Highway Assist Much Improved After Latest Updates...

[Buffalo Bob]

Just took a quick road trip from Phoenix, AZ to La Jolla, CA, and Highway Assist performed quite well. It's very stable in the left or middle lanes, but also handled on and off ramp markings (or lack thereof) in the right lane pretty well. Lane change assist worked nicely too. As a next step, I think it would be great if Lucid could make the 'hands on the wheel' software a little less demanding. Despite me having both hands in place and trying to apply some torque, I find myself having to 'semi-steer' the car just to stop the constant reminders to 'nudge' the wheel. Still, a huge improvement.

 

[TakeDuo]

I agree! I think my biggest surprise from the update is how well it handles those off/on ramps. It used to be spastic for me swerving erratically. Now it’s very smooth and tracks the lane I want to stay in.

 

[rfc805]

That's interesting - one of the most "common" issues I had with it, is every time I passed an off-ramp, it tracked fine - but it would temporarily lift off the throttle at the end of every single off-ramp while continuing straight. Like it suddenly lost confidence right at the end.

 

[Smitzer]

I completed a 3600 mile road trip in early October from Northern Utah to Southeast Wisconsin to Columbus Ohio, then back to Utah. I used highway assist most of the time, and quite a bit of lane change assist. It performed very well. Made the trip much more pleasant.

I turned it off in road construction zones, and on some county highways.

The strangest thing I observed was the system briefly slowing hard when the shadow of a truck from an overpass crossing the freeway hit the road just right. The truck was above me, and the sun was was between me and the truck, casting a long shadow in the road as I approached. It seemed to recognize there was no safety issue and sped back up again.

 

[borski]

Just took a quick road trip from Phoenix, AZ to La Jolla, CA, and Highway Assist performed quite well. It's very stable in the left or middle lanes, but also handled on and off ramp markings (or lack thereof) in the right lane pretty well. Lane change assist worked nicely too. As a next step, I think it would be great if Lucid could make the 'hands on the wheel' software a little less demanding. Despite me having both hands in place and trying to apply some torque, I find myself having to 'semi-steer' the car just to stop the constant reminders to 'nudge' the wheel. Still, a huge improvement.

There was a tidbit in one of the Lucid Tech & Manufacturing day slides that made it seem like they were working on hands-free ADAS, so hopefully that 'hands on the wheel' warning should get better.

Slide 115: https://ir.lucidmotors.com/static-files/46807963-ff30-4395-9ceb-234c40a94fc5

 

[vav493]

Agreed! The recent update added a large chunk of confidence (for me) behind Lucid’s ADAS. It may also just be in part to me using DDPro more haha

I don’t really care to compare it to the FSD on my Model 3, but what helped me with this recent update was the visualization. I feel better seeing what the computer is (mostly) thinking about, whereas before, all I could tell was whether it knew it was in a lane and if there was a car ahead of me. With FSD and AutoPilot, it’s been nice to look at the screen and see what car is noticing, the color of the traffic lights, traffic signs it’s picked up on, what it thinks the lanes look like, etc. I don’t care about any of the more advanced self-driving features at the moment since I’ve only mostly comfortable with just letting go of control of the acceleration/braking functions

It’s also nice to see they are actually going to continue developing it and making use of all the hardware installed for DreamDrive Pro. It makes me incredibly excited. I hope maybe we get even more expanded visualization

 

[Buffalo Bob]

There was a tidbit in one of the Lucid Tech & Manufacturing day slides that made it seem like they were working on hands-free ADAS, so hopefully that 'hands on the wheel' warning should get better.

Slide 115: https://ir.lucidmotors.com/static-files/46807963-ff30-4395-9ceb-234c40a94fc5
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Thanks for re-posting this Software Feature Enhancements chart, @borski. I think it's quite noteworthy to see how many of the boxes have been ticked off either in full or in part.

To be clear... While I certainly look forward to the day when Hands-Free Highway Assist is available, I will be more than happy just to have the current requirement dialed back a little. I fully intend to keep my hands on the wheel even when Hands-Free comes along, but there's a big difference to me between just resting one or both of my hands on the wheel, and having to continually 'nudge' the wheel. I guess in a perfect world, the software would recognize that the driver is making a consistent effort to fulfill the requirement, but is still tripping the sensors, and then adjust the sensors to be a little less demanding. That would keep the bar high for those drivers who are trying to push the envelope, but lower the bar for those drivers who are clearly trying to comply. But, as I said, it's not all that big a deal, as is.

 

[borski]

Thanks for re-posting this Software Feature Enhancements chart, @borski. I think it's quite noteworthy to see how many of the boxes have been ticked off either in full or in part.

To be clear... While I certainly look forward to the day when Hands-Free Highway Assist is available, I will be more than happy just to have the current requirement dialed back a little. I fully intend to keep my hands on the wheel even when Hands-Free comes along, but there's a big difference to me between just resting one or both of my hands on the wheel, and having to continually 'nudge' the wheel. I guess in a perfect world, the software would recognize that the driver is making a consistent effort to fulfill the requirement, but is still tripping the sensors, and then adjust the sensors to be a little less demanding. That would keep the bar high for those drivers who are trying to push the envelope, but lower the bar for those drivers who are clearly trying to comply. But, as I said, it's not all that big a deal, as is.

Unfortunately, because the wheel is torque-sensitive, the “nudge” is required. It has. I idea you have your hands on the wheel because it isn’t capacitive; it cannot sense you there. Triggering the torque sensor will always require some force.

My guess as to how they’ll do the hands free ADAS is by using the interior camera that stares at your face; otherwise they’d have to replace the steering wheels, which they’re not going to do.

They could maybe increase the time, but I’m not sure if those are defined by law or not.

I suspect the eye-based one will be fine (if that’s what they decide to do) with torque as a fallback for if that fails for some reason. I’m guessing that would result in a lot fewer false positives.

 

[Buffalo Bob]

Unfortunately, because the wheel is torque-sensitive, the “nudge” is required. It has. I idea you have your hands on the wheel because it isn’t capacitive; it cannot sense you there. Triggering the torque sensor will always require some force.

My guess as to how they’ll do the hands free ADAS is by using the interior camera that stares at your face; otherwise they’d have to replace the steering wheels, which they’re not going to do.

They could maybe increase the time, but I’m not sure if those are defined by law or not.

I suspect the eye-based one will be fine (if that’s what they decide to do) with torque as a fallback for if that fails for some reason. I’m guessing that would result in a lot fewer false positives.

Well, now I am confused... When they do implement hands-free ADAS, why would any monitoring of the steering wheel be needed while HA is operating? I know that the eyes-on monitoring absolutely must continue, but what would be the point of continuing to monitor the steering wheel?

 

[TakeDuo]

Well, now I am confused... When they do implement hands-free ADAS, why would any monitoring of the steering wheel be needed while HA is operating? I know that the eyes-on monitoring absolutely must continue, but what would be the point of continuing to monitor the steering wheel?

There will always be a need for redundancy with Highway Assist. I agree that there shouldn’t be a torque requirement with Dream Drive or whatever they call hands off/next level ADAS.

 

[borski]

Well, now I am confused... When they do implement hands-free ADAS, why would any monitoring of the steering wheel be needed while HA is operating? I know that the eyes-on monitoring absolutely must continue, but what would be the point of continuing to monitor the steering wheel?

Camera can’t see your eyes, you wear glasses it cant see through, you look at the nav for a few seconds, etc.

If it can’t verify you’re looking forward, it will always allow you to use the torque on the steering wheel to let it know you’re still paying attention.

Just redundancy.

P.S. I reiterate I made this completely up, I do not know if this is how the system will work, but if I were designing such a system this is how I would make it work.

 

[Buffalo Bob]

Camera can’t see your eyes, you wear glasses it cant see through, you look at the nav for a few seconds, etc.

If it can’t verify you’re looking forward, it will always allow you to use the torque on the steering wheel to let it know you’re still paying attention.

Just redundancy.

P.S. I reiterate I made this completely up, I do not know if this is how the system will work, but if I were designing such a system this is how I would make it work.

I think we are saying the same thing in different ways. I figure that the hands-on requirements are always in effect now, whether or not Highway Assist is activated. (If you take your hands off the wheel at any time, I imagine that the car almost immediately protests.) When the hands-off feature is enabled, and only when Highway Assist is activated, I figured that the hands-on requirement would be turned off UNLESS the eyes-on monitoring is not comfortable that you are watching the road. If it's not, it would allow Highway Assist to continue running, but would initiate the hands-on requirement.

 

[borski]

I think we are saying the same thing in different ways. I figure that the hands-on requirements are always in effect now, whether or not Highway Assist is activated. (If you take your hands off the wheel at any time, I imagine that the car almost immediately protests.) When the hands-off feature is enabled, and only when Highway Assist is activated, I figured that the hands-on requirement would be turned off UNLESS the eyes-on monitoring is not comfortable that you are watching the road. If it's not, it would allow Highway Assist to continue running, but would initiate the hands-on requirement.

Yes, that’s my guess. Although right now it does take 15 seconds to trigger the torque sensing.