ll still regen when breaking

You can't in a Tesla.

 

[HaulingAss]

Lol we just drove through Little Rock two weeks ago! Nice place, best looking State Capitol building we've seen so far, clean tidy, polite people and town, not many homeless from what we could tell. The exact opposite of Memphis just down the road, which honestly I was a bit shocked about, that such a thing exists in the USA.

Even the Elvis Graceland setup there was a sham, still exploiting him years after his death, with the neighbouring slums encroaching onto the museum itself, gangs on the street, homeless and drugs evident everywhere. Honestly we only only got out of the Rv for graceland, that was it, the rest we just what we are now calling a "drive by", in that we stick the 360camera out the window and just drive through. ;-) They even put a wall up in front of the house so you have to pay entry to see it from the road...but I didn't want to pay them a cent out of principle, and got out my 12ft selfie stick with 360 camera instead. You know what they say about walls and having a higher ladder and all.

In fact in the whole trip I only saw one other guy with the same setup we had, so if you see a 6'6ft Aussie dude roaming your city streets waving a 12ft pole above his head with a blinking red light, that would be me! It's my "not a drone" setup, works really well, never have to frame a shot because it sees everything, and I can point the camera at what I want in post.

As for the self driving vs driving yourself, I agree. I'm a stickler for people driving too close, unless they are slipstreaming intentionally to save energy. I also don't mind using the whole road on a two way road and ignoring the lines around corners in the name of safety and smoother driving, let alone at higher speeds. Being raised in Germany, my driving style is sort of a mix between Australia and Germany, where to my eye everything looks like a high speed autobahn and needs to be straightened out. But I'm not a hoon, just a conscientious speedster, that drives according to the conditions and area I'm in. I never speed in town or around people, let alone schools etc, and I'm not one of those truck driving nutters I see here zigzagging their way between other vehicles without indicating, down the freeway at 100Mph.

In saying that, I do wonder what type of driving type self driving will be, or if you can set certain features to mimic your own driving style better. Maybe it will learn your driving style and mimic it by itself, in fact for more motion sensitive drivers, that may actually be necessary so that they can use self driving at all. Definitely something that will need to be addressed in some form. I know quite a few people I prefer "not" to drive with, so I think depending on how good self-driving is, it might be a case that some people could prefer some over others. Another item to consider here is of course what the car dynamics are, as each vehicle will be different, and the self driving of every vehicle will be tuned accordingly. So it might be the case that you like the self driving in a M3 but not in a CT for example. Definitely some challenges there still before it works as seamlessly as expected.

As someone who has been using FSD beta since it's release, I think I have some insight into what kind of driving style Tesla is shooting for.

The latest release has improved a lot of what I would categorize as "driving style" in terms of making it smooth and humanlike. It still has plenty of warts in terms of decision making, but when it's driving as designed it is incredibly smooth and sinuous. It's also very businesslike when it's not hesitating for some reason or another. It accelerates firmly and brakes into corners extremely seamlessly and naturally. Of course, it's always possible for it to stutter or hesitate, depending upon the scene, but when it's working well, I'm very impressed with just how perfectly and smoothly it drives and lines it takes, including how seldom it messes up.

On a curvy road it uses less of the lane than I tend to use, but it follows the curves very naturally and picks the perfect speed an uncanny amount of the time (but not as often as most human drivers). This just keeps improving and it's obvious that the FSD team is putting a lot of effort into achieving a natural feel, not just trying to get there safely.

 

[Rutrow]

Lol we just drove through Little Rock two weeks ago! Nice place, best looking State Capitol building we've seen so far, clean tidy, polite people and town, not many homeless from what we could tell. The exact opposite of Memphis just down the road, which honestly I was a bit shocked about, that such a thing exists in the USA.

Even the Elvis Graceland setup there was a sham, still exploiting him years after his death, with the neighbouring slums encroaching onto the museum itself, gangs on the street, homeless and drugs evident everywhere. Honestly we only only got out of the Rv for graceland, that was it, the rest we just what we are now calling a "drive by", in that we stick the 360camera out the window and just drive through. ;-) They even put a wall up in front of the house so you have to pay entry to see it from the road...but I didn't want to pay them a cent out of principle, and got out my 12ft selfie stick with 360 camera instead. You know what they say about walls and having a higher ladder and all.

In fact in the whole trip I only saw one other guy with the same setup we had, so if you see a 6'6ft Aussie dude roaming your city streets waving a 12ft pole above his head with a blinking red light, that would be me! It's my "not a drone" setup, works really well, never have to frame a shot because it sees everything, and I can point the camera at what I want in post.

As for the self driving vs driving yourself, I agree. I'm a stickler for people driving too close, unless they are slipstreaming intentionally to save energy. I also don't mind using the whole road on a two way road and ignoring the lines around corners in the name of safety and smoother driving, let alone at higher speeds. Being raised in Germany, my driving style is sort of a mix between Australia and Germany, where to my eye everything looks like a high speed autobahn and needs to be straightened out. But I'm not a hoon, just a conscientious speedster, that drives according to the conditions and area I'm in. I never speed in town or around people, let alone schools etc, and I'm not one of those truck driving nutters I see here zigzagging their way between other vehicles without indicating, down the freeway at 100Mph.

In saying that, I do wonder what type of driving type self driving will be, or if you can set certain features to mimic your own driving style better. Maybe it will learn your driving style and mimic it by itself, in fact for more motion sensitive drivers, that may actually be necessary so that they can use self driving at all. Definitely something that will need to be addressed in some form. I know quite a few people I prefer "not" to drive with, so I think depending on how good self-driving is, it might be a case that some people could prefer some over others. Another item to consider here is of course what the car dynamics are, as each vehicle will be different, and the self driving of every vehicle will be tuned accordingly. So it might be the case that you like the self driving in a M3 but not in a CT for example. Definitely some challenges there still before it works as seamlessly as expected.

WOW!!! Small, small, small, small world. If you were at the Capitol you were about 5 blocks from my house. I live in a neighborhood called "Capitol View" just to the west.

Your thoughts on the possibilities of Machine Learning FSD is a lot like mine. I know nothing of computer programming and swing back and forth between being in awe of programmer's brilliance then befuddled by their obvious ineptness The thing that irritates me most about FSD beta is the cars refusal to let me teach it a damned thing!!! I would think that I could devise a script that recognized that every morning this guy overrides AutoPilot RIGHT HERE and does something that apparently works, because he never crashes.

The only autonomous driving program that I will ever use consistently will be one that learns what I want to happen and does THAT when I'm in the car. I'm willing to put in hours of training time, intervening precisely when I want a different driving style, and happy to keep updating when new edge cases present themselves. But what I won't do is put up the EXACT SAME MISTAKES on my daily commute for years that never get changed. I've reverted to using only cruise control on my commute just to preserve my sanity, and still frustrated when I have to override THAT because NOBODY EVER slows to 55 in this interchange, and anyone who does slow below 65 certainly doesn't do it way back there at the 55 mph sign. And notice to development team: a Yield sign does not mean you have to slow to 3 mph. It means that if another vehicle is headed your way, you have to let them go first. If there aren't any other cars around, take the turn as fast as you would if you had the right of way. Nobody behind me expects a car in this lane to slow down that much, I can tell by all the honking. Other cars on the road think FSD beta is a Jerk.

Is there a way to turn off traffic aware cruise control? I'm tiring of its abrupt speed changes when it thinks a speed limit has changed. I wish I could go back and unload the update that took away my ability to change the following distance. That was a steering wheel control I used the most. I change my following distances several times every mile during rush hour traffic. The new, unchangeable settings marches me back in traffic because it allows anyone and everyone to jump in the space ahead of me, and it's why that guy behind me sped around and cut me off. He thinks I'M a jerk.

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