Phantom Braking - Has it gotten better?

[CarbonPear]

Hi everyone,

I have an order in on a Model 3 and am primarily buying it because of Autopilot. Since Tesla Vision has come out, some people are saying Phantom Braking has gotten better, others say worse.

I'm a bit nervous and thinking about cancelling my order, truthfully, if the problem is bad enough, but still believe Autopilot could kind of change my life.

Do people regularly experience phantom braking still? Any hard braking (for example, 70mph - 30mph on the freeway?) Has it been getting better?

Thank you!

 

[bobleland]

Hi everyone,

I have an order in on a Model 3 and am primarily buying it because of Autopilot. Since Tesla Vision has come out, some people are saying Phantom Braking has gotten better, others say worse.

I'm a bit nervous and thinking about cancelling my order, truthfully, if the problem is bad enough, but still believe Autopilot could kind of change my life.

Do people regularly experience phantom braking still? Any hard braking (for example, 70mph - 30mph on the freeway?) Has it been getting better?

Thank you!

Much better. I travel the same route and had the same two locations trigger phantom breaking consistently. Some time ago it quit

 

[hcdavis3]

Much better here.

 

[MrSlowEv]

Hi everyone,

I have an order in on a Model 3 and am primarily buying it because of Autopilot. Since Tesla Vision has come out, some people are saying Phantom Braking has gotten better, others say worse.

I'm a bit nervous and thinking about cancelling my order, truthfully, if the problem is bad enough, but still believe Autopilot could kind of change my life.

Do people regularly experience phantom braking still? Any hard braking (for example, 70mph - 30mph on the freeway?) Has it been getting better?

Thank you!

I have a 2021 M3P with almost 2k miles on the odometer. We took delivery last month around the 25th. I’ve experienced phantom braking once so far. It was raining and dark (early AM) on a bendy section of the freeway, the audible brake warning came on and the brakes were moderately applied. It slowed me to about 65MPH from 75MPH. YMMV.This experience is not enough to make me regret purchasing the car.

 

[gaspi101]

Much better, unless you just got FSD Beta, in which case much much much worse

 

[EVRider-FL]

Although many people report phantom braking, it doesn’t happen to everyone. I’ve been driving Teslas for 5 1/2 years and I‘ve only had a few phantom braking events that I would consider serious. Don’t let that deter you from buying a Tesla.

 

[Wvapoker]

The only phantom braking I experience is when a car is merging from an on ramp.

 

[jakimo]

Not only phantom braking improvements, but a huge much more natural reaction to cross-traffic while driving

 

[mark95476]

Yup. It's a bit of give and take right now.

- I've never had phantom braking on freeways with AP
- AP doesn't recognize and slow for speed bumps
- FSDbeta recognizes and slows for speed bumps (yay! )

I think FSDbeta is using changes in color/tone to identify speed bumps or road hazards so patchwork on roads can trigger phantom braking. Me doing testing at night probably isn't making it easier for FSDbeta.

Much better, unless you just got FSD Beta, in which case much much much worse

 

[Tam]

Here's the official answer from May 2021 or more than 5 months ago:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1392429457038667777

 

[JamieFSD78]

Phantom braking is absolutely horrible on the beta FSD for me, especially down this 55 mph rd that uses the city street “stack”, today I turned off beta for the same road and it was smooth again with just regular autopilot. My radar was apparently turned off when was recently granted access to the beta software. My question is…. Is radar turned back on when I turn off the FSD beta and use the regular auto pilot????

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Any hard braking (for example, 70mph - 30mph on the freeway?)

Set FSD Beta aside - that does seem worse in various ways but doesn't apply to your question.

I've never ever experienced hard braking like this ("70mph - 30mph") due to phantom braking. Usually phantom braking is a brief uncommanded slowdown which might just bleed 5mph off your speed. But it seems much worse, since it is generally sudden and out of the blue. Usually it feels worse for the driver than passengers, actually, though that is not to say passengers will not be upset.

I would expect that you will continue to experience such slowdowns with Tesla Vision. However, I have no experience with the main branch of Tesla Vision - before FSD Beta (Tesla Vision) I was using the version of AP with radar. With that version I experienced occasional phantom braking (most often at night, mostly due to shadows on the road) but it wasn't all that bad.

I will say that the 80mph AP speed restriction with Tesla Vision is pretty awful, and if you're waiting for some kind of indicator that it makes sense to buy, I'd wait until they drop that restriction and move it up to 90mph again. There will probably be reduced levels of phantom braking if they actually manage to accomplish that. You're in San Diego; it really sucks to get put in AP jail because you exceed 80mph on AP (which is something that happens all the time - most people drive 75-80mph if they're not in the #1 lane - and faster in #1).

So I think Tesla Vision leaves a lot to be desired, but phantom braking resulting in dangerous slowing is really not very common and never has been. That is not to say that it's a pleasant experience to use AP though. Phantom braking is really annoying.

 

[Tam]

Is radar turned back on when I turn off the FSD beta and use the regular auto pilot????

No. The FSD beta release note is very clear that it is pure vision and the radar is not used.

...I turned off beta for the same road and it was smooth again with just regular autopilot....

It's a placebo effect for feeling smoother because the radar is inactive once you downloaded FSD beta. The radar has become inactive in all cases including Forward Collision function, Automatic Emergency Braking, Cruise, Speed detection and adjustment, phantom brakes, false slowdowns... When you disable AutoSteer in FSD beta, all those above features are still working without radar.

 

[JamieFSD78]

Phantom braking is absolutely horrible on the beta FSD for me, especially down this 55 mph rd that uses the city street “stack”, today I turned off beta for the same road and it was smooth again with just regular autopilot. My question is my radar was

No. The FSD beta release note is very clear that it is pure vision and the radar is not used.


It's a placebo effect for feeling smoother because the radar is inactive once you downloaded FSD beta. The radar has become inactive in all cases including Forward Collision function, Automatic Emergency Braking, Cruise, Speed detection and adjustment, phantom brakes, false slowdowns... When you disable AutoSteer in FSD beta, all those above features are still working without radar.

I hope you’re right, but I don’t think it’s a placebo effect. There’s a 3 mile stretch of road on my everyday commute that would phantom brake every time I drive down it in FSD beta mode, this morning I turned off beta and it didn’t brake once in regular auto pilot.
I don’t disagree with you that my car is now doing everything without radar now, I was just wondering if the radar would re engage if beta was turned off. Thank you for answering my question.

 

[nurusz]

Phantom braking is absolutely horrible on the beta FSD for me, especially down this 55 mph rd that uses the city street “stack”, today I turned off beta for the same road and it was smooth again with just regular autopilot. My question is my radar was

I hope you’re right, but I don’t think it’s a placebo effect. There’s a 3 mile stretch of road on my everyday commute that would phantom brake every time I drive down it in FSD beta mode, this morning I turned off beta and it didn’t brake once in regular auto pilot.
I don’t disagree with you that my car is now doing everything without radar now, I was just wondering if the radar would re engage if beta was turned off. Thank you for answering my question.

Hi everyone,

I have an order in on a Model 3 and am primarily buying it because of Autopilot. Since Tesla Vision has come out, some people are saying Phantom Braking has gotten better, others say worse.

I'm a bit nervous and thinking about cancelling my order, truthfully, if the problem is bad enough, but still believe Autopilot could kind of change my life.

Do people regularly experience phantom braking still? Any hard braking (for example, 70mph - 30mph on the freeway?) Has it been getting better?

Thank you!

I have my Tesla model 3 SR+ 5 months. 4 days ago for the first time the Tesla stopped abruptly while driving very slowly in the parking lot. In my opinion there was no reason for this perhaps the latest update 2021.36.5.5. In the meantime I will do nothing just wait to see if it happens again

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

but I don’t think it’s a placebo effect.

I was just wondering if the radar would re engage if beta was turned off.

1) For sure the radar is not being used, no matter whether you are using FSD Beta or not, if you have the FSD Beta software installed on your car.

2) I would not be surprised if the phantom braking behavior was different on a car with FSD Beta software, when not using FSD Beta, vs. when using it. They may well adjust sensitivities to certain perceived objects, etc., and that could result in more phantom braking. I don't know exactly how dissimilar the software is between FSD enabled vs. not, but it could be very similar, simply with different weighting of responses. (Again, I don't know what disabling FSD Beta actually does to perception, if anything, but obviously it changes the planning and response side which will definitely affect phantom braking.) So you're right, it could easily not be placebo effect.

 

[FalconFour]

The only phantom braking I experience is when a car is merging from an on ramp.

Or, it thinks it is (bad map data/bad map interpretation thinking lanes are merging that aren't). The data interpretation is the biggest cause of unintended braking, at least in my experience.

FSD Beta on city streets is a "phantom braking" mess (moving along with traffic and suddenly WOOP just wanna test your accelerator-smashing reflexes). On freeway, now running as a "vision car" on NoA, I can say it's about 95% as good as it previously was with radar, so very little difference between old radar cars & new vision cars. That is to say: it's still nearly flawless at least there.

 

[CarbonPear]

Hi everybody, thanks for your responses!! I think I was mostly concerned with particularly extreme phantom braking (slowing down to 30mph or lower on the freeway). Since it seems that doesn't happen much, I think it's something that can be lived with. Also good to see that Vision AP is at least 95% as good as radar AP, which felt good enough to me at the time. I guess I'll buy the car and see for myself

 

[JamieFSD78]

2) I would not be surprised if the phantom braking behavior was different on a car with FSD Beta software, when not using FSD Beta, vs. when using it.

Down this aforementioned stretch of road it’s definetly different, phantom brakes at an annoying and dangerous level when FSD is engaged(to the point where I just driven myself), and doesn’t phantom brake at all when FSD is turned off using regular auto pilot. I hope my autopilot snapshots will fix the braking down this stretch of road, but for now I’m driving the old fashion way down it. It’s so annoying. Thank is for your help.

 

[NJM3]

Hi everybody, thanks for your responses!! I think I was mostly concerned with particularly extreme phantom braking (slowing down to 30mph or lower on the freeway). Since it seems that doesn't happen much, I think it's something that can be lived with. Also good to see that Vision AP is at least 95% as good as radar AP, which felt good enough to me at the time. I guess I'll buy the car and see for myself

There are almost never cases that extreme. Recently the beta update broke something and beta testers experienced false emergency braking. That was a bug and doesn’t reflect “Phantom” braking as it’s typically discussed here.