Phantom braking in my new Model Y

[DanDi58]

I get it at about the same rate post-radar than I did pre-radar - not a lot, but about the same. For me, it hasn't been terrible. But I don't spend a ton of time on highways. And I don't see that I've gotten any update that has eliminated the radar from the sensor array. I imagine that would be called out in the release notes. I suspect they are still on multiple branches.

 

[Yelobird]

Model 3 and Y with radar have very few phantom braking events. It's the cars without radar that are the liability.

And yet I To have a radar equipped MY and a newer non that say your wrong!

 

[ElektrikOwner]

Does it help on two lane roads? This is a great point you are making.

First post here. New Tesla Owner Model Y with ~10K in two months of driving.

I can tell you that I am seeing all of these symptoms, but, in the situation where I am following via adaptive cruise and/or autopilot, the same thing happens when the condition is an interstate with multiple lanes. The situation occurs as soon as a large car, rig, van, etc. are beside me. If you look at the screen, the image of that vehicle beside us is jittery. Because the vehicles are large (and/or they are already close to their lane border), the jittery-ness tends to make the algorithm (IMHO) go crazy. As it jitters closer to you, the acceleration of that movement makes the computer think it is coming to you quickly--hence the phantom braking.

I've also been on the same highway, late at night, by myself (nobody close to me) and this occurs. I am still trying to figure that out, but, I have a feeling it has to do with lighting. In some areas, there is lighting from a parking lot or security lighting from a factory/warehouse that spills onto the road and then goes away. I think that may trigger it.

Thanks everyone!

 

[RobMilliken]

Does it help on two lane roads? This is a great point you are making.

For me, yes. As you can see by my account though I am fairly new, but I already have over 1000 miles at this writing. From what I've observed though, following helps -the Tesla is basically copying the homework from the person ahead of you, which can be smart in this case.

 

[Gummeh]

Made an account just to pitch in my experience. My daily commute is 98% highway on a two lane road. 2022 M3 absolutely horrible experience using cruise or autopilot. Doesn't make much of a difference. Sometimes it helps a little bit to disable autopilot and just use cruise and ride the shoulder of the road, but then again it only seems to help some of the time. Like others said most often it is caused by an oncoming semi, although quite frequently I've had it happen randomly with no vehicles in sight any direction. I mentioned it to tesla last time I got serviced when I was having issues with the auto wipers, basically I found that below -20 you can't use cruise control or autopilot because the wipers just come on full blast as heater for the sensor in the windshield can't keep up to the cold and just fogs up. I was hoping this was the cause of my phantom braking as well but now the temperatures are warm, the wipers are usually good, and the car still randomly brakes. They told me to record events causing it to happen and supply dashcam footage. Not sure how often it happens to you folk but I sucked it up for today and used my autopilot or cruise whenever I could on my drive today and here were my results:

Phantom Braking Events, January 27th:

11:44am Start driving
11:51am no nearby vehicles
11:56am oncoming semi
11:57am oncoming semi
11:59am oncoming semi
12:00pm oncoming semi
12:03pm oncoming semi
12:04pm oncoming semi
12:06pm oncoming semi
12:08pm oncoming semi
12:09pm oncoming semi
12:11pm no nearby vehicles
12;13pm oncoming semi
12:13pm oncoming semi
12:14pm oncoming semi
12:17pm oncoming semi
12:35 End driving

2:00pm Start driving
2:39pm oncoming pickup
2:42pm no nearby vehicles
2:47pm oncoming semi
2:55pm End driving

4:28pm Start driving
4:41pm oncoming pickup
4:53pm oncoming car
4:55pm glare from sun?
5:00pm oncoming pickup
5:01pm no nearby vehicles
5:15pm End driving

Is it really happening this much to everyone else in this thread or is there something even more wrong with my car? Two dozen times for a car to randomly slam on its brakes while attempting to use cruise control on your daily commute is a little disconcerting.

 

[orion2001]

I’m fairly certain that’s untrue. I have a late 20 YP with radar though I still don’t think that matters. Some time ago they stopped using input via software for radar so it wouldn’t matter if the hardware was there or not. There Not doing multiple versions of software for years for radar equipped and not versions. They simply don’t Use the hardware yet it’s become misguided forum crutch to analyze

That isn't true. The current AP and FSD algorithms deployed on Tesla cars still utilize radar if present which is also why radar equipped cars have a lot fewer phantom braking events (they still struggle in some situations like overpasses). Only FSD beta discards radar and is vision-only, and lots of owners with radar equipped cars have reverted back from FSD beta due to the higher instances of phantom braking when using FSD beta.

Ironically enough, Tesla (Elon) marketed the move to switching to radar as something that would solve phantom braking by claiming that their vision-only stack was more reliable than radar and avoided their failures at figuring out sensor fusion. So many people lapped it up as gospel when the evidence a year later points to vision-only still being nerfed and not even being able to achieve parity with the prior vision+radar approach, let alone surpass it. It's a travesty that they dropped the max AP speed to 80mph from 90mph with their vision-only switch and that their page about it has stated for almost a year now that this limit would be increased very shortly as they qualify their vision-only approach.

 

[Sludog]

Every time I get phantom braking I do what mobile Tesla service tech told me to do when he came to my house and rotated my tires. He told me to press voice command and say "report bug phantom braking" even if its 30 times a day because Tesla will load any bug diagnostics and record the problem. If we can get thousands of Tesla owners doing this and bombard them with bug reports then this would start a possible recall. Tesla tech told me that this is how most recalls are done by Tesla. Most are done with OTA updates way before any hardware needs repair or replacing.
He also said that Tesla techs are helpless when reporting braking issues back to Tesla because Vison Only is still considered beta and is a work in progress working out the bugs.

 

[DrGriz]

My Subaru has vision only no radar CC ("Eyesight") and it functions well. There are phantom braking events but they are rare.

My guess is that this is a threshold setting that leans to overshoot possible head-on collision situations. In other words, they could lower the threshold reducing phantom braking events but at the cost of more head-on events. They have chosen to accept a few rear enders to avoid the head ons.

This may be because the ultimate goal is a driverless car and they want zero head on collisions.

Only speculation, but that's where they need as much feedback as possible.

 

[orion2001]

My Subaru has vision only no radar CC ("Eyesight") and it functions well. There are phantom braking events but they are rare.

My guess is that this is a threshold setting that leans to overshoot possible head-on collision situations. In other words, they could lower the threshold reducing phantom braking events but at the cost of more head-on events. They have chosen to accept a few rear enders to avoid the head ons.

This may be because the ultimate goal is a driverless car and they want zero head on collisions.

Only speculation, but that's where they need as much feedback as possible.

To be honest, Subaru's Eyesight tech is likely much better at picking up obstructions in front of the car with a lot fewer false alarms because it relies on a stereo vision setup to provide a grounded-in-physics way of estimating depth/range maps which is a lot better at generalizing than Tesla's approach which relies on neural net magic to determine if something is in front of the car. Tesla could have basically solved highway driving with near-zero disengagement a if they had focused on a solution for that. But instead their solution aims to be the Jack of all trades, but is currently the master of none.

 

[DrGriz]

To be honest, Subaru's Eyesight tech is likely much better at picking up obstructions in front of the car with a lot fewer false alarms because it relies on a stereo vision setup to provide a grounded-in-physics way of estimating depth/range maps which is a lot better at generalizing than Tesla's approach which relies on neural net magic to determine if something is in front of the car. Tesla could have basically solved highway driving with near-zero disengagement a if they had focused on a solution for that. But instead their solution aims to be the Jack of all trades, but is currently the master of none.

Thanks for that. One would think that with 3 forward facing cameras and two side/forward cameras, Tesla could choose to do something similar to Eye Sight as well as incorporate neural net. They should be up to that task. But who knows why they haven't yet? Maybe with enough complaints they will.

 

[Jameslook]

I have a 2021 Plaid, a 2022 M3P and 2022 MYP. The plaid has had a total of TWO ghost brake events in 5 months and 7k miles!!

We can't use autopilot on either the 3 or Y due to the horrible software. I'm so pissed at Elon for removing the radar before the bugs were worked out on the vision only system. He is using us at beta testers and we are paying HIM for it.

Pissed!

 

[orion2001]

I have a 2021 Plaid, a 2022 M3P and 2022 MYP. The plaid has had a total of TWO ghost brake events in 5 months and 7k miles!!

We can't use autopilot on either the 3 or Y due to the horrible software. I'm so pissed at Elon for removing the radar before the bugs were worked out on the vision only system. He is using us at beta testers and we are paying HIM for it.

Pissed!

Thanks for posting. It is so critical to get input from folks like you who can directly compare the vision-only AP stack vs. the vision + radar AP stack. It is really quite ridiculous that they cut out radar from their FSD/AP approach, and clearly that was a huge step backwards for them. NYT had an article a few months back about how several Tesla engineers were against dropping radar but Elon basically forced the issue.

 

[jsvietor]

Same experience as all the above on my 2021 M-Y LR deliv. Oct- 21. Went on our first road trip to Moab from SLC last weekend and discovered the cruise control is basically not useable. Slows down for no reason on completely open road with no cars in front- and slams on the brakes when driving on two lane road with oncoming traffic. Can't they introduce a plain ole' "dumb" cruise control until they get this vision AP and TACC ironed out? I bought a $60k car and have no cruise control? WTF

 

[pbcsd]

Solution: Allow a dumb cruise control option until it is figured out as someone will get seriously injured or worse due to an unexpected phantom braking. Can happen to anyone, obviously, but would you want your inexperienced child or SO (i.e., able to drive every other car in the world with cruise and not expecting the Tesla to act differently) driving it?

Instead, we will get a bunch of apologists claiming it's only 1% of cars experiencing it, and "my XYZ car did the same thing" . Or even worse, those that say "if someone hits you from behind when your car slams on the brakes for no reason it was their fault and they were following too closely". I don't even own my Y yet and this is a frustrating trend to read.

Sure, my Audi Q5 also has phantom braking once in a blue moon, typically when I'm pulling out of my garage, and it senses someting odd. Not when I'm going 120km/hr on a highway with cars behind me doing the same thing.

 

[particleman]

Sorry to say we sold our 2021 Y over this back in November, I've kept up with these threads to see if the issue is improving. It hasn't, really sad and negligent to be honest on Tesla's part.

I would suggest documenting your issues and schedule a service so your issue is on record. They likely won't look at your car. Report the flaw to the NHTSA as well.

 

[DrGriz]

Sorry to say we sold our 2021 Y over this back in November, I've kept up with these threads to see if the issue is improving. It hasn't, really sad and negligent to be honest on Tesla's part.

I would suggest documenting your issues and schedule a service so your issue is on record. They likely won't look at your car. Report the flaw to the NHTSA as well.

NHTSA has less than 100 complaints about this (for the model Y) on file and haven't yet started an investigation. I think the more the merrier and something might happen. Anyone having this issue should report it.

I strongly believe that it's a sensitivity setting that could easily be adjusted with a software update.

 

[Tha_Ape]

I'd love someone to have 3 of the same car, one with radar, one with out and a lead car so both the radar and non-radar are basically getting the same view.

Lead Car ----- Radar Car ---- Vision Car (that way both the Radar and VO cars are looking at the same thing in front of them) Ideally Cars #1 and #2 would be the same color, but thats really getting anal.

Then drive on a highway, set following distance to 2 (hopefully prevents cut ins). Probably best to go north/south in the morning or afternoon when there are shadows and E/W (depending on the time) to put the sun right in front of the car. Drive for a while and see the results. Thats really the only way to put this discussion to bed.

 

[DrGriz]

I'd love someone to have 3 of the same car, one with radar, one with out and a lead car so both the radar and non-radar are basically getting the same view.

Lead Car ----- Radar Car ---- Vision Car (that way both the Radar and VO cars are looking at the same thing in front of them) Ideally Cars #1 and #2 would be the same color, but thats really getting anal.

Then drive on a highway, set following distance to 2 (hopefully prevents cut ins). Probably best to go north/south in the morning or afternoon when there are shadows and E/W (depending on the time) to put the sun right in front of the car. Drive for a while and see the results. Thats really the only way to put this discussion to bed.

100% agree that data would help a ton.

 

[Brolan]

Made an account just to pitch in my experience. My daily commute is 98% highway on a two lane road. 2022 M3 absolutely horrible experience using cruise or autopilot. Doesn't make much of a difference. Sometimes it helps a little bit to disable autopilot and just use cruise and ride the shoulder of the road, but then again it only seems to help some of the time. Like others said most often it is caused by an oncoming semi, although quite frequently I've had it happen randomly with no vehicles in sight any direction. I mentioned it to tesla last time I got serviced when I was having issues with the auto wipers, basically I found that below -20 you can't use cruise control or autopilot because the wipers just come on full blast as heater for the sensor in the windshield can't keep up to the cold and just fogs up. I was hoping this was the cause of my phantom braking as well but now the temperatures are warm, the wipers are usually good, and the car still randomly brakes. They told me to record events causing it to happen and supply dashcam footage. Not sure how often it happens to you folk but I sucked it up for today and used my autopilot or cruise whenever I could on my drive today and here were my results:

Phantom Braking Events, January 27th:

11:44am Start driving
11:51am no nearby vehicles
11:56am oncoming semi
11:57am oncoming semi
11:59am oncoming semi
12:00pm oncoming semi
12:03pm oncoming semi
12:04pm oncoming semi
12:06pm oncoming semi
12:08pm oncoming semi
12:09pm oncoming semi
12:11pm no nearby vehicles
12;13pm oncoming semi
12:13pm oncoming semi
12:14pm oncoming semi
12:17pm oncoming semi
12:35 End driving

2:00pm Start driving
2:39pm oncoming pickup
2:42pm no nearby vehicles
2:47pm oncoming semi
2:55pm End driving

4:28pm Start driving
4:41pm oncoming pickup
4:53pm oncoming car
4:55pm glare from sun?
5:00pm oncoming pickup
5:01pm no nearby vehicles
5:15pm End driving

Is it really happening this much to everyone else in this thread or is there something even more wrong with my car? Two dozen times for a car to randomly slam on its brakes while attempting to use cruise control on your daily commute is a little disconcerting.

No, I would say this is not normal. I got my MYLR a few months ago in November and at that time I had a number of phantom braking events that had no cause I could attribute them to. Also frequently on the two lane back roads I drive on an on-coming car at night would cause phantom braking pretty reliably.

But after one of the software patches most of the bad behavior went away. I now rarely have phantom braking and the last one was Friday night when a school bus was coming the other way on a two lane road. It was the first one I can remember in weeks.

 

[DanDi58]

I was scanning the ID.4 forum and came upon this incident of PB - scary, as the poster notes that his pushing on the accelerator didn't override it! It braked until it came to a full stop.

Phantom Braking

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