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Major Phantom Braking Issues
- Thread starter LucLamma
- Start date
thanks. I might have to try this. My 2022 MYLR with FSD beta v2022.44.30.10, recent trip from San Diego to Las Vegas, lanes are not busy and experienced PB issues at least twice between Barstow and Primm.
I'm surprised you've gotten PB on that stretch. Should be wide open unless they've got their lane widening construction going on.
I've never set my AP for the speed limit, always for pacing traffic and letting it decide. Has worked very well including rush hour stop/go.
I don't come here often because like your post overall there are a lot of hostile and overly fanatical people over here. I still own a Model X.
Please report this event to: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA. There is a link at the top right of their web page.
I have not looked at the NHTSA site in awhile, last time I did there were less than 800 formal complaints. There is also a class action suite being started, I have no information as I have no desire to sue, only want it fixed.
Just completed 2000 + a miles road trip in MY 2023 (Dec) from Bay Area to LV to Page, AZ. I had multiple issues with Phantom braking. At first, I thought it could be because sunrise and it was directly in the camera's view but later on, the sun was behind me, and the same thing happened. The last 2 phantom braking incidents really scare *sugar* out of me, almost got rear-ended. After that, I did not use the Autopilot function at all. It is a problem, Tesla needs to fix it before people really get hurt.
I reported my vehicle less than a week after taking delivery. Absolutely mind blowing that they continue to release cars that react like this to normal road conditions.
I consider this statement a little bit harsh. For someone who is not a car geek and doesn't spend time on automotive forums, I consider it reasonable to expect a $50,000 luxury car to come with basic cruise control functionality - a technology that has been stable and trustworthy for 50 years. Our cars effectively do not have it because it is coupled with an automation feature that many of us don't want, and makes it untrustworthy for large numbers of us.
You are welcome to disagree, it is fine for people to have different opinions. I just think it is going too far to claim that someone must live in a cave or be a troll if she didn't comb through forums before buying a car, when 99% of consumers don't do that.
Luca,
As you've seen, it happens to others too, me included. I originally reacted as you did - just completely stopped using it, and resigned myself to the idea that I my car simply didn't have a "cruise control" feature - at least not in terms of how I want to use it. Like you, what I want from cruise control is to reduce my workload as the driver, not increase it.
The minor good news I can share is that I have found there is a pattern to the phantom braking, and I am generally able to recognize when it is likely to happen, and take over in advance. As a result, using the cruise control is not particularly draining like it was when I was new to it. It is still disappointing that I have to intervene manually as often as I do, and it still makes it so that I do not have the benefit of a simple basic technology that most other cars have. But it's not awful any more.
Here are the situations that I can see coming where it is likely to happen: The lane splits, there is no line between my lane and the new lane, and a car is going slower in the new lane. Exit ramps on the highway are a common example of this, and the braking is extreme since I might be going 70 and a car taking the exit might be going 30. Another is a slower car in another lane drifting slightly into my lane. Another is when I'm changing lanes to pass, but I don't get fully into the new lane before the car I'm passing gets close enough to trigger a slow down. In most cases, there is another vehicle involved that is going slower, and I know it's not a risk, but my car does not. In some cases though, unusual or faintly marked lanes seem to cause the car to think that embankments or overpass supports, etc, are obstructions - it seems it's not sure where the road really is, so it is worried those fixed objects might be in the road.
In short, an option available to you is to spend some time driving with cruise control on, but your foot just barely covering the accelerator, and simply assuming that it is probably going to brake unexpectedly. By having your foot right there, the braking will not be aggressive b/c the pedal comes up, and your foot will stop it from coming up far. This will take the edge off of these experiences so they are not alarming and not scary. Once I took the edge off, I found that I started to learn when to take over. It wasn't hard, but it's more like muscle memory - it's complicated to fully describe, but your body kinda "gets it," like riding a bike.
Thanks for the tip, unfortunately it's extremely uncomfortable to keep your foot "just barely covering the accelerator" on a 7 hour drive. It's not a comfortable position and the foot cramps up quickly. I just drive my Hyundai now because I can put it on cruise control and it drives without braking like a maniac.
Just a heads up for anyone interested on value change of your new Tesla Model Y.
I purchased the car for $70k (with taxes + fees, base price was $66,900) on or around December 3rd... As soon as my title came in, around Jan 20th I took it in to Carmax to sell it. They offered me $37k. This was right after Tesla dropped the price but it was the earliest I could sell the car since that's when the title came in. 2 weeks before I got my title I walked into Carmax to get an estimate (I couldn't sell it yet but wanted to get an idea of how much I'd lose if I sold it)... They offered me $64k... Two weeks later (after tesla price drop) $37k. The mileage was around 1500 miles at both times.
A major kick in a balls by Tesla. My intention was to sell the car as soon as the title came in due to the phantom braking issues. But now I'm getting literally half of what I paid for a month after taking delivery so I'm stuck with it. I've owned a bunch of cars over my life time and this is the worst drop in value ever. A lesson well learned.
Appreciate you actually breaking down the patterns you've noticed related to what could be triggering the braking events. Out of curiosity do you mostly drive with your foot hovering over the accelerator? Seems a bit extreme / uncomfortable depending on the length of your commute...
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
He's suggesting to do that until you start recognizing the patterns. I don't have the Vision version yet (I'm still on the software version that uses radar), but there are locations that I know for certain the car will slow down (I see the set speed drop). Usually it is when there is a split in the road.
I still typically do keep a foot hovering or almost slightly resting on the accelerator a lot of the time, as I'm not completely satisfy with the amount of accelerator is applied when the car in front starts moving in light traffic (usually it takes quite a while to build up speed and does not keep up with the car in front).
Luca,
It sounds like you are dead-set on hating your Tesla now, and I'm not against you on that - I can really appreciate how that price drop situation would severely magnify the frustration you already had. I'm really sorry you're in the situation you are in. I did get over this one, I was only trying to offer you a lifeline. I still have a couple issues with the car that drive me nuts, and if I think about them, I get aggravated too.
I really do think your situation is recoverable. However if you are absolutely not interested in the possibility that you could get the hang of this easily, then I have another option for you. First though, let me just say a little more about getting the hang of it, and what it's like on the other side.
My "covering the accelerator" suggestion was meant for say 5-10 minutes at a time so that you can feel safe while getting the hang of the system's quirks. For a long drive, until you get there, you could simply rest your foot on the accelerator. Your foot will find out long before your eyes and brain do if it's happening - and your foot will already be where it needs to be to address it. Also, this is temporary. The reality of it is that if you are not in dense traffic, there are very few situations where it might happen, and they are easy to spot - not really any different from watching for cars that might lane-change into you if you're in their blind-spot (which you already need to do even with a proper cruise control). On a 7 hour drive, most of of it will be in light traffic - or traffic james, where traffic-aware-cruise-control actually really shines.
"Covering" the accelerator wasn't the key point - it was that phantom braking is predictable, and it doesn't take much to get the hang of it. I was furious about it as well when I first discovered it. For a while I refused to use it as well (I didn't have a Hyundai available, otherwise I might have used it). But what I eventually realized was that I was cutting off my nose to spite Elon's face, and I was the only one bleeding. Here is where I landed:
- It is fine in light traffic, and ironically very good in traffic jams
- There are three easily recognizable categories of situation in which I know to use the accelerator for a few seconds
- The only problem at this point is that when I use the accelerator to pass someone, I still get a little bitchy towards Elon in my head.
- If we can just be honest for a sec, this is self-inflicted pain.
- It just does not catch me off guard anymore
Ok, now for the secret sauce. I'm not recommending this, I'm just going to share with you how I got Audi to buy back a 1 year old S4 from me at a favorable rate, due to a demonstrable safety issue that they were unwilling to fix:
I am sure you have heard of the "lemon law." Here's how it works: If you buy a car, and it has an operability or safety problem, the seller has three chances to fix it. If they are unable to fix it, they are required by law to buy the car back from you at the following rate: (purchase price - (actual miles/100,000 * purchase price)). In other words, every 1000 miles driven is considered as you having gotten 1% of the value of the car. Granted, Tesla can simply say no, at which point you would have to sue them, or at least feign it. But if you have video of the car slamming on the brakes for no good reason, and a car behind you having to emergency brake to avoid you, I think that would play pretty well in court - and I think Tesla knows they would lose much less money on reselling your car than fighting you in court, even *without* your video making it to the public, and the spectacle that the lawsuit would cost their stock. And, lucky for you, the car has built-in cameras and a button you can press to save the last 10 minutes of footage, so you already have everything you need to collect the proof (except maybe a big USB flash drive)
In my case with the Audi, I had incontrovertible proof of unintended acceleration, as well as proof of zero power delivery while the accelerator was pressed, in normal everyday conditions. It had 10k miles on it, so I got 90% of what I paid for it.
I don't remember the exact details of what kinds of issues the lemon law applies to, but it definitely favors the consumer. I do believe there is a timeframe during which the flaw must have been reported, so if you really want to pursue this, schedule a service call, get it on the record that you have the problem, and get them on the record saying they can't or won't do anything about it. Is this a "d*ck move?" I'm not going to weigh in on that, what I will say is that I appreciate your value-loss gripe, it was unfortunate timing for you, and - Tesla, can swing the $40k, and that gap wouldn't have existed if it weren't for highly unusual timing (and it won't be $40k for them, they will probably get 95% of new for your car, they just won't be getting any of it from you.
My current biggest gripe w/ my Tesla is that I can not reliably close my windows. It often takes as many as 20 tries, and it is taking my attention away from driving. If I had wanted them to buy my car back, I probably could have used this. I did not, and I still don't, and it's definitely too late now. But if I had hated the car, and used this to apply the lemon law, would I have felt bad about that? Well, the window switch has two positions. It would cost them almost nothing to program the half-way position to mean "I am actively paying attention, pinch protection is unnecessary, I am actively monitoring the situation." It would benefit 10's of millions of people. So no, I wouldn't have felt like it was a d*ck move for me to make them choose between covering the gap on the turnover of one car or fixing an actual flaw that would likely benefit millions of people at a cost of fractions of a penny per car.
No, no, absolutely not. If you don't want to read the super-long post I just sent detailing this, here's the short version: I meant that as a training technique, for short intervals, to enable the driver to feel safe while "experimenting" to get the hang of the problem. I have not had a "phantom braking" incident that I did not see coming in advance in 20,000 miles.
@stopcrazypp, you got it exactly right.
I don't hover for this, I just move my foot from its resting position.
I don't hover for this, I just move my foot from its resting position.
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