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Cruise Control

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Howdy,
New Tesla Owner and took the Model 3 LR for a long trip for the first time. The Auto-steer did not seem to like the two lane road back roads of Colorado, functions fine on the interstate highway but from my location it is better to go back roads to ski slopes. Due to the problems, I just switched to cruise control. The problem is that the back roads of Colorado seem to freak out the Cruise Control and I get random dramatic slow downs even when there is nothing in front of me or remotely near me. This is not once in a while but every few miles. What settings do I need to change the whole system to adaptive cruise control like a lot of newer cars. I plan to use the car during ski season and can't have the system slamming the brakes unpredictably when the road might have an icy patch in random areas or when I could have a car behind me trying to race up to the ski slopes.

I would appreciate advice on how to just switch it to simple adaptive cruise control when needed.

Thanks
 
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TACC is not fit for purpose currently. We have a 2021 M3 with about 3000 miles on the clock. On minor roads the cruise control will experience many "phantom braking" events. Even on the UK's best motorways large vehicles changing lanes will cause the Tesla to brake for no reason. My advice is do not use TACC. Report the incidents to your safety regulator ( Report a Safety Problem | NHTSA ) and if possible record the incident on video by tapping the save icon. When the car starts to slow press the accelerator to cancel but this becomes very tedious over time so now I just drive the car and ignore cruise. If enough people complain eventually Tesla will react. In my case we almost ended up with a lorry hitting our car when the Tesla braked suddenly for no reason.
 
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On 11/21/21, my family and I returned from a long road trip in my new 2021 Model Y Long Range. During that trip I have determined that cruise control is unusable on 2 lane highway travel. When there is oncoming traffic on a 2 lane highway, the car will suddenly dramatically slow down even after disabling ALL autopilot features and enabling only cruise control. The slowdown is almost certain to happen if a large semi truck is coming in the opposite direction, but will periodically happen when changing from light to shaded road, climbing and cresting a rise in the road or when negotiating right-hand curves where cars are heading in the opposite direction. It is shocking when it happens and is entirely unsafe especially when someone is following behind me. Basically, cruise control in my Model Y in its current state is unusable and dangerous. During our trip I literally had to drive hundreds of miles with no cruise control until we hit the large freeways of southern California and even then, the car would suddenly slow down when passing a semi truck that was clearly in its own lane. I need a basic cruise until autopilot is ironed out.
 
Howdy,
New Tesla Owner and took the Model 3 LR for a long trip for the first time. The Auto-steer did not seem to like the two lane road back roads of Colorado, functions fine on the interstate highway but from my location it is better to go back roads to ski slopes. Due to the problems, I just switched to cruise control. The problem is that the back roads of Colorado seem to freak out the Cruise Control and I get random dramatic slow downs even when there is nothing in front of me or remotely near me. This is not once in a while but every few miles. What settings do I need to change the whole system to adaptive cruise control like a lot of newer cars. I plan to use the car during ski season and can't have the system slamming the brakes unpredictably when the road might have an icy patch in random areas or when I could have a car behind me trying to race up to the ski slopes.

I would appreciate advice on how to just switch it to simple adaptive cruise control when needed.

Thanks

I live in CO and drive all over the 2-lanes in the Rockies as well with a Vision-Only Model Y. I do notice phantom slowdowns and braking - primarily for me is at the top of hills it will phantom slow down, right after hills it may have a phantom slowdown, and phantom hard braking whenever a car in the opposite direction crests the top of an oncoming hill at the edge of the vehicle detection range of the vision system ~250m.

My recommendation - hover your foot over the accelerator, or try and learn what your specific vehicle has the phantom slowdowns/hard braking for. Some small percentage of phantom events (I would guess 5% or less) are truly random - however, the rest are repeatable situations that you can take your foot off the carpet and hover over the accelerator in the event you need to respond to an incoming event.

Not fun to have to learn with a family in the vehicle, but it can be somewhat manageable at least. On these two lanes also, I usually set my speed to exactly the speed limit rather than 5 over - this lets me "stomp" on the accelerator a little in advance of when I predict a phantom event may be about to occur - a little bit of acceleration is definitely preferable to random braking. Going the speed limit sure does piss off every other driver on the road - why do people insist on driving so dang unsafely fast on these tricky mountain roads?

If it is a major problem for you, I agree with the British person above - report it to the NHTSA for sure.

Tesla has a huge, huge focus on city streets/FSD Beta right now. The Phantom Braking problem has gotten worse over the past year, particularly in Vision-Only vehicles. This is very funny to me because everyone just over 6 months ago (before Vision-Only came around for the Model 3 and Y) was clamoring over each other to say that the radar was the primary cause of phantom braking. In reality, the true problem with phantom braking is that Tesla is not providing the issue with the focus it needs - it is 100% fixable but they are dead-focused on city streets driving right now and 100% the project managers running the FSD program know about highway phantom braking and exactly what it would take to fix it - they're just not doing it.

From a wider perspective and as an owner very invested into the FSD program ($10k paid!) I am super nervous about this behavior from the Tesla management team. If they keep cowboying this stuff, regulators can and will take over the program development and we all lose out on our FSD as governments worldwide force FSD programs to be developed internally. We could even see Autosteer and even TACC taken away by regulation. Personally, I'm OK with this - there is some level of cowboy-ism that is definitely unsafe and very bad for consumers - but on the other hand, I really want FSD Beta and really still like Autosteer in its current iteration.

JEEZ, that went on. Anyway just try and learn where phantom braking is most likely to occur - get your foot on the pedal and counteract it proactively. I truly believe only 5% of phantom events are "random" and the rest are predictable.
 
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Yep, had a 5hr drive today, and cruise control is close to unusable on an undivided highway. If you see a truck coming towards you, you can be 80% sure the car will slam on the brakes. So frustrating.

Please, Tesla, if you aren’t going to fix it, add a setting in the menu that can turn it into a “dumb cruise control”. Because this is the first car I’ve own with traffic-aware or adaptive cruise control, and now it feels like a downgrade from plain dumb cruise control.
 
Yep, had a 5hr drive today, and cruise control is close to unusable on an undivided highway. If you see a truck coming towards you, you can be 80% sure the car will slam on the brakes. So frustrating.

Please, Tesla, if you aren’t going to fix it, add a setting in the menu that can turn it into a “dumb cruise control”. Because this is the first car I’ve own with traffic-aware or adaptive cruise control, and now it feels like a downgrade from plain dumb cruise control.
Totally agree. We were just discussing the need for a dumb cruise control option since they can’t seem to get their stuff together.
 
Couldn't agree more with the comments TACC (not even autopilot) is absurd in this vehicle. 2022 Model 3 LR. Just took delivery 2 weeks ago and it is nearly unusable and 100% unsafe. I love the car, but TACC (and its role in autopilot I presume) is at best very annoying and unreliable, and at worst dangerous.
 
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Just talked/Tesla service rep re "phantom braking" on my 2022 model 3. His response was never use ACC on 2 lane roads! I live and drive 90% on 2 lane roads and have used cruise control on every vehicle until Tesla. I love my model 3 but this is unsafe. Does someone have to die for Tesla to take this seriously?
 
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In reality, the true problem with phantom braking is that Tesla is not providing the issue with the focus it needs - it is 100% fixable but they are dead-focused on city streets driving right now and 100% the project managers running the FSD program know about highway phantom braking and exactly what it would take to fix it - they're just not doing it.
This is it. They went full Vision only in mid 2021 because of supply chain issues with radar modules, not necause it was ready. This happened just as the latest FSD push was occurring . Vision based TACC is half baked and needs serious attention to correct the issues but Elon and his engineers are so focused on FSD that no one is taking the terrible issues with Vision based cruise seriously. Elon is so self absorbed in his idea that FSD is going to make cruise control and driving obsolete that he doesn't want to "waste" resources on what he considers old tech. Meanwhile, Vision TACC acts like a legally blind student driver without their glasses while in use on anything but the widest and empty highways. It's junk in its current condition. The only way that Elon is going to shift resources to fix TACC is government safety intervention. If you feel unsafe using TACC or AP, please make a complaint to the NHTSA. I have and encourage you to do so as well.
 
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This is it. They went full Vision only in mid 2021 because of supply chain issues with radar modules, not necause it was ready. This happened just as the latest FSD push was occurring . Vision based TACC is half baked and needs serious attention to correct the issues but Elon and his engineers are so focused on FSD that no one is taking the terrible issues with Vision based cruise seriously. Elon is so self absorbed in his idea that FSD is going to make cruise control and driving obsolete that he doesn't want to "waste" resources on what he considers old tech. Meanwhile, Vision TACC acts like a legally blind student driver without their glasses while in use on anything but the widest and empty highways. It's junk in its current condition. The only way that Elon is going to shift resources to fix TACC is government safety intervention. If you feel unsafe using TACC or AP, please make a complaint to the NHTSA. I have and encourage you to do so as well.
I've made this point in other threads, but it's completely possible to have a functional vision-only adaptive cruise system. My Subaru Forester has it and it works perfectly.
 
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Meanwhile, Vision TACC acts like a legally blind student driver without their glasses while in use on anything but the widest and empty highways. It's junk in its current condition.
May I disagree with you? I've been on FSD Beta, and previously AP/NoA/TACC since I bought the car (early 2021). Aside from some occasional phantom braking, usually minor, it does its job well. When no one is in front of me, it goes the speed I've set it to. When someone is in front of me, it approaches them and keeps a decent distance (I've got mine set to 6 or 7 depending on how traffic is going). When they slow down, the car slows down, all the way to a stop.

Your hyperbole makes it sound like the car will hurl itself into the car in front of you, fling itself out of the lane and sideswipe another car, or slam on the brakes and come to a stop in the middle of the freeway with no one in front of you. That is simply not my experience for the last year.

I would say this to anyone reading comments like scooby's - this is not normal behavior for the car. If you experience anything like what he's describing, make sure your cameras are clean, you've rebooted the car (like restarting a Windows or Mac computer), you've recently calibrated the cameras, and finally open a service ticket and have the technician ride with you in the car to demonstrate the problem. It may be a hardware issue, such as a faulty camera, control module, or sensor.

Please don't misunderstand my comments. The car definitely has some issues, like phantom braking, but they are typically minor. They feel like you've let your foot off the gas for a second or two. Occasionally they may be more intense, like tapping the brakes. But each software version upgrade makes adjustments and improvements.

Again, if you have problems with AP/TACC/NoA/FSD Beta, do the following:

1) Clean your car - the cameras need to be clean. The front cameras will clean themselves by using your wipers+fluid. The other cameras cannot.

2) Reboot the car - sometimes the processors and software need to be rebooted for one reason or another. Doing this is easy. Pull over and put the car in Park. Now, press and hold the brake pedal while pressing and holding the two scroll wheels on the steering wheel. Keep holding the two buttons until the screen goes black, then you can release them. Keep holding the brake pedal until the screen comes back on, then you can release it. (Note: there is some question as to whether the brake pedal does anything, as this used to be part of a reboot procedure called a hard-boot, and some claim it was removed in recent updates, but it doesn't hurt to do it just in case)

3) Calibrate the cameras - this can be done in the Services menu. Pull over and put the car in Park. Go to the Services menu and press Camera Calibration. Now just drive normally on well-marked roads. For fastest calibration, I recommend a freeway with at least 3 lanes on each side. Drive in the middle lane and you'll be calibrated quickly (usually just a few miles). If you cannot get to a freeway easily, any well-marked road will do, even side streets. It will just take a little longer.

If none of those fix your problems, then by all means, open a service ticket with Tesla. I recommend taking it to a service center so you can have a tech drive with you and demonstrate the problem. Not all service centers have the best people - so it may take some effort to find a good one near you. Try to be patient if you hear things like "it's all within spec", and calmly ask them to accompany you on a test drive to demonstrate the problem. Clearly tell them the steps you took above (numbers 1, 2 and 3) and hopefully this will get you somewhere. I've read of people having ECUs, cameras, and in some cases entire processor modules replaced which fixed many problems for them.
 
May I disagree with you? I've been on FSD Beta, and previously AP/NoA/TACC since I bought the car (early 2021). Aside from some occasional phantom braking, usually minor, it does its job well. When no one is in front of me, it goes the speed I've set it to. When someone is in front of me, it approaches them and keeps a decent distance (I've got mine set to 6 or 7 depending on how traffic is going). When they slow down, the car slows down, all the way to a stop.

Your hyperbole makes it sound like the car will hurl itself into the car in front of you, fling itself out of the lane and sideswipe another car, or slam on the brakes and come to a stop in the middle of the freeway with no one in front of you. That is simply not my experience for the last year.

I would say this to anyone reading comments like scooby's - this is not normal behavior for the car. If you experience anything like what he's describing, make sure your cameras are clean, you've rebooted the car (like restarting a Windows or Mac computer), you've recently calibrated the cameras, and finally open a service ticket and have the technician ride with you in the car to demonstrate the problem. It may be a hardware issue, such as a faulty camera, control module, or sensor.

Please don't misunderstand my comments. The car definitely has some issues, like phantom braking, but they are typically minor. They feel like you've let your foot off the gas for a second or two. Occasionally they may be more intense, like tapping the brakes. But each software version upgrade makes adjustments and improvements.

Again, if you have problems with AP/TACC/NoA/FSD Beta, do the following:

1) Clean your car - the cameras need to be clean. The front cameras will clean themselves by using your wipers+fluid. The other cameras cannot.

2) Reboot the car - sometimes the processors and software need to be rebooted for one reason or another. Doing this is easy. Pull over and put the car in Park. Now, press and hold the brake pedal while pressing and holding the two scroll wheels on the steering wheel. Keep holding the two buttons until the screen goes black, then you can release them. Keep holding the brake pedal until the screen comes back on, then you can release it. (Note: there is some question as to whether the brake pedal does anything, as this used to be part of a reboot procedure called a hard-boot, and some claim it was removed in recent updates, but it doesn't hurt to do it just in case)

3) Calibrate the cameras - this can be done in the Services menu. Pull over and put the car in Park. Go to the Services menu and press Camera Calibration. Now just drive normally on well-marked roads. For fastest calibration, I recommend a freeway with at least 3 lanes on each side. Drive in the middle lane and you'll be calibrated quickly (usually just a few miles). If you cannot get to a freeway easily, any well-marked road will do, even side streets. It will just take a little longer.

If none of those fix your problems, then by all means, open a service ticket with Tesla. I recommend taking it to a service center so you can have a tech drive with you and demonstrate the problem. Not all service centers have the best people - so it may take some effort to find a good one near you. Try to be patient if you hear things like "it's all within spec", and calmly ask them to accompany you on a test drive to demonstrate the problem. Clearly tell them the steps you took above (numbers 1, 2 and 3) and hopefully this will get you somewhere. I've read of people having ECUs, cameras, and in some cases entire processor modules replaced which fixed many problems for them.
In general, I agree. I drove our 10 year old odyssey with ‘dumb’ cruise for the first time in a while. It was nice having a reliable, predictable system but I also missed adaptive cruise.

I have slightly more problems than you describe - frequent mild slowdowns and occasional ’major’ ones. All enough to make it annoying and less than enjoyable to use but not enough to make it unusable. Is it better than dumb cruise? Yes. Is it a good system? No. The two most frustrating aspects are the fact that pretty much every other car on the road has a system that works and the fanboys that persistently say it’s perfect.

The problem with opening a service ticket is that the problems are random and unpredictable. The best I can do is have a video camera filming the road and the screen to capture the problem when it occurs.
 
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