How to deal with phantom braking?

[twalp]

I drove my first road trip from Dallas to West Texas this past weekend, and experienced numerous instances of sudden, rapid deceleration (e.g. an up to 20 mph decrease in 2 or 3 seconds) when using Cruise Control (TACC), a problem I believe is widely called "phantom braking" (PB). I did not experience it until late afternoon on day-one of the trip, when the sun was lower in the sky and I was driving straight towards it. Lots of glare from the road. I disabled TACC.

I continued my trip early the next morning and this time PB started happening when the sun was behind me. I think it would be accurate to say that PB tended to happen more frequently when the only cars ahead of me were far in the distance or non-existent. Most surprising of all, PB happened a few times on a stretch of newly completed asphalt highway, black with fresh markings, straight and relatively level, no cars in sight.

Having skimmed various posts here about PB I wonder if there's a pattern. Does PB tend to happen when there are few or no cars in the near field of view? (Who'd of thunk that the "wide open road" would be a problem for a Tesla?!) More importantly, is it ever going to be fixed?

A tangential comment. Autosteer is a big disappointment. My wife's RAV4 Hybrid lane assist works far, far better. I can drive for many miles with it enabled, and provided I warn it with a turn signal about a coming lane change, it's flawless. With my new Tesla 3 RWD (August '23) Autosteer turns off frequently unless the road is straight with no changes in the road or markings. So primitive! Tesla should hire a Toyota engineer.

 

[Yelobird]

I drove my first road trip from Dallas to West Texas this past weekend, and experienced numerous instances of sudden, rapid deceleration (e.g. an up to 20 mph decrease in 2 or 3 seconds) when using Cruise Control (TACC), a problem I believe is widely called "phantom braking" (PB). I did not experience it until late afternoon on day-one of the trip, when the sun was lower in the sky and I was driving straight towards it. Lots of glare from the road. I disabled TACC.

I continued my trip early the next morning and this time PB started happening when the sun was behind me. I think it would be accurate to say that PB tended to happen more frequently when the only cars ahead of me were far in the distance or non-existent. Most surprising of all, PB happened a few times on a stretch of newly completed asphalt highway, black with fresh markings, straight and relatively level, no cars in sight.

Having skimmed various posts here about PB I wonder if there's a pattern. Does PB tend to happen when there are few or no cars in the near field of view? (Who'd of thunk that the "wide open road" would be a problem for a Tesla?!) More importantly, is it ever going to be fixed?

A tangential comment. Autosteer is a big disappointment. My wife's RAV4 Hybrid lane assist works far, far better. I can drive for many miles with it enabled, and provided I warn it with a turn signal about a coming lane change, it's flawless. With my new Tesla 3 RWD (August '23) Autosteer turns off frequently unless the road is straight with no changes in the road or markings. So primitive! Tesla should hire a Toyota engineer.

As it seems you got your car a week or so ago I would guess (as most are) you still have the base factory software. I would wait till you have the newest updated software and test again before giving up. I haven’t had this issue in some time and they have made many changes to reduce the occasional issue.

 

[DuncanM]

I drove my first road trip from Dallas to West Texas this past weekend, and experienced numerous instances of sudden, rapid deceleration (e.g. an up to 20 mph decrease in 2 or 3 seconds) when using Cruise Control (TACC), a problem I believe is widely called "phantom braking" (PB). I did not experience it until late afternoon on day-one of the trip, when the sun was lower in the sky and I was driving straight towards it. Lots of glare from the road. I disabled TACC.

I continued my trip early the next morning and this time PB started happening when the sun was behind me. I think it would be accurate to say that PB tended to happen more frequently when the only cars ahead of me were far in the distance or non-existent. Most surprising of all, PB happened a few times on a stretch of newly completed asphalt highway, black with fresh markings, straight and relatively level, no cars in sight.

Having skimmed various posts here about PB I wonder if there's a pattern. Does PB tend to happen when there are few or no cars in the near field of view? (Who'd of thunk that the "wide open road" would be a problem for a Tesla?!) More importantly, is it ever going to be fixed?

A tangential comment. Autosteer is a big disappointment. My wife's RAV4 Hybrid lane assist works far, far better. I can drive for many miles with it enabled, and provided I warn it with a turn signal about a coming lane change, it's flawless. With my new Tesla 3 RWD (August '23) Autosteer turns off frequently unless the road is straight with no changes in the road or markings. So primitive! Tesla should hire a Toyota engineer.

I have experienced Phantom Breaking on many occasions in AZ and NM. My experience with PB is the same as yours. The car seems to get confused with the sun in front and by the mirage effect (hot air shimmer) on the road or when there's a dip in the road. It seems to happen less with ACC only (single push down on the stalk) and AP turned off, but I've never had it happen when AP or ACC is locked onto a car ahead nor at night. It is a concern if I have traffic following closely behind me, and none in front, and I will let other cars pass and then lock onto them after they pass, if at all possible. Sometimes I will pull over and let cars pass. It also seems to help if I lower the collision avoidance warning sensitivity.

The car will warn you when it wants a steering wheel input with AP on (two pushes down on the stalk) with blue flashing on the display and you can simply flick the left rotary dial on the steering wheel to respond. The car sometimes seems determined to disengage AP via repeated blue flashing shortly after responding, but new firmware updates seem to have improved this.

I think it helps to keep the front cameras clean.

 

[neo1738]

11.4.4 I have seen a lot of it whenever a tractor trailer is next to me.

 

[flai54]

Are you able to report phantom braking with the FSD trial? there is a specific area where it triggers phantom braking that I would like to submit a report to Tesla to fix it.

 

[Supcom]

Are you able to report phantom braking with the FSD trial? there is a specific area where it triggers phantom braking that I would like to submit a report to Tesla to fix it.

Disengage FSD, then submit a voice report at the prompt.

 

[bsf29]

The only way to report with FSD is to exit out of FSD and give a brief explanation at the "what happened" prompt. "Bug Report" hasn't really done anything for years. I have always driven our Tesla's with my foot over the accelerator vs brake. I have always found that Tesla is very good at stopping and I need to be more prepared to maintain speed vs braking. FSD has always been poor at slowing and I constantly have to modulate how much braking so it is smooth and the wife doesn't yell at me. v12 is much better but I still have to assist a slow brake vs waiting too long and the car uses the physical brake. It also seems like the last few updates have reduced regeneration braking.

 

[zoros]

I had my first PB experience last week after 6 months of nothingness. I reported it to Tesla via my APP and lo and behold they came back with:
We need your geographical position / time / dashcam data for the incident to investigate.
Then I looked on the UK Tesla forum only to find that owners have been reporting this for ATLEAST 5 years now???

I can only deduce that this is a software flaw which even Tesla is wrestling with?

The majority of complainants suggest it happens when overtaking/passing a truck/van.
Speaking to other EV owners - it seems this is peculiar only to Tesla cars.
Does this suggest that using cameras as sensors - is maybe the culprit?

Either way - I am now nervous of driving with auto cruise selected and have my foot hovering over the accelerator at all times - which frankly - defeats the purpose of selecting this function.

 

[zoros]

Reduction of gen braking is a backward step for me. It happened about two downloads ago. I loved "creep" mode!
Why remove this function I wonder?