Thanks for your response. No, I own a condo in a four unit building, but my garage is detached. I only have a 15A breaker - wires run through rear unit and can't be changed. When I use my air compressor I always have to run a 75' heavy gauge extension cord to my front door outlet which handles 20A. Yeah, that's a reasonable work-around because I use it very infrequently. There is a possibility I could hier an electrician to run conduit along the outside of building to put in higher rated wiring or 240V, but I would have to work that out with other owners in HOA. It would cost several thousand $ I'm sure. BTW my neighbor to the rear who has a wall charger (garage attached to his unit) and now owns M3RWD and MYLR, said he has experienced PB but hardly at all if any during the past 2 years driving either vehicle.
I feel like I have blinders on right now because I was impressed with the Tesla and am so close to having a new car I can taste it. My old car doesn't even have a basic backup camera. What I don't want to do is constantly 2nd guess my decision after I buy the car. Having a cruise control that works reliably, as well as those on any other late model car, EV or not, is an important feature. Getting a new software feature, like scroll wheel that is reassignable to other functions is cool, but it is not a trade-off for having a sucky cruise control that I might have to often not use. That's what I am trying to assess. I am trying to make a smart, objective decision. So far, my friends and family say this will not be the last car I buy. Buy something else like a conventional ICE car, particularly if there is a potential safety issue from a sudden hard, unexpected PB event. They ask me, why am I so set on an EV?
The other problem is that the only information on characterizing the PB problems is coming from owners posting on forums and YouTube. Not scientific. The consensus seems to be that improvement of basic AP lags the improvements of FSD software. I do not plan to buy FSD or EAP. Unlike other cars, where the features of the car are fixed for the lifetime of vehicle, short of a forced recall to fix an issue, Tesla can always provide a software upgrade which is a plus. The question is, will they ever do it, for a problem that is getting a lot of attention from owners and NHSTA. Would it be better to wait for an HW4 car that has higher processing power, for it's higher resolution cameras, or wait for 2023.20 basic AP release to be rolled out to see if there are any improvements?
Also I will say that everything described on these forums is lumped into Phantom Braking. Slowing down gradually and resuming speed I do not consider Phantom Braking. Engaging full regenerative or hydraulic braking, with high deceleration force, enough to make a cell phone slide off the passenger seat onto the floor, I would consider a concerning PB event. I have not owned a Tesla previously. I have not experienced such a PB during a short test drive, so I don't really know what to expect. Hmmm. Maybe they need to add a slider to configure AP - more predictable, less predictable braking response. I'm being facetious or not. My vehicle should be predictable to other drivers whether I am in control or the computer is in control. Some blame the NHSTC for requiring Emergency Autobraking to take precedence over potential rear end collision accidents. Preaching to the choir.
I understand your power situation, yeah that is a tough one.
I'll make a couple more comments...
So braking events are highly variable and different people "feel" different ways based on various things. A phantom braking event to me is a slowdown based on thinking there was an object in the way when there is nothing around(in reality) to make the car think there is a reason to brake. Now this is different than the car reacting to a dynamic driving scenario like it thinking a car in an adjacent lane was about to merge or change into your lane whether that was based in reality or not. * my definition of PB is subject to change, haha. There are other scenarios that I would consider PB that don't fit my definition but I feel the written definition has to be well separated to avoid chaos and confusion.
With PB events, it could be a 5mph slowdown or a 20mph slowdown and the rate of deceleration can be variable. The biggest thing I see when people complain about PB events is that it was a sudden "massive" slowdown when after asking more questions it turns out either they don't know what the actual slowdown was or they come up with numbers that don't fit their "feeling". If you are around other cars and a PB event hits AND you aren't necessarily on point in your observation and paying attention, or you were momentarily distracted by changing an HVAC setting when the PB event hits, people will generally get more startled and "feel" like the PB event was worse than it was.
I think simply in your and other people's cases, I think it is easiest to say that you WILL have PB events but they aren't going to be random, and most likely not "frequent". They may "feel" random, but generally when no other traffic is around, the PB events will probably be repeatable and therefore predictable when driving the same route.
Now doing TACC on city streets is going to be a whole different ballgame...I would say you WILL have more "PB" events but they are generally not true PB events and are going to be error or indecision in the driving logic in the car based on navigation logic and map data....bad speed limit data, confused on path of travel, etc. You will also have general path logic errors that you have to be prepared to take over for.
Personally, I love my car and I love FSDb and it makes various errors on city streets, but I am ALWAYS prepared to take over in an instant and I love trying to analyze the failures and think about why I think the car made different decisions or errors.
If you are worried about Tesla specific issues you have heard/read about, then don't get the car. Get something else and deal with that manufacturer's and models own quirks and issues. You are an engineer, cutting edge technology isn't cutting edge without some kinds of issues. If all the bugs were worked out it wouldn't be cutting edge anymore.
Waiting for HW4 I don't think is really going to do much. I think the limits in the code are the code itself and the logic. There is a lot of headroom still in HW3 for development...unless there is a massive breakthrough in coding that blows through that overhead instantly(unlikely).
You can wait, and wait, and wait, there will always be another reason to wait, but right now there isn't really any major hardware reason to wait for.
Good luck in your decision making process...pro's and con's right? The funny thing is that it is just as easy to talk badly about the car as it is to talk good about the car. I try to be neutral when people seem to be having a tough time wrapping their head around this decision like you seem to be. But....I love my car, I have my small share of PB events and other driving logic issues but I am able to easily deal with them and I wouldn't get any other car.
