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Anyone saved from an accident by autobrake?

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I have been reading this board for a long time and I have never seen a post about automatic braking kicking in. If you have experienced this, has this feature completely prevented an accident? Or did you still have an accident but feel that the severity was reduced?

I picked up my red 85D today and hope never to experience this safety feature. Just wondering whether it works well. IIHS tests these systems, but I don't think they have tested Tesla's.
 
I got onto a 'cloverleaf' style onramp to a freeway in early afternoon. As I went around the 270 degree turn, I was staring at the freeway I was about get onto amazed that it was already stop-n-go. I heard the car's collision alarm (I honestly don't know if it started braking or if I hit the brake first). This onramp had metering lights at the bottom, and there was a car stopped at the metering light in front of me. I wasn't expecting it, and I wasn't looking ahead because I was staring out to the left looking at the stopped traffic on the freeway.

I would have slammed into that car, no question, without the collision alarm.
 
Accelerating through a yellow light. Car in front of me doing same. Car in front of it decides they need to turn right into a parking lot at last second. Car in front of me slams on brakes, while I am still accelerating through yellow. Alarm goes off and car brakes itself maybe a split second before I realized what was happening. I think I would have reacted quickly enough to stop before hitting the car in front of me, but I will never know as car beat me to it. A little unnerving to not be in control of the car, but it performed very well and did what it is supposed to.
 
A friend that has a P85D, the day I visited to see the car, some hours earlier, on the highway a car stopped abruptly in front of him, he only realised when the car started to warn about the collision, the Model S came to a complete stop one centimeter from the other car. He said he would be seriously hurt if it wasn't for the car system
 
Several weeks ago, I was in normal DC bumper to bumper traffic using TACC. At one point when traffic started to move, and then stop again suddenly, the impending doom warning went off and TACC stopped the car in plenty of time, but the car in front of me rear ended the truck in front of him. I think I would have stopped in time, but the car did it for me, and the guy in front of me wishes he had TACC.
 
While the alarm can help warn you (I've heard it once), the actual braking that comes after at best is intended to reduce your speed before impact. It says that in the manual.

That may be in part to reduce liability. Otherwise auto makers that release automatic braking may be setting expectations of no front collisions.

I'd like to see a controlled experiment. Perhaps drive into a Mylar sheet? Would radar detect that?
 
Friday I had to take a pet to a short-notice vet visit in heavy rain. On the way home a car slammed on the brakes in front of me, in the exact moment I was checking the passenger mirror to make a lane change. The collision warning sound alerted me and the car started to brake before I even realized what was happening. I'm pretty sure I would have hit them if not for the alert/auto braking. Pretty sweet.
 
A friend that has a P85D, the day I visited to see the car, some hours earlier, on the highway a car stopped abruptly in front of him, he only realised when the car started to warn about the collision, the Model S came to a complete stop one centimeter from the other car. He said he would be seriously hurt if it wasn't for the car system

Several weeks ago, I was in normal DC bumper to bumper traffic using TACC. At one point when traffic started to move, and then stop again suddenly, the impending doom warning went off and TACC stopped the car in plenty of time, but the car in front of me rear ended the truck in front of him. I think I would have stopped in time, but the car did it for me, and the guy in front of me wishes he had TACC.

Friday I had to take a pet to a short-notice vet visit in heavy rain. On the way home a car slammed on the brakes in front of me, in the exact moment I was checking the passenger mirror to make a lane change. The collision warning sound alerted me and the car started to brake before I even realized what was happening. I'm pretty sure I would have hit them if not for the alert/auto braking. Pretty sweet.


In the above examples, one of the posters correctly attributes the braking to TACC. The others don't say whether TACC was enabled and following a target car or not. I think there's a pretty good chance that the braking many are attributing to collision avoidance is just TACC braking, along with the collision avoidance warning.




Isn't there a setting on how aggressive the auto stop will be? How soon it will warn you, etc.

There is a setting for the alerts for the collision avoidance warning.
 
In the above examples, one of the posters correctly attributes the braking to TACC. The others don't say whether TACC was enabled and following a target car or not. I think there's a pretty good chance that the braking many are attributing to collision avoidance is just TACC braking, along with the collision avoidance warning.

I could be wrong, but I believe from the talk we heard at TMC Connect about the system, that any braking which follows the collision warning is by definition "Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB)."
 
I was wondering if it would be possible for the car to prevent minor accidents in parking situations. i.e. if you are about to scrape the side of the car against a parking lot pillar would it be possible for the car to stop right before this happened? I know currently this is not implemented but would be great additon!
 
I think the problem for automatic braking while parking is that it would have to be extremely precise. For example, when I pull into my garage, I deliberately bring the front left corner within about 3in of the wall, and then bring the front bumper to within a similar distance of the front wall. Many parking situations require driving through the parking sensors' STOP warnings.

I also don't see the need, since human reaction times are plenty in a case like this. If you find that you can't react fast enough to stop the car when it screams STOP at you unexpectedly, then park slower! You won't lose any significant amount of time if you keep it at 1MPH when using a tight spot.
 
Friday I had to take a pet to a short-notice vet visit in heavy rain. On the way home a car slammed on the brakes in front of me, in the exact moment I was checking the passenger mirror to make a lane change. The collision warning sound alerted me and the car started to brake before I even realized what was happening. I'm pretty sure I would have hit them if not for the alert/auto braking. Pretty sweet.

I didn't have TACC turned on at the time.

If you are certain you did not have TACC engaged, and certain that the car braked before you did, and certain that you did not hit the other car, then this may be the first report on TMC of true Emergency Braking working better than "advertised" since it is described as working to reduce the impact of an unavoidable frontal collision. There has been conjecture that Emergency Braking may work better than described, but this would be pretty solid evidence of that.
 
If you are certain you did not have TACC engaged, and certain that the car braked before you did, and certain that you did not hit the other car, then this may be the first report on TMC of true Emergency Braking working better than "advertised" since it is described as working to reduce the impact of an unavoidable frontal collision. There has been conjecture that Emergency Braking may work better than described, but this would be pretty solid evidence of that.


I'm certain it wasn't engaged. I only use TACC on the highway, and rarely. Once I heard the tone and felt the braking I definitely snapped-to and hit the brakes hard myself. Of course, I can't say whether the car would have come to a complete stop on its own if I hadn't, but it definitely started the process a split second before I had any idea anything had happened, which can only be a good thing. If the situation ever reoccurs I have no interest in finding out what it might be capable of on its own, not even for science/posterity. Still, my entirely subjective view is that the CA system prevented an accident in this case.