Phantom braking in my new Model Y

[M3BlueGeorgia]

I have a 2022 Model 3 LR AWD and with the same software version and I'm experiencing the exact same thing. Semi trucks make it brake the hardest, but I've even had just random phantom braking for no reason. It also gets worse at night time, almost impossible to leave it on cruise or autopilot at night without causing a crash with the car behind me.

So, have you reported this to the NTSB?

 

[orion2001]

Does anyone know if the cameras on Tesla cars stereo or not? It seems that the phantom braking issues happen when the cameras misinterpret objects and their position, and maybe adding depth perception might help?

Nope, unfortunately not stereo so with the removal of radar, they have no ability to do physics-based depth perception and have to rely on their Neural net based approaches which unfortunately have lots of poor failures on edge cases that are really hard to squash.

 

[Montucky]

I just picked up my MYP on Tuesday 03/01, and drove it 400 miles from SLC to Bozeman, MT. For perspective, my wife has a 2019 Model 3 and I have driven that car a lot using both TACC and autopilot, so I have a good basis for what to expect from both of these systems.

I drove manually through most of the traffic in SLC, but once I got north of the city, I turned on autopilot. Traffic was very light, and I was set to the max speed of 80mph. I was slowly approaching an 18-wheeler in front of me, and noticed that another car was approaching from behind. The timing was such that I could maintain my speed and the approaching car behind me would likely pass before I needed to change lanes to pass the 18-wheeler. When I got about 5-6 car lengths behind the 18-wheeler the MYP slammed on the brakes. Not a gentle slowing but a full panic stop. The approaching car behind me was close at this point as well and had to quickly respond to avoid hitting me. We 3 vehicles were the only vehicles on that section of road, so not a confusing scenario. I quickly hit the accelerator to halt the braking, but the guy behind me was angry (justifiably). I wish he knew how angry I was too.

For the remainder of the highway driving, this same thing would happen when I approaches 18-wheelers to pass. I had to cover the throttle to overcome the braking response. I would say it was 50+% or more that the car would respond this way.

Additionally, I would also get slowing when an 18-wheeler was traveling on the opposite side of the highway separated by a large median. The truck was easily 50-60 yards away, but the car couldn't figure it out and slowed down.

I also experience a few false alarms where no object appeared present but the car would slow or warn that I was about to hit something.

All of this did not make for a peaceful experience or engender any pride of ownership in my new purchase.

Once I got on 2-lane roads, it was more of the same. Every large truck that passed in the opposite direction would cause slowing or a hard brake. This was with 75+% of the trucks that I passed. I had to babysit both systems to such an extent that they became more nuisance than benefit. If the roads weren't so empty, I never would use them for fear that someone would hit me from behind when the car braked.

TACC and autopilot were both un-usable for this trip and IMO downright dangerous. This new MYP is nothing like the TACC and autopilot performance of my wife's 2019 Model 3.

I contacted Tesla upon getting home regarding these issues, and I received what appears to be a standard "legal" response explaining that this is a beta feature and that there are limitations to the performance of the software. I received no recognition or concern for my problem, and no path to any form of solution. I basically have a new car that doesn't have a functioning cruise control.

Note that my car was delivered with 2021.43.102 code, so I'm cautiously optimistic that things will improve when I get an OTA update.

 

[DayTrippin]

Note that my car was delivered with 2021.43.102 code, so I'm cautiously optimistic that things will improve when I get an OTA update.

Hope dies last.

 

[laservet]

I just picked up my MYP on Tuesday 03/01, and drove it 400 miles from SLC to Bozeman, MT. For perspective, my wife has a 2019 Model 3 and I have driven that car a lot using both TACC and autopilot, so I have a good basis for what to expect from both of these systems.

I drove manually through most of the traffic in SLC, but once I got north of the city, I turned on autopilot. Traffic was very light, and I was set to the max speed of 80mph. I was slowly approaching an 18-wheeler in front of me, and noticed that another car was approaching from behind. The timing was such that I could maintain my speed and the approaching car behind me would likely pass before I needed to change lanes to pass the 18-wheeler. When I got about 5-6 car lengths behind the 18-wheeler the MYP slammed on the brakes. Not a gentle slowing but a full panic stop. The approaching car behind me was close at this point as well and had to quickly respond to avoid hitting me. We 3 vehicles were the only vehicles on that section of road, so not a confusing scenario. I quickly hit the accelerator to halt the braking, but the guy behind me was angry (justifiably). I wish he knew how angry I was too.

For the remainder of the highway driving, this same thing would happen when I approaches 18-wheelers to pass. I had to cover the throttle to overcome the braking response. I would say it was 50+% or more that the car would respond this way.

Additionally, I would also get slowing when an 18-wheeler was traveling on the opposite side of the highway separated by a large median. The truck was easily 50-60 yards away, but the car couldn't figure it out and slowed down.

I also experience a few false alarms where no object appeared present but the car would slow or warn that I was about to hit something.

All of this did not make for a peaceful experience or engender any pride of ownership in my new purchase.

Once I got on 2-lane roads, it was more of the same. Every large truck that passed in the opposite direction would cause slowing or a hard brake. This was with 75+% of the trucks that I passed. I had to babysit both systems to such an extent that they became more nuisance than benefit. If the roads weren't so empty, I never would use them for fear that someone would hit me from behind when the car braked.

TACC and autopilot were both un-usable for this trip and IMO downright dangerous. This new MYP is nothing like the TACC and autopilot performance of my wife's 2019 Model 3.

I contacted Tesla upon getting home regarding these issues, and I received what appears to be a standard "legal" response explaining that this is a beta feature and that there are limitations to the performance of the software. I received no recognition or concern for my problem, and no path to any form of solution. I basically have a new car that doesn't have a functioning cruise control.

Note that my car was delivered with 2021.43.102 code, so I'm cautiously optimistic that things will improve when I get an OTA update.

My phantom braking, which occurred at least once on each leg of my 40 mile round trip to work every single day, completely disappeared with 2021.44.30.21.

 

[WhiteWi]

My phantom braking, which occurred at least once on each leg of my 40 mile round trip to work every single day, completely disappeared with 2021.44.30.21.

Be careful or you would be branded fan boy or lier by band of Tesla nay sayers.

 

[DayTrippin]

My phantom braking, which occurred at least once on each leg of my 40 mile round trip to work every single day, completely disappeared with 2021.44.30.21.

Not a Tesla nay sayer (bought 3 in the last 9 months) but even a blind squirrel finds a nut. Just saying.

My S is taking a REALLY long time to calibrate so I can't gauge if PB is bad or not. It has radar anyway. Just took delivery of our 3 so I can't comment yet.

 

[avs007]

Nope, unfortunately not stereo so with the removal of radar, they have no ability to do physics-based depth perception and have to rely on their Neural net based approaches which unfortunately have lots of poor failures on edge cases that are really hard to squash.

There are three cameras in the forward camera array. They don't need to be stereoscopic to do depth mapping. You can do it with a wide and telephoto, etc. Disclaimer: I used to work in a group doing 3D depth mapping using various technologies, including a camera array using wide/telephoto.

 

[avs007]

My phantom braking, which occurred at least once on each leg of my 40 mile round trip to work every single day, completely disappeared with 2021.44.30.21.

I mentioned this earlier as well... With an earlier release, I would get phantom braking all the time, on this one section of two lane road at the base of the hill by my house... Likewise, I would get the same phantom brake on the same section of my commute in similar conditions (semi truck approaching on a curvy incline section, etc)...

With the older release, the phantom brake events would scrub about 30mph off my speed.... After updated to 2021.44.30.21, I no longer get phantom brakes on the 2 lane road by my house... Similarly, on the section of road on my commute, I have only had a phantom brake event maybe 3 times total. Whereas before I would get them all the time... But more importantly, the phantom brake events I experience recently, only scrubbed about 3mph off my speed, and then quickly sped back up.... Previously, I would have to hit the accelerator to bring my speed back up.

 

[DrGriz]

There are three cameras in the forward camera array. They don't need to be stereoscopic to do depth mapping. You can do it with a wide and telephoto, etc. Disclaimer: I used to work in a group doing 3D depth mapping using various technologies, including a camera array using wide/telephoto.

And people with monocular vision drive just fine, as far as that goes. Not to say binocular cameras wouldn't add an element of precision.

 

[orion2001]

I just picked up my MYP on Tuesday 03/01, and drove it 400 miles from SLC to Bozeman, MT. For perspective, my wife has a 2019 Model 3 and I have driven that car a lot using both TACC and autopilot, so I have a good basis for what to expect from both of these systems.

I drove manually through most of the traffic in SLC, but once I got north of the city, I turned on autopilot. Traffic was very light, and I was set to the max speed of 80mph. I was slowly approaching an 18-wheeler in front of me, and noticed that another car was approaching from behind. The timing was such that I could maintain my speed and the approaching car behind me would likely pass before I needed to change lanes to pass the 18-wheeler. When I got about 5-6 car lengths behind the 18-wheeler the MYP slammed on the brakes. Not a gentle slowing but a full panic stop. The approaching car behind me was close at this point as well and had to quickly respond to avoid hitting me. We 3 vehicles were the only vehicles on that section of road, so not a confusing scenario. I quickly hit the accelerator to halt the braking, but the guy behind me was angry (justifiably). I wish he knew how angry I was too.

For the remainder of the highway driving, this same thing would happen when I approaches 18-wheelers to pass. I had to cover the throttle to overcome the braking response. I would say it was 50+% or more that the car would respond this way.

Additionally, I would also get slowing when an 18-wheeler was traveling on the opposite side of the highway separated by a large median. The truck was easily 50-60 yards away, but the car couldn't figure it out and slowed down.

I also experience a few false alarms where no object appeared present but the car would slow or warn that I was about to hit something.

All of this did not make for a peaceful experience or engender any pride of ownership in my new purchase.

Once I got on 2-lane roads, it was more of the same. Every large truck that passed in the opposite direction would cause slowing or a hard brake. This was with 75+% of the trucks that I passed. I had to babysit both systems to such an extent that they became more nuisance than benefit. If the roads weren't so empty, I never would use them for fear that someone would hit me from behind when the car braked.

TACC and autopilot were both un-usable for this trip and IMO downright dangerous. This new MYP is nothing like the TACC and autopilot performance of my wife's 2019 Model 3.

I contacted Tesla upon getting home regarding these issues, and I received what appears to be a standard "legal" response explaining that this is a beta feature and that there are limitations to the performance of the software. I received no recognition or concern for my problem, and no path to any form of solution. I basically have a new car that doesn't have a functioning cruise control.

Note that my car was delivered with 2021.43.102 code, so I'm cautiously optimistic that things will improve when I get an OTA update.

That sucks and I can understand the frustration. I would definitely also report to NHTSA. They are already investigating this issue and more customer feedback on this to them is the only way to apply any meaningful pressure on Tesla when it comes to this topic. Direct complaints as you've found just disappear into the ether under the "beta" pretext.

 

[jsight]

There are three cameras in the forward camera array. They don't need to be stereoscopic to do depth mapping. You can do it with a wide and telephoto, etc. Disclaimer: I used to work in a group doing 3D depth mapping using various technologies, including a camera array using wide/telephoto.

The problem seems to be precision. I sometimes see cars jump by enough distance to make the car think they are either already across the centerline or at least veering toward it. Both types of errors lead to false alarms.

I've seen the same thing happen with blind spot detection, but the consequences were less significant. It just marked the car red when it shouldn't have.

I don't think its unsolvable, but there are easier (albeit more expensive) ways of approaching this problem.

 

[avs007]

The problem seems to be precision. I sometimes see cars jump by enough distance to make the car think they are either already across the centerline or at least veering toward it. Both types of errors lead to false alarms.

I've seen the same thing happen with blind spot detection, but the consequences were less significant. It just marked the car red when it shouldn't have.

I don't think its unsolvable, but there are easier (albeit more expensive) ways of approaching this problem.

If you are insinuating that radar is the solution, that isn't necessarily going to make the problem go away. (Disclaimer: Radar was one of the technologies I worked with). With radar, you still need to figure out if the detected object is within your travel lane. The resolution of radar is pretty low compared to vision, so this is a very complex/hard problem. I can see this everyday with my other two cars. They have vision and radar, but have a difficult time with stationary object placement. There's a lightpost near my daughter's school that caused my other cars to slam on the brakes, because as you approach the lightpost, it looks like the post is directly in your path, even tho the road actually curves away from it.

Personally, laser it very good for this to integrate with vision (I worked with Laser too), but that has it's own problems, particularly cost and weather.

 

[jsight]

If you are insinuating that radar is the solution, that isn't necessarily going to make the problem go away. (Disclaimer: Radar was one of the technologies I worked with). With radar, you still need to figure out if the detected object is within your travel lane. The resolution of radar is pretty low compared to vision, so this is a very complex/hard problem. I can see this everyday with my other two cars. They have vision and radar, but have a difficult time with stationary object placement. There's a lightpost near my daughter's school that caused my other cars to slam on the brakes, because as you approach the lightpost, it looks like the post is directly in your path, even tho the road actually curves away from it.

Personally, laser it very good for this to integrate with vision (I worked with Laser too), but that has it's own problems, particularly cost and weather.

I was meaning laser/lidar. I agree that it brings its own problems, but it would help with some of the specific distance estimation issues.

Probably we will just end up with better cameras instead.

 

[DayTrippin]

Our new M3 LR arrived about a week ago. It is TeslaVision only. So far we've only put a few hundred miles on the car and about half using TACC/AP. Compared to the Y, the PB performance is the polar opposite.

We have not had a single PB even yet. OTOH I think it has a harder time judging distances in heavy traffic. There is more throttle modulation going on when the traffic in front seems to be at a pretty steady speed. It isn't a huge swing but but since the car accelerates so easily if feel it "hunting" to find the right speed. This is a lot easier to live with and I hope PB events will be very rare in the future.

 

[GBMaryland]

There is a spot on the Washington DC 495 beltway heading from Tyson's Corner to Maryland, where in the far right lane (allowed only after 2PM), the car will slam on it's brakes.

In thing case, 2019 M3LR... It's always done it, and it always responds to my foot. It's odd.

The road dip and hands a little to the right at that point.

Humph.

 

[Tha_Ape]

Remember, there is a reason (likely legal one) that Tesla had you acknowledge you're accepting a car without radar.

They didn't do that for passenger lumber or usb-c data ports.

 

[laservet]

Another two weeks, still not a single case of phantom braking. Impressive, went from at least one event on my way to work and at least one on my way home (sometimes two or three events) every single day to zero.

The other thing that has disappeared is there was a certain spot on the interstate on my way home from work that my car would always work its way over to be in the right hand lane in that one particular spot. Didn't matter if I was in the left or the middle lane (of three), didn't matter how heavy or light the traffic, the car would always move over so it was in the right lane at that particular spot, then came back to the middle lane once I passed that spot. That behavior is gone as well.

 

[JohnB007]

Another two weeks, still not a single case of phantom braking. Impressive, went from at least one event on my way to work and at least one on my way home (sometimes two or three events) every single day to zero.

The other thing that has disappeared is there was a certain spot on the interstate on my way home from work that my car would always work its way over to be in the right hand lane in that one particular spot. Didn't matter if I was in the left or the middle lane (of three), didn't matter how heavy or light the traffic, the car would always move over so it was in the right lane at that particular spot, then came back to the middle lane once I passed that spot. That behavior is gone as well.

Ok, so that wasn't a typo - you do have 2021.44.30.21... Why is yours based on 2021.xx?

 

[curleymapper]

Tried auto pilot for the first time today. 20 mins into my ride phantom braking happened and I was really close to getting hit from behind.

Highway had two lanes in each direction and a centre lane in between for turning. With a speed limit of 80 kms/he. Car approaching from the other direction calmly pulls into the centre lane causing my Tesla to violently slam on the brakes. Absolutely horrifying.

Just give me dumb cruise control. I’m not interested in being a beta tester/organ donor. Really disappointing as I’ve had adaptive cruise control on my VW Atlas for four years and it’s never done anything as stupid and dangerous like what happened o me today.