Major Phantom Braking Issues

[derotam]

Hypothetical. Suppose a Tesla get's rear ended and local LE is called. Now add the Tesla driver saying "I was using Tesla AutoPilot and it just slammed on the brakes for no reason", how would the officer respond?

1. Irrelevant. Following vehicle still was following too closely. OR
2. Maybe I need to tell my boss and let 2 billion other people comment on whether this is worthy of further consideration before writing this citation.

Maybe an easy case for an ambulance chaser given the big name? Then again, my experience is limited to late night TV.

3. Cite Tesla driver for causing the accident for slamming on the brakes for no reason as the driver admitted.
4. slightly different than the above... Tesla driver failed to maintain control of the vehicle(that they are supposed to maintain control of) and caused crash

 

[tmatsus]

I drive my Model Y on California Highway 17 on a regular basis and found it breaks some times with no reasons when I am on autopilot. I am not sure others have observed similar behavior.

 

[Waltjo]

This is the infamous "phantom braking". Pretty annoying, but if learn to watch for it you can accelerate before anyone else is affected.

 

[Huskyf]

I drive my Model Y on California Highway 17 on a regular basis and found it breaks some times with no reasons when I am on autopilot. I am not sure others have observed similar behavior.

Are you sure they break for nothing for example on the place when it break do you have a traffic lights sign or a display sign traffic light for me in Switzerland if they detect a digital sign that advice a traffic light is near the car break for a millisecond

 

[Genedr]

My worst phantom braking frequency happens on desert type highways in the day time. Two things have contributed. One is Fsd will interpret mirages as an oncoming car, and two shadows across my lane from larger vehicles coming also results in significant braking. I am on 2022.45.25.5 M3 LR Dual Motor. Thanks for the chill mode tip. The remedy is rapid pedal push. Chill will help reduce neck strain on passengers.

It has improved over various updates but still not solved.

Still a problem with latest FSD Beta v11.3.4, particularly on blacktop highways on warm sunny days when the “mirage” will cause a sudden braking……I’ve stopped using FSD on those roads. Otherwise, smoother and better onscreen graphics.

 

[DonV71]

Yesterday on the freeway my M# slammed on 3 brakes 3 times. Road conditions were perfect. Sunny, no cars around, 2 lane highway, straight (no curves or hills) flawless pavement (no color change, cracks NOTHING) no bridge, nothing around, no clouds in the sky. Stuff flew forward it hit the brakes so hard 3 times. It did it 5 other times when a car was nearby - braking was not as hard.

As a civil Engineer I can say road conditions were about as perfect as you will ever see.

What is going on?

 

[Shelburne]

Were you in auto pilot or full self driving mode, or were you actually driving the car yourself?

 

[golfcart]

Yesterday on the freeway my M# slammed on 3 brakes 3 times. Road conditions were perfect. Sunny, no cars around, 2 lane highway, straight (no curves or hills) flawless pavement (no color change, cracks NOTHING) no bridge, nothing around, no clouds in the sky. Stuff flew forward it hit the brakes so hard 3 times. It did it 5 other times when a car was nearby - braking was not as hard.

As a civil Engineer I can say road conditions were about as perfect as you will ever see.

What is going on?

I have had this happen to me also... only when using "navigate on autopilot" and I agree it is dangerous and unnerving. No idea why it happens unfortunately.

 

[Speed-Wiz]

Make sure the windshield is clean and clear in the area of the camera.

 

[DonV71]

Sorry, autopilot. Speed-wiz, interesting, I did have a lot of bug splatters from a long drive, I did not want to say to "lead" someone to think that but I feel it might have something to do with it.

 

[sightman]

These stories reaffirm to me not to use autopilot on the Highway. I don’t want to be punted like a football when the car decides to phantom brake. Tesla should issue a toggle for dumb cruise control.

 

[MJB-CO]

Yesterday on the freeway my M# slammed on 3 brakes 3 times. Road conditions were perfect. Sunny, no cars around, 2 lane highway, straight (no curves or hills) flawless pavement (no color change, cracks NOTHING) no bridge, nothing around, no clouds in the sky. Stuff flew forward it hit the brakes so hard 3 times. It did it 5 other times when a car was nearby - braking was not as hard.

As a civil Engineer I can say road conditions were about as perfect as you will ever see.

What is going on?

Are you on FSD Beta?
What version of the software ore you on?

 

[DathMN]

Driving from Flagstaff to Page. Using cruise control. No fewer than 25 phantom breaking incidents in 2 hours time. Incredibly frustrating and dangerous

 

[Pianewman]

Welcome to TMC. Please take the time to do a search (advanced) prior to posting. There are several dozen current threads on the subject of phantom braking that you might find interesting (you didn't really ask a question)

 

[towndrunk]

Driving from Flagstaff to Page. Using cruise control. No fewer than 25 phantom breaking incidents in 2 hours time. Incredibly frustrating and dangerous

Calibrating your cameras after every 2 or 3 updates should help.

It's in the car menu. Probably best done when you have a highway trip planned. It takes awhile and you won't be able to set AP during that time. You'll probably want to recheck your settings after it finishes as it turns off some of mine.

 

[gogog22510@gma]

FSD 11.3 is terrible, huge regression performance on highway. It will slow down and even stop on highway for no reason (no car near me) and it happened to me 5 times already (after update, I only enable FSD on highway ~10 times).
I'm in NYC, when I was driving through Lincoln tunnel, there are only 2 lanes with the splitter in the middle so no vehicle can cross and merge lane. I engaged FSD before entering in tunnel with ~40 mph, after few minutes inside the tunnel, my model Y started slowing down to 15 mph for no reason, there was no car in front of me! When I disengaged and drove for a minute and reengage FSD again, model Y started slowing down again. It seems like FSD stuck in a loop that it decided to slow down...

You may think that tunnel is so close to the wall, FSD may think the vehicle on the parallel lane too close, however, before 11.3 upgrade, everything works perfectly. Not to mention another case when I drove on highway in the afternoon, there was not many cars, no cars near me, only one car behind me. Again FSD working fine at the beginning and suddenly decided to slow down from 50 mph to 10 mph for no reason.

This regression is super dangerous and ridiculous. Not sure does anyone encounter this before?

(I did report to Tesla using built in feedback system when FSD disengaged. Not sure will they take it seriously)

 

[CongressDJ]

Hi guys,

Just wanted to share an experience that I've had today so that others looking at Teslas to use for long distance driving can make an informed decision.

My wife and I drove our 2023 MYLR from Tucson to Las Vegas. It's a ~7 hour drive (8.5 with charging stops, ~400 miles) mostly through an open desert highway. Traffic is minimal and driving an ICE car is easy on cruise control. Most of the drive is going straight on a highway. We've done it dozens of times since we travel between the two spots often and is a reason we got a Tesla.

The car is 6 days old and running the latest software. During our trip we experienced 19 phantom breaking incidents where the car decided to break at highway speeds for no reason. In all cases there were no cars or obstructions in the way and this occurred at various stretches of the trip. The breaking was very aggressive.

After the first few phantom breaking events we started disabling various "autopilot" features such as emergency breaking, etc. In the end, nothing made a difference and the phantom breaking was occurring even on regular "cruise control" (one pull down) with all other features disabled.

To summarize, the experience was unpleasant and dangerous. If at any time during the phantom breaking event there was a car following us closely there would have been an accident. I do not feel safe operating this vehicle with any type of "autopilot" feature because it's unsafe and behaves erratically.

I know people will say that this is all "beta" and "experimental" and I should always be ready to take over, and of course that part is correct. But when the car breaks suddenly at highway speeds for no reason "taking over" is difficult, especially if this behavior creates an accident. Furthermore, the expectation is that it's 2022 and even the simplest of vehicles offer a cruise control that doesn't slam its breaks on the highway.

I'd be curious to know if others have the same issue. I feel like this is a SERIOUS safety problem and now I am very weary of my Tesla.

Luca

This happens to me on my 23MYP and I realized it was because the cameras are seeing speed limit signs on exit ramps. A few times just before the phantom breaking I’ll see the speed limit sign on my screen change from 65mph to 45mph. Because I have autopilot set at 75mph, the phantom breaking wants to knock me down to 50mph. Obviously very dangerous to the people behind me (and to me if they think I’m brake-checking them!). Cameras need to do a better job of correlating actual speed limits based on GPS data associated with the roadway itself (like Waze does).

 

[enemji]

Yesterday on the freeway my M# slammed on 3 brakes 3 times. Road conditions were perfect. Sunny, no cars around, 2 lane highway, straight (no curves or hills) flawless pavement (no color change, cracks NOTHING) no bridge, nothing around, no clouds in the sky. Stuff flew forward it hit the brakes so hard 3 times. It did it 5 other times when a car was nearby - braking was not as hard.

As a civil Engineer I can say road conditions were about as perfect as you will ever see.

What is going on?

Since there was nothing around, it was hard for AP/FSD to make any determination. Not enough information to continue. So it stops.

 

[enemji]

Since there was nothing around, it was hard for AP/FSD to make any determination. Not enough information to continue. So it stops.

@KArnold - why do you disagree with this explanation?

 

[DrChaos]

Yesterday on the freeway my M# slammed on 3 brakes 3 times. Road conditions were perfect. Sunny, no cars around, 2 lane highway, straight (no curves or hills) flawless pavement (no color change, cracks NOTHING) no bridge, nothing around, no clouds in the sky. Stuff flew forward it hit the brakes so hard 3 times. It did it 5 other times when a car was nearby - braking was not as hard.

As a civil Engineer I can say road conditions were about as perfect as you will ever see.

What is going on?

Happens with non-divided highways, when there is an undulation in the elevation and it can't extend the road boundaries to infinity with perfect perspective. A hill alone (where nothing is visible after a certain distance) isn't enough, that case is covered. It's when there is a hill, an invisible depression, and then the road continues behind but from the point of view of camera there is a discontinuity in the road boundaries. I think to the computer it looks like an object suddenly appeared in the middle of the road and it panics.

If there was no hill then the other case is a mirage, where reflection of something above or behind looks like it's projected in the road surface and it similarly panics. You said it was sunny and no cars around. Black asphalt? That's the conditions that make for a mirage that isn't broken up by other cars, both visually or with ground level turbulence that disrupts the stratified temperature/density gradient of the air.

The problem is that the computer doesn't have a long-term memory or understanding to know that an image which just popped up on the road it's been watching for the last minute is a mirage, where a human, or any animal with vision, would instinctively know that because it has a better cognitive world model.

The just released FSDb is much better in highway driving in my experience, though I have no opportunity to test on desolate car-less 2-lane roads. It's possible that stream, when released to mainstream, will perform better but there's no guarantee.