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Phantom braking so bad I want to return my car
- Thread starter RHINO SKIN SOL
- Start date
What I did notice while traveling on Thanksgiving that car is now more cautious with acceleration after car moves away from your lane and road is clear to go. Before it would insta speed up and go, now it takes a more time and slower acceleration. (I like the old style better) oh well I guess that’s what happens when everyone complains about everything this days.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I think one of the issues is the definition of phantom braking is a bit broad. Many examples above are talking about known triggers, which is driving on an undivided road and a larger vehicle coming in the oncoming lane. This extends the definition beyond what is the usual definition, which is that the cause is unknown.
Maybe there should be a term for that, like "known phantom braking" or "unwanted braking". I highly doubt NHTSA will do anything about those, as it's likely actually "safer" for it to be overly cautious and slow for oncoming traffic. These can also be "solved" by ignoring oncoming traffic (which likely other systems do anyways), but I don't see Tesla doing given NHTSA on their backs and the major fatalities so far tend to be from oncoming or cross traffic.
It's the unknown ones that probably will be looked at more (like ones where road is clear and it brakes for no reason). These cases would be a lot harder to resolve. Another variable is if there is a car following closely, if not, then that also reduces the safety risk of unnecessary braking.
Sure it matters. There is a lot of difference between "X doesn't work as advertised" and "they dont have feature Y". It's legitimate to (a) complain about phantom braking when TACC/AP are being used as intended or (b) complain about the car not having a feature you want (dumb CC). It's not legitimate to complain that a feature doesn't work when its being abused. In fact, what does "doesn't work" even mean when a feature is being abused?
Certainly you can nitpick this to death. But the reality is: I have two radar teslas right now that work fine on any road. I use it every day, across many miles, with no issues.
My experience is fine. I have no problems. But I’m not going to dismiss the experiences of others because of my anecdotal positive experience or the circumstances in which *technically* they “shouldn’t use it”. The fact is: tesla appears to have made the experience of TACC on new cars dramatically worse. The fact is: TACC is a form of cruise control and cruise control functionality is a more than reasonable expectation on any car, especially a more expensive car.
I’ve read every thread I have been able to find here about issues with vision only. It seems that a good amount of people want to dismiss this as not being legitimate. I really can’t understand that. The response to many reports of “my experience is awful” is “you are the problem” ??? Alienate legit feedback: check.
Of course some problems will happen and can be rolled with. The last software update both of our teslas started being extremely slow opening the dashcam viewer. I just had my car in for service to address rattles in the back and they didn’t fix any of it. These types of things are frustrating but do not severely impact the core functionality of the car so they end up being more of something you might just work around. Cruise control - any form of cruise control - is core functionality. It should work. If it doesn’t work, “No work around” is not acceptable. And further, any company, including tesla, should take great care in making any modifications to core functionality. The vision only move is far too aggressive given how it seems to be turning out.
Tha_Ape
Active Member
Do you know if your car is still using its radar? ie can you set the following distance to 1, AP to 90mph?
I can't wait for you to get a vision only car, when does yours arrive? You will have people with older Tesla's accuse you of spreading FUD, or that you don't know how to use the system, or just give you a thumbs down because your experience doesn't match theirs. Vision only was pretty good when all they did was remove the radar (software 2021.4.18.x)... then they started trying to "fine tune" it to look further down the road (take over long distance functions that used to be covered by radar) and that is when TACC went to $hit.
Personally, I would love for cars without FSD to be "downgraded" to AutoPilot that only has auto steer and dumb cruise control... this may even incentivize more people to pay for FSD!
Keith
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Most of the pre model 3 people and a large portion of the model 3 owners are true believers that think any complaint is a short seller trying to spread FUD... later year model 3 and many model Y owners are much more likely to be mainstream car buyers.
I think a lot of the problem is the owners of older Teslas, and more expensive Teslas consider those of us with Vision only cars to be "Johnny come lately" owners. The fact is the Model 3 and Model Y cars have become mainstream and mainstream buyers will not put up with the crap that "true believer" types will excuse.
For example, if you took a poll of owners separated by purchase date and asked them if they believe fully autonomous driving "is just a year away" you will get a more positive result from owners of older Tesla's even though they have been told this year after year for over half a decade now. A guy with a 2020 Model 3 that paid for FSD and still doesn't have it is more disgruntled than someone with a 2016 Model S that still doesn't have FSD. And the 2020 model 3 owner is more likely to realize there is no way in hell HW 3.0 will ever be good enough for level 3 autonomy, let alone level 4 or level 5.
Keith
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easy fix
You may think you are joking, but the "universal" system with the servo motor that pulls on the throttle cable can also be rigged up with a cable to pull the throttle pedal down if you can not access your throttle cable. Personally, I find that the "speed limit mode" work around meets my needs, or I would actually be considering something like this.
Keith
Tha_Ape
Active Member
My friend has installed 3 of those on his classic cars... not sure how well it would work in an EV
I'm not trying to nit-pick, nor am I trying to dismiss legitimate concerns, which clearly exist. But there is a world of difference between (say) TACC doing phantom braking from 65mph to 30mpg on a freeway for no apparent reason (dangerous), to going from (say) 35mph to 30mph on a winding 2-way road (annoying). Clearly, the first needs urgent work, the second, not so much.
In fact, my take is that Tesla are working on it .. but indirectly. The FSD effort, for all its glitz around L2 self-driving, is also a major re-working of the vision stack, including significantly more accurate object identification and path prediction. My (hopefully informed) guess is the old NN stack is more or less in "deprecated mode" and they are only fixing urgent issues until they can replace it wholesale with the new stack (for all users, even if they dont have FSD). Sure, that new stack also has issues atm, as its less mature than the older stack, but given the huge effort they are making it has the potential to go way beyond the old stack as it matures, and that, I assert, is Tesla's planned path to fixing things like phantom braking.
Will it succeed? Only time will tell. Is it high risk? You bet! Is it going to annoy people waiting for quick fixes to braking issues? We already know the answer to that
I'm not trying to nit-pick, nor am I trying to dismiss legitimate concerns, which clearly exist. But there is a world of difference between (say) TACC doing phantom braking from 65mph to 30mpg on a freeway for no apparent reason (dangerous), to going from (say) 35mph to 30mph on a winding 2-way road (annoying). Clearly, the first needs urgent work, the second, not so much.
In fact, my take is that Tesla are working on it .. but indirectly. The FSD effort, for all its glitz around L2 self-driving, is also a major re-working of the vision stack, including significantly more accurate object identification and path prediction. My (hopefully informed) guess is the old NN stack is more or less in "deprecated mode" and they are only fixing urgent issues until they can replace it wholesale with the new stack (for all users, even if they dont have FSD). Sure, that new stack also has issues atm, as its less mature than the older stack, but given the huge effort they are making it has the potential to go way beyond the old stack as it matures, and that, I assert, is Tesla's planned path to fixing things like phantom braking.
Will it succeed? Only time will tell. Is it high risk? You bet! Is it going to annoy people waiting for quick fixes to braking issues? We already know the answer to that
The problem is the mainstream buyer doesn't realize they are signing up to be a Beta tester.
When I placed my order, basic auto pilot was still listed as "beta", but it was acknowledged to be a "mature" software that functioned correctly almost all of the time. Before I got my car they switched over to this vision only bullcrap. Mainstream buyers are not willing to put up with this crap like the true believers are.
Do I think that standard vision only AP will improve due to the efforts to get FSD Beta to work? Yes.
Do I think any mainstream buyer who really understood they were purchasing a car where the cruise control doesn't work, but it might work in a year or two would buy the car? Nope. The expectation from a mainstream car buyer is that when you purchase a car it will work as advertised, not "hopefully work as advertised in a year or two".
Keith
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I'm not trying to nit-pick, nor am I trying to dismiss legitimate concerns, which clearly exist. But there is a world of difference between (say) TACC doing phantom braking from 65mph to 30mpg on a freeway for no apparent reason (dangerous), to going from (say) 35mph to 30mph on a winding 2-way road (annoying). Clearly, the first needs urgent work, the second, not so much.
In fact, my take is that Tesla are working on it .. but indirectly. The FSD effort, for all its glitz around L2 self-driving, is also a major re-working of the vision stack, including significantly more accurate object identification and path prediction. My (hopefully informed) guess is the old NN stack is more or less in "deprecated mode" and they are only fixing urgent issues until they can replace it wholesale with the new stack (for all users, even if they dont have FSD). Sure, that new stack also has issues atm, as its less mature than the older stack, but given the huge effort they are making it has the potential to go way beyond the old stack as it matures, and that, I assert, is Tesla's planned path to fixing things like phantom braking.
Will it succeed? Only time will tell. Is it high risk? You bet! Is it going to annoy people waiting for quick fixes to braking issues? We already know the answer to that
/nod
I have around a 30 minute commute. I thought this morning as I drove to work what bliss it is to drive my Tesla. And a large part of that is TACC / autopilot. Merge onto freeway, flick right stalk, tesla maintains speed and distance. Easy and reliable. Same thing when I exit the freeway for the moderately long, straight stretch of two lane road. The entire 30 minutes nice and relaxing.
I pitch tesla to people and share my tesla with others because I think everyone should know this driving bliss exists. Here’s to hoping tesla can figure this out soon and restore this bliss to every owner.
GeezerSquid
Still a Geezer & Still A Squid
That's odd! I totally understood there were serious issues with FSD and TACC when I bought my car! Most people in today's computer/Smartphone world research their purchases very thoroughly. I just bought a new trash can for the kitchen and read probably a hundred reviews on different forums first. I have very little sympathy for folks that don't research and then whine about the mistake they made.
I have been on these forums for seems like forever now, I knew that FSD is a pipe dream, and had no interest in giving 10K to Tesla for a system that didn't work, but basic autopilot worked fine before mid 2021 as long as you understand its limitations. Mine is one of first after the transition to vision only, ordered when the cars still had radar. I knew that the cars had some minor issues with phantom braking... but it was portrayed as minor and seldom rather than the severe and constant we have with vision only cars. And the information available on the net was that removing radar had nothing to do with supply chain issues, it was planned all along to go to vision only... the change was actually because the radar sensor causes the minor phantom braking problems people were still experiencing, and going to vision only would resolve the issue.
We have people in this thread still saying that phantom braking is not an issue. Someone interested in purchasing today doesn't know who to believe.
Keith
PS: My advice to anyone looking to buy a Tesla. Get a radar equipped Tesla, either a new S or X, or a used 3 or Y. They will not disable the radar until they actually get vision only to work (or you agree to FSD Beta), so you will get the best of both worlds. If they never get vision only to work like they want, I hope they actually take care of us poor bastards without radar... but I don't really expect that.
I consider myself fairly mainstream... even if I had purchased a model 3 standard range (well within mainstream car buyers reach) I would have had expectations that Tesla is not currently meeting. And now (not in the past) people buying a more expensive car have higher expectations, not lower just because it has a "T" on it.I don’t think we reached mainstream yet with prices like that.
Keith
Who are you trying to convince? I have been reading about phantom braking ever since I joined OG Tesla forum when I got our 3 back in 2019. It is always vocal minority. I know what triggers it and so it is not phantom for me. I call it slow downs because it is not full on brake. Could it be better? Sure! Is it as dangerous as some try to picture it? No! If it is for you then you are not paying attention to the road when driving. Read the disclaimer before you activate AP. You are still responsible and need to pay attention to the road and be ready to take over and not to look what you got on the back seat or take a nap.
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