"Ghost Car" problem with auto-pilot. Anybody else?

[Zhoujianfu]

Heya... this has been happening since I got my Model X, but I finally caught it on video:

When I've got autopilot on, pretty frequently (although it seems to happen more often on certain parts of the freeway), the car will slow down suddenly when there is no car in front of it... only to have the "ghost car" (as I like to call him) appear on the dashboard display always a little bit to the right, right in front of the car. Sometimes it shows up for just a second or two, other times it's there for a good while. I have to put my foot on the gas to keep up speed until it eventually disappears.

I haven't brought it up to tesla yet, but maybe it's just a faulty sensor or something and easily fixed. Or maybe it's a software thing and everybody gets this phantom car sometimes?

Has anybody else had a similar phenomenon?

 

[Ryan MF]

Have never had this happen. Sounds like you might want to get this checked out, maybe sensor related as you said.

 

[KZKZ]

Very interesting, let us know what you find out.

 

[DarrinR]

Heya... this has been happening since I got my Model X, but I finally caught it on video:

When I've got autopilot on, pretty frequently (although it seems to happen more often on certain parts of the freeway), the car will slow down suddenly when there is no car in front of it... only to have the "ghost car" (as I like to call him) appear on the dashboard display always a little bit to the right, right in front of the car. Sometimes it shows up for just a second or two, other times it's there for a good while. I have to put my foot on the gas to keep up speed until it eventually disappears.

I haven't brought it up to tesla yet, but maybe it's just a faulty sensor or something and easily fixed. Or maybe it's a software thing and everybody gets this phantom car sometimes?

Has anybody else had a similar phenomenon?

I have had this problem for ages. I have reported it to Tesla numerous times. I have also shared video I have made. So far they tell me that they cannot duplicate the problem and don't have a solution.

 

[systemcrashed]

Heya... this has been happening since I got my Model X, but I finally caught it on video:

When I've got autopilot on, pretty frequently (although it seems to happen more often on certain parts of the freeway), the car will slow down suddenly when there is no car in front of it... only to have the "ghost car" (as I like to call him) appear on the dashboard display always a little bit to the right, right in front of the car. Sometimes it shows up for just a second or two, other times it's there for a good while. I have to put my foot on the gas to keep up speed until it eventually disappears.

I haven't brought it up to tesla yet, but maybe it's just a faulty sensor or something and easily fixed. Or maybe it's a software thing and everybody gets this phantom car sometimes?

Has anybody else had a similar phenomenon?

I use AP everyday, I haven't had this happen. you may want to email this to tesla service, they will want to see the car in the service center to check your X. The only time I had something similar was when a car in the adjacent lane encroached into my lane, my car would slow down in anticipation of being cut off.

 

[sneezydwarf]

I had this happen to me this afternoon, but it's the first time it has happened. I was on the freeway going 75 with no car in front of me at all, AP lane marking tracking was all good and blue. It suddenly slowed down like it does when a car merges in. I let it slow down to 45 before I gave the accelerator a push and then it went back to 75 on its own. AP never disengaged, it was all blue the whole time. I have a service appointment tomorrow for something else, will ask them to look at the logs.

 

[Zhoujianfu]

Yay, I'm not the only one!

I'll try getting a service appointment soon and report back if they can figure anything out..

 

[Drivin]

Since your car has this issue, you should not be filming when driving. Please pay attention to the road and don't drive distracted by filming.

Look up how quickly you can get into an accident by just checking a text.Filming is a lot worse.

This is compounded by the apparent child you had in the car with you.

Please be a responsible driver.

 

[Colby Boles]

I definitely have this problem when on gradual curves where it thinks stationary objects on the outside of the curve (parked cars, guardrail posts) are ghost vehicles that I am going to crash into, even though there is no chance on the given heading. I reported these to Tesla but they seemed disinterested and recommended raising my collision avoidance warning level. I ended up turning the system off. Likewise, I don't use AP anymore because the car obviously doesn't have a good handle on what the real collision paths of objects are and I don't want it making unwarranted emergency maneuvers.

 

[Zhoujianfu]

So, I just got a service appointment (for 1 month from now!), but the lady said she thinks this problem only occurs with silver metallic paint (like mine.. I'm not sure if only model X or model S too.), so it may be something to do with the paint! Weird.

Anyway, I guess I'll know in a month or so if that fixes it!

 

[srini]

This is a paranormal behavior, and can't be explained with the laws of physics. What's with all the auto-opening doors and ghost lights on the windshield, and other stuff like that? Have you consulted an exorcist?

 

[Colby Boles]

That's very interesting if it turns out to be true. I also have a silver metallic car. It's the least popular color, so they might not be getting a lot of data points if there is a problem with it.

So, I just got a service appointment (for 1 month from now!), but the lady said she thinks this problem only occurs with silver metallic paint (like mine.. I'm not sure if only model X or model S too.), so it may be something to do with the paint! Weird.

Anyway, I guess I'll know in a month or so if that fixes it!

 

[outie]

So, I just got a service appointment (for 1 month from now!), but the lady said she thinks this problem only occurs with silver metallic paint (like mine.. I'm not sure if only model X or model S too.), so it may be something to do with the paint! Weird.

Anyway, I guess I'll know in a month or so if that fixes it!

So the fix is to...? Change the paint color?

 

[Zhoujianfu]

It seemed like they could fix it without repainting, but I joked black would be fine!

I wonder if the app would still show the car as silver...

 

[Zhoujianfu]

Just a little update... they were able to reproduce the problem, but not fix it! They claim they're now monitoring it from hq, and it did happen once since I got the car back already (and I told them exactly when), so we'll see... maybe 8.0 or 8.1 or 8.2 will magically correct it!

 

[goneskiian]

Interesting as DarrinR has a Silver X as well.

I haven't noticed it with mine but I have had a couple random emergency braking episodes with AP engaged. I'll have to admit that I wasn't looking at the display when they occurred though so I didn't notice any ghost vehicles and I immediately took control.

I wonder if it's also related to this issue Elon mentions in the recent AP v8 blog post:

"On the other hand, any metal surface with a dish shape is not only reflective, but also amplifies the reflected signal to many times its actual size. A discarded soda can on the road, with its concave bottom facing towards you can appear to be a large and dangerous obstacle, but you would definitely not want to slam on the brakes to avoid it.

Therefore, the big problem in using radar to stop the car is avoiding false alarms. Slamming on the brakes is critical if you are about to hit something large and solid, but not if you are merely about to run over a soda can. Having lots of unnecessary braking events would at best be very annoying and at worst cause injury."

 

[vandacca]

Interesting as DarrinR has a Silver X as well.

I haven't noticed it with mine but I have had a couple random emergency braking episodes with AP engaged. I'll have to admit that I wasn't looking at the display when they occurred though so I didn't notice any ghost vehicles and I immediately took control.

I wonder if it's also related to this issue Elon mentions in the recent AP v8 blog post:

"On the other hand, any metal surface with a dish shape is not only reflective, but also amplifies the reflected signal to many times its actual size. A discarded soda can on the road, with its concave bottom facing towards you can appear to be a large and dangerous obstacle, but you would definitely not want to slam on the brakes to avoid it.

Therefore, the big problem in using radar to stop the car is avoiding false alarms. Slamming on the brakes is critical if you are about to hit something large and solid, but not if you are merely about to run over a soda can. Having lots of unnecessary braking events would at best be very annoying and at worst cause injury."

I don't think it's related to the issue Elon posted because I'm assuming that the current AP is still primarily focused on using the cameras. It won't be until 8.0 before the radar gets used significantly more, so I think Elon was just trying to stress how challenging it is to implement this new system.

 

[Zhoujianfu]

Yeah, I think it's not that radar thing, both for the reason Vandacca mentioned and because when it does happen it usually lasts for at least a few seconds (and sometimes as long as 20), which at highway speeds is a really big distance! So it wouldn't be any particular item in the road, just something with glare/reflections/the sensors/the software being weird!

Ack, and now my driver side door won't close (not the falcon wing, the regular door)! They had screwed something up with it when I took it in for them to try and get to the root of the ghost car problem (when I picked it up they had to hold it for another few hours to fix it when I noticed it wasn't latching very well), and now it won't stay shut at all!

 

[t56301]

I have had a similar sudden slow-down happen when I was using TACC and at an T intersection. And I don't believe there was a ghost car causing this.

Anyway, I don't think anyone should use auto steering at all unless we see a good improvement in 8.0. And you need to be very cautious when using TACC as well.

 

[aija SigX 649]

Just a thought ..wondering if the chrome bumper (rounded corner?) on the van to the right has anything to do with it. Mirrored-Image/Reflection/Magnification maybe? Would be good to know if this is a constant the next time it happens.