Highway Assist tried to run us off the road (edit from saying Self-driving)

[trez63]

Edit: As many have pointed out below, the feature is not "Self Driving". It's called "Highway Assist". So I changed the topic to more accurately describe the feature.

The video has the stats and location at the bottom. I won't be posting this one on YT for obvious reasons but I wanted to share with the community in way of caution that the Highway Assist feature is not yet to be trusted fully.

Also read before you watch and comment: At about 0:06 into the video, the car pulls hard left out of the lane towards the center divider. I pulled immediately hard on the steering wheel to the right to counteract which cancelled the lane keeping Highway Assist . It's hard to say if it was going to run us directly into the wall or not but it sure felt like it. The video really doesn't show the intensity of the movement obviously but I can tell you that it wasn't subtle and at 80mph it could have been disastrous. It was enough to bash my son around the back seat and smash his head into the door pretty hard. I'm confident if the divider was closer like many LA freeways are we would have had a really rough night.

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[kanundrum]

1. Glad you caught it and ended up being a bump on the head and nothing extremely serious for you and your family!

2. DEFINITELY file a ticket ASAP with Rivian, the video, and date and time so they can see history/data with what is going on.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Wasn't the "bonk bonk" noise that happened before the steering event the truck telling you to take over? Genuine question, I'm rarely on the freeway and I don't bother using Driver+ when I am.

 

[Gator42]

Everyone’s okay? I hate this stuff- I’m with the Tesla team that quit en masse. Self driving is the capability of the future and always will be…

 

[trez63]

Wasn't the "bonk bonk bonk" noise that happened before the steering event the truck telling you to take over? Genuine question, I'm rarely on the freeway and I don't bother using Driver+ when I am.

It was about simultaneous, in fact I didn't even have time to look down at the dash I can't tell you what it was going to say. It beeped and went off the road within about 1 second. It might have actually been the reason I reacted quickly now that I think about it. Without that noise I might have been 1 second too late. That specific area of the road has a slight dip to it and I think it just overreacted to elevation change. But it hadn't stopped control of the vehicle yet because when I pulled on the wheel I could easily feel the hold it still had on the wheel, which cancelled right away as I pulled.

 

[trez63]

Everyone’s okay? I hate this stuff- I’m with the Tesla team that quit en masse. Self driving is the capability of the future and always will be…

Yes, thank you. Small bruise on my boy's head but what doesn't kill you ... It's too bad though, I don't drive often at all anymore since working from home and on longer trips like this one the self-driving feature really was nice to rely on. Now I have a bit of ptsd (j/k) from the whole thing so I don't think I'll use it with my fam in the car anymore.

 

[Dark-Fx]

It was about simultaneous, in fact I didn't even have time to look down at the dash I can't tell you what it was going to say. It beeped and went off the road within about 1 second. It might have actually been the reason I reacted quickly now that I think about it. Without that noise I might have been 1 second too late. That specific area of the road has a slight dip to it and I think it just overreacted to elevation change. But it hadn't stopped control of the vehicle yet because when I pulled on the wheel I could easily feel the hold it still had on the wheel, which cancelled right away as I pulled.

Supercruise in the Hummer was super disorienting when it dropped out, seemed to happen for no reason on enough occasions that I've developed a distrust of the self-driving features of any vehicles. I still used it occasionally on our trip, but I totally understand the feeling of not quite being able to figure out what happened in that moment.

 

[Gator42]

It is a sickening feeling to fight the car for control, even for an instant. Glad everyone’s okay ‘cept for feelings and maybe a bump…

 

[electruck]

The OP may not have posted to youtube but we all know that various media outlets frequent these forums looking for news items. This will be a headline within a matter of days.

 

[MountainBikeDude]

The video has the stats and location at the bottom. I won't be posting this one on YT for obvious reasons but I wanted to share with the community in way of caution that the feature is not yet to be trusted fully.
Also read before you watch and comment: At about 0:06 into the video, the car pulls hard left out of the lane towards the center divider. I pulled immediately hard on the steering wheel to the right to counteract which cancelled the lane keeping. It's hard to say if it was going to run us directly into the wall or not but it sure felt like it. The video really doesn't show the intensity of the movement obviously but I can tell you that it wasn't subtle and at 80mph it could have been disastrous. It was enough to bash my son around the back seat and smash his head into the door pretty hard. I'm confident if the divider was closer like many LA freeways are we would have had a really rough night.

I wonder if it became confused when the pavement changed? I know when i was driving a tesla, I was surprised by its ability to utilize groves in the road to more or less approximate where the vehicle should be, despite the painted lines not being visible at all. I'm curious if a similar redundancy overrode the vehicles standard practice to follow the painted lines in your instance.

 

[Dark-Fx]

I wonder if it became confused when the pavement changed? I know when i was driving a tesla, I was surprised by its ability to utilize groves in the road to more or less approximate where the vehicle should be, despite the painted lines not being visible at all. I'm curious if a similar redundancy overrode the vehicles standard practice to follow the painted lines in your instance.

It could be it thought there was an object in the road. My adaptive cruise has been fooled by the shadow of an overpass once. Hard to see it in the video but upon watching a few times, it looks like the truck might be trying to avoid the darker section of pavement that doesn't quite take up the whole lane.

 

[Taycanfrank]

Until highways are revamped to work in tandem with the technology or the technology is used en masse, "self driving" will always be unreliable and should only be used as an aid, not a crutch. Glad you're okay.

 

[zefram47]

...but I wanted to share with the community in way of caution that the feature is not yet to be trusted fully.

Every one of these systems on the road today, including Rivian's, is considered SAE Level 2 driver *assistance*. They are NOT self-driving and likely never will be. They ALL require driver attention and the ability to take over at ANY time. Luckily you were paying attention and kept everyone safe. One of the worst things that can happen with a Level 2 ADAS system is that it gets so good that drivers become too complacent. In some regards, Tesla is already there and we see a number of wrecks as a result. And Tesla calling their system Autopilot and "Full Self Driving" are also a lot of the problem. While the name Autopilot is accurate in that it's an aid like in an airplane, it still requires user intervention at times and monitoring...but the average person believes the name autopilot implies it drives/flies itself. FSD is just a joke. Every video I've seen of it looks like a drunk teenager learning to drive and it's either overly cautious or overly assertive to the point of being dangerous.

 

[trez63]

it looks like the truck might be trying to avoid the darker section of pavement that doesn't quite take up the whole lane.

You might be right. That section of the road does have several different textures but the lane markers were pretty clearly marked along the way. I can't be sure. All I know is that I've had about 400 miles of self-driving so far and it was otherwise pretty smooth. I find it especially useful in stop and go traffic conditions.

 

[DJG]

The OP may not have posted to youtube but we all know that various media outlets frequent these forums looking for news items. This will be a headline within a matter of days.

Hopefully not sounding insensitive to OP, but this is a fairly "normal" event with autosteer systems. They are not self driving, and it would probably behoove everyone for us all to stop referring to them as such. That being said, this would be business as usual for any other automaker, but can certainly be twisted into a negative story about a new one like Rivian.

These things also happen more frequently in a) low light situations, particularly at transition from day to night like in the video, and b) when cresting a hill because as you near the apex the cameras lose sight of any road markings, so to the system it thinks the road vanished. Keeping these things in mind can help others be able to anticipate when the system will be at it's weakest and to increase alertness. That last point can't be overstated enough, it's critical to learn your systems strengths, but way more importantly, it's weaknesses.

It's a reminder that the system can let go of control at any moment, so we should all be prepared to take over in the event it does. It's not a self driving system, it's a lane centering system, when all necessary conditions to function are present and the user won't always be aware of what those conditions are or when they are/will be lost. Even hands free systems, by removing your hands you are complicitly saying you are willing to let the vehicle lose control briefly in exchange for that convenience.

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