I have ordered a Model 3LR and the phantom braking is my biggest concern. My friend bought a Model 3 this year and said that his wife won't allow him to use TACC anymore because of the jarring events they have had. I have driven a Model 3 nine times over the past couple of years. I never experienced it until my last test drive in September. The car had sudden braking events at least 10 times within a few miles! I have done other test drives in the same area and never experienced any events. That experience in addition to the widely disparate experiences of other posters has led me to wonder if it is possible that some cars are worse than others. Maybe the cameras are calibrated differently?
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Phantom Braking - Has it gotten better?
- Thread starter CarbonPear
- Start date
smogne41
Active Member
I only personally know one person with a vision only Tesla (Non-FSD Model Y). TACC and AP is unusable for him because of the phantom braking. It really seems highly variable from car to car though.
I have a week old Model Y, no radar and no FSD. TACC works OK on four-lane roads but is almost unusable on two-lane highways. So many phantom braking events.
Plus Autosteer is useless at night because it requires the auto high beam feature, which works poorly on winding, hilly two-lane highways. I was constantly getting flashed at by oncoming drivers because my Tesla waits too long to dim, so I just don't use Autosteer.
Really disappointing because my 2017 Subaru Outback with their Eyesight assistance features handles the same roads very well.
I love everything else about the Model Y though.
After getting FSD beta (and therefore becoming a VO AP user), I've noticed much smoother driving-in-a-forward-direction behavior. Granted I haven't done a ton of driving, and I haven't done a any freeway driving (where radar AP excelled), but nonetheless behavior seems to be better on FSD in this regard... I feel like I must be running some exclusive @JonNRb version of the software.
I was driving on 55mph rural highways today and noticed a marked improvement over driving those roads literally two days ago on radar AP. The car seemed to better predict the curvature of the road rather than slamming on the brakes (and took turns a bit more gracefully which is nice!).
Also on the highway by me, there are a ton of stop-light guarded U and left turns where there may not be a corresponding light for traffic going straight. AP2 with radar would freak the heck out (occasionally throwing up red hands) and brake hard thinking those lights were for the straight-direction traffic. (I know this isn't typically what people are referring to with phantom braking, but yeah it technically meets the mark by the car braking for an irrelevant traffic light rather than an irrelevant crash-withable obstacle.)
I'm going to pay close attention the next time I hop on the freeway (should be tomorrow or Thursday) and see if I notice any extra phantom braking, but I suspect VO AP may just be better when on the FSD stack? Maybe single-stack will end the VO M3/Y woes? Remember, Tesla accelerated the VO hardware changes due to part shortages, and maybe they just always expected to go VO on the FSD single stack? (I hope freeway driving isn't bad enough that I have to leave the FSD beta because that thing is incredibly entertaining!)
I was driving on 55mph rural highways today and noticed a marked improvement over driving those roads literally two days ago on radar AP. The car seemed to better predict the curvature of the road rather than slamming on the brakes (and took turns a bit more gracefully which is nice!).
Also on the highway by me, there are a ton of stop-light guarded U and left turns where there may not be a corresponding light for traffic going straight. AP2 with radar would freak the heck out (occasionally throwing up red hands) and brake hard thinking those lights were for the straight-direction traffic. (I know this isn't typically what people are referring to with phantom braking, but yeah it technically meets the mark by the car braking for an irrelevant traffic light rather than an irrelevant crash-withable obstacle.)
I'm going to pay close attention the next time I hop on the freeway (should be tomorrow or Thursday) and see if I notice any extra phantom braking, but I suspect VO AP may just be better when on the FSD stack? Maybe single-stack will end the VO M3/Y woes? Remember, Tesla accelerated the VO hardware changes due to part shortages, and maybe they just always expected to go VO on the FSD single stack? (I hope freeway driving isn't bad enough that I have to leave the FSD beta because that thing is incredibly entertaining!)
You can push the stalk forward to turn off the auto high beams. (You have to do this every time you engage AP though which is annoying...)
My wife and I were on a country road with no one around us and it came to a complete stop for no reason. I let it go to see how far it would slow down bc there was no one else on the road. Then after a cpl seconds it drove on. No idea what it thinks it saw.
That’s an extreme occurrence, but I echo what others have said. I’ll be on the road and for no reason just a little pump of the brakes. Other times it drops the pedal. It’s super annoying and no way can it be good on the mechanical components.
I’ll be rolling along at 10 MPH or whatever in stop and go traffic, the car ahead stops, my car kind of slows down, then coasts, then drops the brake a half a car length from the car that was stopped the whole time. *!!EMERGENCY!!* That’s not a phantom braking event, but a crappy braking event. Move to a new thread
That’s an extreme occurrence, but I echo what others have said. I’ll be on the road and for no reason just a little pump of the brakes. Other times it drops the pedal. It’s super annoying and no way can it be good on the mechanical components.
I’ll be rolling along at 10 MPH or whatever in stop and go traffic, the car ahead stops, my car kind of slows down, then coasts, then drops the brake a half a car length from the car that was stopped the whole time. *!!EMERGENCY!!* That’s not a phantom braking event, but a crappy braking event. Move to a new thread
Does seem like phantom braking is worse with vision only.
I have a vision only M3P (non FSD) and get frequent alerts and braking day or night on rural roadways. The autopilot is absolutely unusable at night. I get alerts blaring and brakes slamming multiple times in a ten mile drive. Love my car but i am definitely very disappointed in this part of the car.
Agree - with my 2018 M3, I would use autopilot 90% of the time. Now FSD Beta while interesting and amazing in many ways, I just don't use it much (especially with anybody else in the car). Two-lane roads have constant micro-braking events (I assume shadows??). I tried recalibrating the cameras, but didn't seem to help. However, if I just turn off the FSD beta settings, it seems to revert back to old behavior so I can still use it like I did before (I have two profiles saved so easy to switch between them while driving).
I agree that the FSD Beta handles curves and not getting close to other vehicles much better, but the constant micro-braking is tough to stomach...
Should try it for yourself before deciding to cancel. I find that basic AP delivered with the car is more than sufficient. I purchased FSD but mainly just use auto steer on highways.
insaneoctane
Well-Known Member
Ironic that after AI day when FSD team showed/explained why they were removing radar due to the noise and conflicting nature of the sensor to the stack, that my radar-equipped M3 running vision only (due to presence of FSD beta) is much WORSE on phantom braking than before (when it included "noisy" radar inputs) . It is literally the opposite of what they showed on AI day, which technically I actually found compelling.
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I am having a similar experience coming from my 2018 M3 LR to FSD Beta. Just prior to installing my first Beta (10.5), I took a 530 mile both ways trip on freeways and two-lane highways using almost exclusively Navigate on AutoPilot - frankly it was because of this trip (100 safety score for over 1000 miles) that I qualified for the Beta. During the drive, phantom braking was a non-issue. In fact, it had been a while since I really noticed the FB issue, even on roads where it used to be present. However, switching to FSD Beta 10.5 has put me on the vision-only stack, and phantom braking is the #1 annoying issue and jarring braking happens 5 or 6 time per mile. I am sure that cars behind me think I'm brake-checking them, despite the "Please Be Patient - Student Driver" magnetic stickers on the back of the car.
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