Major Phantom Braking Issues

[laservet]

FWIW. Keith at Out of Spec Reviews just rode in a driverless Waymo and it had multiple phantom braking events (at least one was a 20 mph drop), deceleration then hammering the throttle repeatedly, and squeezed really close to parked vehicles on the right.

 

[jstef16]

I have a 2018 Model 3 with the FSD beta running v2022.44.30.5, which is the latest version available to me.

I just wanted to weigh in because the emphasis on open desert highway roads in the original post feels very familiar to a recent experience I had. I live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN metro and haven't taken my Model 3 out of the metro area since May, 2021, at which time I took it from the southern metro to western North Dakota, roughly 600 miles, entirely on I-94. That trip in May, 2021 was great, and driving as I do around the Twin Cities on Autopilot and FSD has been overall very good. There's the occasional phantom braking incident but honestly it's very rare and hasn't been much of a concern to me even as I see the headlines.

So then it was very surprising to me when a week and a half ago I made the same drive I did along I-94 up through MN and across ND that I was suddenly experiencing phantom braking quite often, and not in the usual scenarios that I've expected with a poor interpretation of an overpass or a semi hauling an usual load, but mostly in completely open road in perfect driving conditions. This wouldn't have been using FSD since I was on the highway, but in some stretches the car was braking as commonly as every mile or two, and sometimes with up to 10 miles in-between. This made for a very uncomfortable 450 miles driven during the daylight. But I had a break between that first 450 miles where night fell and I drove the last 150 miles in the dark, and had no phantom braking at all. I also noticed that when I was on open road with literally no one else around, at the very edge of the vision on the vehicle display, it would flicker as if it had seen a vehicle even if one wasn't there. Never immediately in front of our vehicle, but just barely on the edge of what it showed. When I got into areas with traffic (read: any vehicles in the ~500 feet in front of me at all) the car would be more stable and phantom braking didn't happen nearly as much.

On the trip back, it was about a 400/200 mile day/night split, and I had a similar experiences with the lack of traffic and nighttime improvements. However, I also noticed we had a lot of mirages on the road in some stretches. North Dakota is essentially a frigid desert, so it was ~15º F but sunny so the pavement warms up and results in mirages even in the winter. I also noticed that it seemed to get tricked by these mirages on the road making it think a vehicle I was following were closer than they were or the road was effectively disappearing at points.
And now that I'm back driving around the Twin Cities, the car is fine again, even at those same 75-80 mph speeds on highways with Autopilot (not FSD).
I actually have an order on a Model Y with a delivery date coming up in about a month. Stopping to charge doesn't bother me and I really have enjoyed my Model 3, so I was looking forward to upgrading. But now I'm not sure if I want to because I'm nervous of this type of experience when I do make long trips more often. It's so strange to me that this trip, which was great 2 years ago, was so uncomfortable and awful now. I really hope Tesla can fix it when they make the FSD highway stack available, or through some other means, whatever that may be. Honestly I'd even settle for the ability to use cruise control in a "dumb" way. I just don't like having to manually drive for so long or be subject to frequent whiplash.

 

[LucLamma]

I have a 2018 Model 3 with the FSD beta running v2022.44.30.5, which is the latest version available to me.

I just wanted to weigh in because the emphasis on open desert highway roads in the original post feels very familiar to a recent experience I had. I live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN metro and haven't taken my Model 3 out of the metro area since May, 2021, at which time I took it from the southern metro to western North Dakota, roughly 600 miles, entirely on I-94. That trip in May, 2021 was great, and driving as I do around the Twin Cities on Autopilot and FSD has been overall very good. There's the occasional phantom braking incident but honestly it's very rare and hasn't been much of a concern to me even as I see the headlines.

So then it was very surprising to me when a week and a half ago I made the same drive I did along I-94 up through MN and across ND that I was suddenly experiencing phantom braking quite often, and not in the usual scenarios that I've expected with a poor interpretation of an overpass or a semi hauling an usual load, but mostly in completely open road in perfect driving conditions. This wouldn't have been using FSD since I was on the highway, but in some stretches the car was braking as commonly as every mile or two, and sometimes with up to 10 miles in-between. This made for a very uncomfortable 450 miles driven during the daylight. But I had a break between that first 450 miles where night fell and I drove the last 150 miles in the dark, and had no phantom braking at all. I also noticed that when I was on open road with literally no one else around, at the very edge of the vision on the vehicle display, it would flicker as if it had seen a vehicle even if one wasn't there. Never immediately in front of our vehicle, but just barely on the edge of what it showed. When I got into areas with traffic (read: any vehicles in the ~500 feet in front of me at all) the car would be more stable and phantom braking didn't happen nearly as much.

On the trip back, it was about a 400/200 mile day/night split, and I had a similar experiences with the lack of traffic and nighttime improvements. However, I also noticed we had a lot of mirages on the road in some stretches. North Dakota is essentially a frigid desert, so it was ~15º F but sunny so the pavement warms up and results in mirages even in the winter. I also noticed that it seemed to get tricked by these mirages on the road making it think a vehicle I was following were closer than they were or the road was effectively disappearing at points.
And now that I'm back driving around the Twin Cities, the car is fine again, even at those same 75-80 mph speeds on highways with Autopilot (not FSD).
I actually have an order on a Model Y with a delivery date coming up in about a month. Stopping to charge doesn't bother me and I really have enjoyed my Model 3, so I was looking forward to upgrading. But now I'm not sure if I want to because I'm nervous of this type of experience when I do make long trips more often. It's so strange to me that this trip, which was great 2 years ago, was so uncomfortable and awful now. I really hope Tesla can fix it when they make the FSD highway stack available, or through some other means, whatever that may be. Honestly I'd even settle for the ability to use cruise control in a "dumb" way. I just don't like having to manually drive for so long or be subject to frequent whiplash.

Thanks for sharing your feedback man. It's hard for people who never experienced this problem to understand the full impact of how scary and uncomfortable it is.

Having now tried multiple times on my 2023 MYLR I can definitely say that I would not recommend you buy this car for any type of desert highway driving. It's perfectly fine for city driving (even though I did have phantom braking on roads in Arizona, but none in Las Vegas).

The only reason I got this car was for long range driving and now it's been sitting in my garage for 2 months because I'm too scared to drive it.

 

[boulder.dude]

The only reason I got this car was for long range driving and now it's been sitting in my garage for 2 months because I'm too scared to drive it.

You might be a bot or a troll? This sounds extremely bombastic.

If you’re a real Tesla owner, consider selling the car at a profit if you’re afraid to drive it?

 

[zoomer0056]

I'm too scared to drive it

rediculous

 

[LucLamma]

You might be a bot or a troll? This sounds extremely bombastic.

If you’re a real Tesla owner, consider selling the car at a profit if you’re afraid to drive it?

Really? At a profit? Wow. You are a true fanboy drinking the cool aid all the way... And yeah, I tried.

I paid $68,440 cash on December 3rd, 2022. CarMax offered me $37,000 for a 2 month old car with 2,267 miles on it.

Who will give me $68k+ (profit) if a brand new MYLR is selling for $54,500 direct from Tesla? YOU wanna buy it? If so, I'll put the car on a transporter and SEND it to you! And I don't even want a profit. Give me $60k for it and it's yours.

 

[mtbwalt]

I rest my right foot on the accelerator while driving using FSD beta.

Rarely I feel a deceleration a little less than that of regenerative braking for no obvious reason. When that occurs, I gentle press my right foot down on the accelerator and the car, which has lost somewhere between 3 and 5 mph, is back at speed again and I can relax my foot on the accelerator.

I look forward to the day this is fixed but the idea that it is some crisis that is hard to recover from and so stressful people won’t even drive their car is eye-rolling. You just gentle goose the accelerator when you feel inappropriate deceleration.

 

[pcopeland]

I have just driven from Boulder CO down to Austin TX for the Tesla Investor Meeting on 1 March. Yesterday - driving from Santa Fe NM to Abilene TX I had 8-9 Phantom Breaking incidents. In all cases I was doing between 75-80mph with Autopilot/FSD engaged. I have a 2022 Model S Long range - running FSD 10.69.25.2. The previous day driving from Boulder down to Santa Fe - I had zero PB incidents - but it was super windy and I had to keep my speed down to aprox 70mph max.

This morning I disabled the "emergency breaking" under the Autopilot settings. I drove from Abilene TX down to Austin and had only 1 PB incident where the speed dropped > 10mph. Interestingly - I did have 2-3 cases where I had some minor slowdowns - for no aparent reason - but they were only 3-5mph slowdowns.

My current theory is that these incidents get trigged > 75mph - and then the emergency breaking kicks in - which causes the severe slow down.

My 2 cents.

Phil

 

[Killer Junior]

Thanks for sharing your feedback man. It's hard for people who never experienced this problem to understand the full impact of how scary and uncomfortable it is.

Having now tried multiple times on my 2023 MYLR I can definitely say that I would not recommend you buy this car for any type of desert highway driving. It's perfectly fine for city driving (even though I did have phantom braking on roads in Arizona, but none in Las Vegas).

The only reason I got this car was for long range driving and now it's been sitting in my garage for 2 months because I'm too scared to drive it.

First couple times can be jarring but people pay good money to experience scarier $#!+ than that (albeit in a controlled environment). You should probably seek counseling for your fear of phantom braking when cruising on auto pilot. Probably not money wisely spent though. WWJD?

 

[rpo]

Thanks for sharing your feedback man. It's hard for people who never experienced this problem to understand the full impact of how scary and uncomfortable it is.

Having now tried multiple times on my 2023 MYLR I can definitely say that I would not recommend you buy this car for any type of desert highway driving. It's perfectly fine for city driving (even though I did have phantom braking on roads in Arizona, but none in Las Vegas).

The only reason I got this car was for long range driving and now it's been sitting in my garage for 2 months because I'm too scared to drive it.

Lemon it. Take it to the service center, give them 3 tries to fix it, and if it keeps occurring, document that and get your money back. My 2016 S had phantom breaking all the time, but my 2019 never did. It could be software, but something sounds off on your car,.

 

[avramd]

Thanks for sharing your feedback man. It's hard for people who never experienced this problem to understand the full impact of how scary and uncomfortable it is.

The only reason I got this car was for long range driving and now it's been sitting in my garage for 2 months because I'm too scared to drive it.

Luca,

This is ludicrous. If you bought a spare $70,000 car just for long range highway driving, then you're extremely privileged, and we don't care how much money you might lose to whining over one feature not working the way you expected, and you very deliberately choosing to not get over it when we've given you two different solutions.

I had a 4 hr drive today, and I experienced a couple of unpredicted phantom braking incidents that didn't fit my existing model of when to be ready for them. I believe they happened bc the highway lanes were very narrow, and there's a lot of sand on the that is obscuring the dashed lines separating the lanes. So my car was just slowing down to the speed of the other highway cars. It was not an unreasonable speed, just slower than I wanted to be going, and still for no good reason b/c they weren't in my lane.

It just wasn't a big deal, I'm over it. Life isn't perfect, very few products are perfect. I hope they fix this or give us a workaround, but it's not worth falling on my sword for.

This thing you are doing claiming you are too scared to drive your car is a personal choice you are making. Yes, the first unexpected and sudden 75mph -> <40mph is jarring. But it is rare and we've told you how to make it exceptionally rare. Also, it isn't actually scary once you've been through it a couple times, it's just annoying.

It sounds to me like you are making it a big deal for the sake of resentment, as if your ire is going to hurt (or even be noticed by) Elon or his lieutenants. To quote Tim Allen:

I think it was St Thomas Aquinas that said "Resentment is like taking poison, and hoping it will kill the other guy"

If you want to do something that will actually register on Tesla leadership's radar, lemon-law your car. It just so happens this will also solve your unfortunate market-conditions problem. Either way, you will be a hero to us all.

It's time to step up. If you don't want to be a hero, fine, but being a victim is a choice - and it's a choice that feels like . It's time to make a different choice.

 

[sjg98]

I have a 2018 Model 3 with the FSD beta running v2022.44.30.5, which is the latest version available to me.

I just wanted to weigh in because the emphasis on open desert highway roads in the original post feels very familiar to a recent experience I had. I live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN metro and haven't taken my Model 3 out of the metro area since May, 2021, at which time I took it from the southern metro to western North Dakota, roughly 600 miles, entirely on I-94. That trip in May, 2021 was great, and driving as I do around the Twin Cities on Autopilot and FSD has been overall very good. There's the occasional phantom braking incident but honestly it's very rare and hasn't been much of a concern to me even as I see the headlines.

So then it was very surprising to me when a week and a half ago I made the same drive I did along I-94 up through MN and across ND that I was suddenly experiencing phantom braking quite often, and not in the usual scenarios that I've expected with a poor interpretation of an overpass or a semi hauling an usual load, but mostly in completely open road in perfect driving conditions. This wouldn't have been using FSD since I was on the highway, but in some stretches the car was braking as commonly as every mile or two, and sometimes with up to 10 miles in-between. This made for a very uncomfortable 450 miles driven during the daylight. But I had a break between that first 450 miles where night fell and I drove the last 150 miles in the dark, and had no phantom braking at all. I also noticed that when I was on open road with literally no one else around, at the very edge of the vision on the vehicle display, it would flicker as if it had seen a vehicle even if one wasn't there. Never immediately in front of our vehicle, but just barely on the edge of what it showed. When I got into areas with traffic (read: any vehicles in the ~500 feet in front of me at all) the car would be more stable and phantom braking didn't happen nearly as much.

On the trip back, it was about a 400/200 mile day/night split, and I had a similar experiences with the lack of traffic and nighttime improvements. However, I also noticed we had a lot of mirages on the road in some stretches. North Dakota is essentially a frigid desert, so it was ~15º F but sunny so the pavement warms up and results in mirages even in the winter. I also noticed that it seemed to get tricked by these mirages on the road making it think a vehicle I was following were closer than they were or the road was effectively disappearing at points.
And now that I'm back driving around the Twin Cities, the car is fine again, even at those same 75-80 mph speeds on highways with Autopilot (not FSD).
I actually have an order on a Model Y with a delivery date coming up in about a month. Stopping to charge doesn't bother me and I really have enjoyed my Model 3, so I was looking forward to upgrading. But now I'm not sure if I want to because I'm nervous of this type of experience when I do make long trips more often. It's so strange to me that this trip, which was great 2 years ago, was so uncomfortable and awful now. I really hope Tesla can fix it when they make the FSD highway stack available, or through some other means, whatever that may be. Honestly I'd even settle for the ability to use cruise control in a "dumb" way. I just don't like having to manually drive for so long or be subject to frequent whiplash.

Go test drive some competition and be surprised how competent they are on the highway by comparison.
If you have a functioning Tesla already, there's no urgency to take delivery of a new Tesla that invests you further into their ADAS system.

Tesla is far from the only game in town nor a leader in highway ADAS anymore.

 

[Rocinante777]

Go test drive some competition and be surprised how competent they are on the highway by comparison.
If you have a functioning Tesla already, there's no urgency to take delivery of a new Tesla that invests you further into their ADAS system.

Tesla is far from the only game in town nor a leader in highway ADAS anymore.

If we are talking about competitor's competence in driving assistance features: Our 2020 BMW M340i has phantom swerving issues. It's not common, but when it does happen one definitely needs fresh underwear. On a trip from Austin to Dallas recently, it freaked out over a shadow in the road and steered hard towards a large truck in the next lane. I had to wrench the wheel hard to regain control. This is a car with both cameras and radar.

This of course does not excuse Tesla's issues--but they are not the only one with such issues. The entire industry may be a bit too ambitious. And in their defense, BMW does not charge as much for the feature nor do they over hype it.

 

[enemji]

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

The possible reasons for it are discussed here

Poor Model Y Tesla Vison Experience

Hello Everyone and thank you for all of your responses ahead of time. I recently bought a 2023 Model Y (owned it only two weeks at the time of this post and never owned a Tesla before) with "Tesla Vision" and I am very disappointed in the Autopilot (not even talking about FSD). For example...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Jasonhc73]

Mine brakes with just regular TACC engaged.

It does it so many times, I renamed the car, "I brake for shadows".

 

[dachshund]

The first time my car does phantom braking enough to really bother me it's going to service. Tesla claims they're trying to fix this so they should have service tickets piling up.

I wish I could gather up a group of Tesla drivers with this problem and have everyone drive the same stretch of roadway, and see if it's the car or the location.

Afraid to drive their car because of a feature you don't have to use?! Doesn't anyone like driving cars anymore?
Everyone in my family is a car fanatic, and all of us are like, "self driving? That's taking away the fun part..."

 

[mrbulk]

Were there mirage "reflections" on the roadway further up the road? That is the only time we get phantom braking, no other times at all whatsoever (we have a 2023 MYLR w/o radar).

 

[2101Guy]

Documenting the precise time/location/conditions when it happened, then opening service tickets under warranty for it? AND filing complaints with NHTSA in parallell?
THAT..is the only way this is going to get max attention it deserves.

 

[zoomer0056]

Service tickets will keep letting Tesla know that its not working right (thats a good thing), it will cause Service Center Advisers to respond with a generic "update coming soon", it will take some of your time. I bet Tesla is data mining our cars and knows about all the braking going on. But, no need to be scared of your car. Use TACC sparingly until PB is fixed. Until then drive without TACC when it would be unsafe or annoying otherwise. Elon says update "in a couple of months, six months for sure."

 

[Dewg]

NHTSA is already investigating PBs.