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Braking distance concern by Consumer Reports
- Thread starter SoCalDude
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- Model 3 Tesla Inc.
Why are you all arguing about how much stopping distance is enough? It's silly. Shorter stopping distance is better regardless of the absolute number and unpredictability is bad... very bad. If it stops in 99 feet sometimes & 199 feet other times (I'm exaggerating on purpose to make the point) then you might be expecting 99 feet when the object in front of you is 150 feet away and the car doesn't stop in time.
Elon takes it seriously as a possibility and promised to investigate & fix the issue regardless of whether it is a software or hardware problem. This happened within a day or two of the potential problem coming to light. It's obviously not good if this is is a real issue but how badass is it that he responded like he did? Think of all of the years-long denials of safety problems in cars from other manufacturers over the years that were only resolved because of injuries, deaths and lawsuits.
Elon takes it seriously as a possibility and promised to investigate & fix the issue regardless of whether it is a software or hardware problem. This happened within a day or two of the potential problem coming to light. It's obviously not good if this is is a real issue but how badass is it that he responded like he did? Think of all of the years-long denials of safety problems in cars from other manufacturers over the years that were only resolved because of injuries, deaths and lawsuits.
Edmunds had gotten 133ft with the 18" wheels and 128ft with the 19" wheels.
Texas
Member
Elon’s two tweets were perfect: Tesla will fix any brake issue with an over the air firmware change if possible, or with a hardware change in the field if necessary.
It is good that he took the CR report seriously and will be proceeding in a systematic way to analyze the issue and adopt an effective solution.
I absolutely trust Consumer Reports. They are not perfect, but they are honest and very competent.
When I read their report on the Model S in 2015, I was so impressed that I immediately arranged a test drive. Not long after I sold my low-mileage Lexus LS460 and bought a P85D—in large part based on my trust in CR. The car has more than justified that trust.
When Consumer Reports says the Model 3 has braking problems, I believe it. So my plan to buy a Model 3 is on hold for a while. If Elon can get my heavy Model S to stop from 60 mph within 118 feet, I have no doubt the Model 3 can be made to do even better.
It is good that he took the CR report seriously and will be proceeding in a systematic way to analyze the issue and adopt an effective solution.
I absolutely trust Consumer Reports. They are not perfect, but they are honest and very competent.
When I read their report on the Model S in 2015, I was so impressed that I immediately arranged a test drive. Not long after I sold my low-mileage Lexus LS460 and bought a P85D—in large part based on my trust in CR. The car has more than justified that trust.
When Consumer Reports says the Model 3 has braking problems, I believe it. So my plan to buy a Model 3 is on hold for a while. If Elon can get my heavy Model S to stop from 60 mph within 118 feet, I have no doubt the Model 3 can be made to do even better.
Based on how many trials? 1? Average of 3? Lowest of 3? It doesn’t say. The issue isn’t on the first run. It’s the subsequent runs.
New batch of tweets from Elon on this,
"Looks like this can be fixed with a firmware update. Will be rolling that out in a few days. With further refinement, we can improve braking distance beyond initial specs. Tesla won’t stop until Model 3 has better braking than any remotely comparable car."
"Also, Consumer Reports has an early production car. Model 3 now has improved ride comfort, lower wind noise & many other small improvements. Will request that they test current production."
"ABS calibration algorithm"
"To be clear, all Model 3 cars, incl early production will have same great braking ability. Nature of any product, however, is that if you care about perfection, you make constant small refinements. Today’s Model S is far more refined than initial production."
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Twitter
"Looks like this can be fixed with a firmware update. Will be rolling that out in a few days. With further refinement, we can improve braking distance beyond initial specs. Tesla won’t stop until Model 3 has better braking than any remotely comparable car."
"Also, Consumer Reports has an early production car. Model 3 now has improved ride comfort, lower wind noise & many other small improvements. Will request that they test current production."
"ABS calibration algorithm"
"To be clear, all Model 3 cars, incl early production will have same great braking ability. Nature of any product, however, is that if you care about perfection, you make constant small refinements. Today’s Model S is far more refined than initial production."
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Twitter
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
Interesting. I guess the ABS system is self calibrating? And it screws up its calibration on the first stop? Or maybe it’s just inconsistent and the first stop thing was just a fluke. Very strange. Why would the problem only be on early production cars if it can be fixed in an OTA update? We may never know. Haha
GuyDude
Member
I agree! The brakes are terrible. I barely avoided an accident yesterday. My bmw would have stopped easily. It was very nerve wracking
awesome about tesla - it's like one giant computer on wheels....fix anything with firmware. Almost reminscient to the first jurassic park movie : Hacker stereotype in Jurassic Park
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Funny, I just noticed that Edmunds did its tests on the Porsche Drive Experience in Carson!
BTW, even 128ft is not that good when trying to take on the best in this entry level luxury sports sedan category. Here are Edmunds numbers from cars in this category:
BMW 340i: 118ft
Audi A4 2.0T: 99ft
Even Honda Accord stops in 122 ft.
I would think Tesla wants to make sure it really is the class leading in all performance category if it really wants to become king of sports sedan.
Are those numbers under the same conditions and on the same piece of pavement? CR tests showed 132ft for the 3-series and 135ft for the A5. Their initial 60-0 with the Model 3 was 130ft. MotorTrend's Model 3 stopped in 119ft in their test.
That's the problem with comparing braking distances between totally different publications. It's just like "bench racing" 0 to 60 mph times or 1/4 mile times and speeds. 0 to 60 mph ends up having too much variance. I prefer the 1/4 mile as I've taken 2 previous cars to the drag strip and have a rough idea how a fast a car can do it given its hp and weight.
If you want to compare braking distances, best to only make comparisons of results all made by the same publication (e.g. CR to CR only, Car and Driver to Car and Driver only, Motortrend to Motortrend only). Each of them may have different test procedures and track surface conditions. When you start comparing Motortrend to CR, for instance, all bets are off.
However, what could be interesting is relative rankings..... e.g. BMW 340i vs. Audi A4 vs. Honda Accord. If that was the order from shortest to longest (I'm picking this out of the air), it's likely you'd see that in another publication, given the tires were the same on a given test car between all publications.
BTW, (hopefully not posted earlier) for reference here are some best and worst braking numbers from CR:
Best Car Safety Performance
https://web.archive.org/web/2017012...ews/2012/12/best-safety-performance/index.htm
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Agreed. 100%.
Anybody know how to precisely measure stopping distance? It'd be interesting to do our own test (several back-to-back actually) and then repeat the test after the firmware update comes out. Even if your accuracy isn't that great, then reasonably high precision would show the improvement (look up the difference if you don't already know).
All recent tests from Edmund appear to be on Porsche's driving experience track in LA, so I doubt there is much variation besides ambient temperature. And it's So. Cal., so I doubt weather is much of a variable here.
Consumer Report number does seem long, but if they are consistently long across all different car models, then it's likely just their track surface. Although the braking distance is an issue, I think the bigger issue here is the inconsistency. Good and consistent brake is one of the key features of a good sports sedan, so I hope Tesla address this properly.
Garlan Garner
Banned
Please provide a pic of your Model 3 with you showing two thumbs down and looking to the right.
Ok, that was my mistake then. I didn't know where the Porsche track was, but knew Edmunds is in LA. When you said Carson, I was thinking it was tested in Nevada, but that's Carson City, so I was figuring the A4 and BMW were tested in LA and the Model 3 in NV for some reason. I would say the pavement being the same piece is the most important for getting consistency across different cars.
Yes, the inconsistency is the main problem with CR's findings. Hopefully Elon is right and that it's an ABS calibration algorithm issue that can be fixed OTA.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
BMW has option packages with summer tires. Those tend to be the ones that car magazines review. They make a huge difference but many consumers don’t like switching tires between seasons. Tesla should make them an option for those of us that don’t have seasons 
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