Phantom Braking getting worse - any ideas on how to stop it?

[hbouw]

Phantom braking has been like this since 2016 when Musk decided to ditch MobilEye, and was supposed to do much better himself. My car is a 2018 model, and has had such braking from the first day I got the car. The service center has given up, and now says that there is nothing to do, and that it is "by design".

Interesting. Had a 2015 Model S and *never* experienced PB.
On my brand new S-refresh Ive experienced it several times now. It scares the *hell* out of me (and the people behind me!) to the extend that I’m very reluctant to still use AP. I used to keep my right foot near the brake when using AP. Now I’m keeping it near the accelerator…

Wish I had FSDb. I paid $15,000 for it (3 months ago now) but that doesn’t seem to make any difference…

Overall, the SW regarding drive assist features in my old 2015 S was better than in my S-refresh (no PB issues, better cruise control in traffic, parking assist, auto park, summon, etc.).
I like my new S in general but regarding the SW Tesla experienced *major* regressions. My recommendation to people thinking about buying a Tesla is to wait until things get better. It seems radar sensors are back. So in a year or three I’d expect the dynamic cruise control to be better again.

 

[derotam]

But mirage are out , way out in the front. Probably more than the range of the cameras.

Yes but it doesn't matter how far away the actual or imaginary object is, it is about how far the system THINKS it is. I'm just going to stick to the theoretical possibilities on this one because I have no way to test any mirage theory here in Virginia.

 

[enemji]

Yes but it doesn't matter how far away the actual or imaginary object is, it is about how far the system THINKS it is.

That is an assumption that we all are trying to prove. Till that time it is still an assumption

 

[Wascoman]

Just took a trip from Texas to Arizona on I-10 in my 2020 LR M3. From West TX to middle of AZ had about 15 instances of phantom braking. HARD braking - from 80 mph to 25 mph in seconds. Thankfully no traffic behind me or they could have easily hit me from the drastic slowdown. Had previously had minor soft touches over the years but never this hard and this often. I now feel like I can't use cruise control or auto pilot because of the danger risk.

Questions:
1. Anyone else experience this drastic braking?
2. Anyone know if Tesla is doing anything about it?
3. Is this something that should be addressed at a service center?
4. Any ideas on how to stop it?

I live in VERY rural Oregon and drive a 2019 Model 3, long range, all wheel drive. I never experienced phantom braking while using cruise control until around a year ago. Now I experience it daily. Sometimes I will be driving on a 2 lane rural highway with no other vehicles in sight, neither behind me nor oncoming, and the car will brake from 70 to 55. It often brakes in the same location every day. This is very dangerous and unacceptable. I complained to NHTSA but got no response.

 

[devilmountain]

I was traveling back from Reno to Idaho and had an awful experience with phantom braking. Between Fernely and Winnemucca I experienced over 40 PB events. I stopped using AP and TACC was just as bad. I finally gave up and noticed things got much better when the sun was going down. I opened a ticket with Tesla and they blew me off. I just wish the car had regular cruise control.

 

[derotam]

That is an assumption that we all are trying to prove. Till that time it is still an assumption

I think you and I are on the same page. I just took exception to some of your commnets that I perceived to be explicitly denying the braking due to mirage possibility because of how far away mirages can be.

 

[enemji]

I think you and I are on the same page. I just took exception to some of your commnets that I perceived to be explicitly denying the braking due to mirage possibility because of how far away mirages can be.

So far I have 2 possibilities

1. Mirages
2. Relativity i.e lack of reference to another significant variable of a traffic pattern such as vehicles and road signs.

It could be either or both depending upon the circumstances.

 

[rlsd]

Clean and re-calibrate cameras may help.

 

[legendsk]

When 2022.45.15 came out my YLR was much better. The driving became much smoother, like an experienced good driver. It was a great relief and made me feel more optimistic about FSD eventually becoming real.

But this was followed by 2023.7.10 which was several steps back and each one since then has been slightly worse. It did for the first time reduce / eliminate phantom braking. Apparently it did this by reducing the resolution and range of the cameras. Previously, meeting a car or truck on a 2 lane highway, they would appear in the visualization at around 3,000 feet. Trash cans and mail boxes showed up at around a 200 foot range. Blinking yellow warning lights showed up at 2,500 - 3,000 feet. Starting with 2023.7.10 meeting vehicles, big trucks show up at 100 ft or so, cars at 50 feet. Trash cans do not show up until even with the front of the car and mail boxes not at all. Yellow flashing lights now appear at around 50 feet, (as flashing green lights?????), and it no longer brakes for them. Apparently the approach was to blind the car so it didn't see those scary things, thus greatly reducing phantom braking. So phantom braking is now less of a problem for me. Of course when meeting a semi, my car will slam on the brakes and come to a full dead stop in the traffic lane when the semi has passed about 1/2 way by me, sometimes doing a full collision warning and dinging my safety score.

Driving is a pretty busy intensive business - watch the road, mirrors, other drivers, the nag messages hidden behind the steering wheel and my hand, exits that the car may suddenly whip into, drive ways that it may decide to slam on the brakes and try to turn into, drivers getting too close behind me for comfort, (may have to slow down enough to get them to pass).

 

[Trilodroid]

I wish Tesla used radar. Using "auto pilot" in stop and go traffic results in the following, occasional annoyances during daytime, clear-weather driving:
1. unnecessarily hard acceleration from a stop
2. last minute hard braking at 5 mph, making the car behind think I'm messing with him or something
3. No look-ahead at all. I have to rapidly reduce the cruise speed when I see a slow-down ahead. Tangent: I think this is caused by cheap, low-res cameras. They can use a higher res forward facing camera and perform inference on a cropped region of the image representing the road ahead to solve this issue. They can use lane detection and follow the lane markers forward to help determine the region of the image to perform inference on.
4. phantom braking due to shadows
5. Waiting until the last inch of a car moving to another lane is out of the way before finally accelerating.

100% agree on these. They badly need to have a "chill out in stop and go traffic" button, because the jerkiness is nauseating and just bad for everybody on the road and in your car. I bought a M3P for two reasons, fast acceleration (did get this) and a better automatic cruise control (nope, didn't get this).

Another person said it best, you have to use cruise control in this car to avoid tickets and accidental speeding... it's much more prevalent than other cars because of no engine noise and no gears and the accelerator is so sensitive.

Fixes, easily implemented:

• Make the first 1/2 inch of human controlled accelerator gentler, not full power at half pedal press for instance - helps avoid the increased need of AP/cruise, still gives you full power if you want it. Less chance of people going through a wall when parking.
• Chill-stop-and-go-traffic button ... AP to accelerate gently from a stop is very much needed. And delay the movement for a full 2 seconds in case the guy in front just inched up literally 2 feet, and if that happened don't move my car!
• 10 MPH instead of 5 MPH speed adjustments on scroll, optional. At least you could slow the car down better when approaching stopped traffic up far ahead. Right now I'm either furiously scrolling down in those 5 MPH increments, or I just give up and disengage AP... which is completely backwards to what the car is supposed to let us do.
• Greater distance for AP distance setting 7. It is not far enough away at low speeds, it usually bounces between 3 and 1.5 seconds follow distance at low speeds and causes viewing obstruction and just general discomfort. Not to mention less than 3 second follow distance is breaking the law in many US states on tailgating/distance follow requirements... usually we want cruise to avoid tickets.

 

[Trilodroid]

For what it's worth, I'm one of the people that had bad PBs while on radar. Usually when I passed big freeway signs or under overpasses.

Got better when radar was disabled when I got invited into the Beta program.

Radar can certainly be much better, it's all up to how they program it to work. I've driven 4 cars with radar cruise, including my wife's Lexus, and it is about 10 times less stressful than Tesla's close follow distance AP. Lexus's lane keeping is terrible though, Tesla got that much much better.

Radar vs. not PB: The first probably 4 months of the car new, with radar, almost no PB. Then for several updates it got very bad, lots of people screaming on the internet. Then one update it got much better. Couple of months later, got terrible again. Eventually got better, probably around the time they turned off radar.

 

[JB47394]

They badly need to have a "chill out in stop and go traffic" button, because the jerkiness is nauseating and just bad for everybody on the road and in your car.

I don't have problems with stop and go traffic with FSD beta 11.4.4 on Assertive. It's quite smooth, actually. In contrast, I have seen this behavior on Chill.

 

[Dewg]

I don't have problems with stop and go traffic with FSD beta 11.4.4 on Assertive. It's quite smooth, actually. In contrast, I have seen this behavior on Chill.

It's fine on Chill too. Can't wait for them to roll the Beta single stack to the general AP fleet. Significantly better.

 

[YW555]

Is anyone else's Legacy Autopilot Cut In detection getting really paranoid recently? In the past month or so it would brake if the vehicle in the next lane showed a slight hint of coming into your lane. Most false braking event is triggered when a vehicle is merging into the lane next to me. It's likely predicting that the vehicle will continue in its path and come into my lane. The vehicle was typically a car length infront of me.

I never had this issue until recently, so it must've been triggered by a recent update. I have a 2023 Model Y with 2023.20.8 update.

 

[CarbonKiller]

I have a May, 2023 Model Y and get phantom braking up to four times on a 200 mile freeway trip.
It seems to happen just before going over an overpass, like it thinks the guard rails are an obstacle.
Also, it seems to happen when passing a truck trailer with the sun causing a shadow that I enter.
I imagine the effort to stop PB runs into missing a real threat.
This must be addressed.

 

[Scottupnorth]

I think it varies by some of the soft settings. I had horrible PB from 10/21 to 8/22. Then AP and TACC were perfect in all conditions (mirages, hills, heavy rain, direct sun in the forward camera) until about April this year. After a service to replace the rear window, it came back. PB so bad, AP and TACC were unusable.

After a while, and a software update, now it's literally perfect again. Worked perfectly in a weird rain storm with the sun in front, turning the entire freeway into a shimmering mirror. There seems to be no correlation to software versions, so I assume it has to be some soft settings/history that gets logged somewhere, as I've read those variables exist. Would be great to be able to read them, and start to collect parameters that work/don't work.

I think it varies by some of the soft settings. I had horrible PB from 10/21 to 8/22. Then AP and TACC were perfect in all conditions (mirages, hills, heavy rain, direct sun in the forward camera) until about April this year. After a service to replace the rear window, it came back. PB so bad, AP and TACC were unusable.

After a while, and a software update, now it's literally perfect again. Worked perfectly in a weird rain storm with the sun in front, turning the entire freeway into a shimmering mirror. There seems to be no correlation to software versions, so I assume it has to be some soft settings/history that gets logged somewhere, as I've read those variables exist. Would be great to be able to read them, and start to collect parameters that work/don't work.

I drove from Spokane to Seattle and back this weekend. One hard phantom brake headed west and two hard phantom braking events headed east. All three occurred on the highway between Ellensburg and Moses Lake in the early to mid afternoon. There were heat mirages on the road when I was headed west but none when I was headed east. All three events occurred with no bridges or other traffic around….just a wide open road. One occured right after I overtook a slower driver ….I hope he didn’t think I was brake-checking him. It’s very disconcerting and could be dangerous. If I had had passengers they would have freaked. This is not ok. Has there ever been any improvements? Is Tesla aware of the problem? What is their official response? Has there been an effort to characterize and define the issue in an effort to determine what set of conditions trigger phantom braking? Does time of day, sun angle, road topography more apt to trigger an event? Is the there a collected body of knowledge regarding phantom braking that can help folks? Thanks (2022, MY, happens in both cruise control and AP)

 

[DrGriz]

I drove from Spokane to Seattle and back this weekend. One hard phantom brake headed west and two hard phantom braking events headed east. All three occurred on the highway between Ellensburg and Moses Lake in the early to mid afternoon. There were heat mirages on the road when I was headed west but none when I was headed east. All three events occurred with no bridges or other traffic around….just a wide open road. One occured right after I overtook a slower driver ….I hope he didn’t think I was brake-checking him. It’s very disconcerting and could be dangerous. If I had had passengers they would have freaked. This is not ok. Has there ever been any improvements? Is Tesla aware of the problem? What is their official response? Has there been an effort to characterize and define the issue in an effort to determine what set of conditions trigger phantom braking? Does time of day, sun angle, road topography more apt to trigger an event? Is the there a collected body of knowledge regarding phantom braking that can help folks? Thanks (2022, MY, happens in both cruise control and AP)

There's a lot of information in this thread if you care to read through it. There's no official manual.

 

[Scottupnorth]

Thanks, DrGruz….I read through them after I had posted. It seems my experiences are similar to many others. It also appears that a solution could be to always have the car follow somebody, in other words don’t have it driving with a wide open road in front of it where could get confused. I will try this approach this weekend when I again travel I90 from Spokane to Seattle and back. My wife will be with me and she is way less tolerant of PB.

 

[Frank Langella]

Just completed a 1500 mile roadtrip in my Ford, not a single TACC PB on the same roads that induces dozens of them in my Tesla. How does Ford do it? Magic I guess.

Or maybe radar.

 

[Dewg]

Just completed a 1500 mile roadtrip in my Ford, not a single TACC PB on the same roads that induces dozens of them in my Tesla. How does Ford do it? Magic I guess.

Or maybe radar.

To be clear, your Ford doesn't have TACC, just adaptive cruise control.