In the 45K miles I've driven my 2020 M3, I haven't experienced any dramatic phantom braking. I've had plenty of mild slowdowns. I've been wondering about why things might be different for me. Here's some brainstorming about why some drivers see lots of phantom braking while I do not.
1. Something about the combination of settings that I have. That is, Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Warning, Lane Departure, etc.
2. I usually have my foot near the accelerator and press it if the car starts to slow down (as it does for blinking yellows). Perhaps my lightning reflexes catch phantom braking before it occurs?
3. Something different about my car's hardware (sensors?).
4. I drive more conservatively (rarely more than a few MPH above the speed limit).
5. Some are interpreting the slowdown more dramatically. For example, "slamming on the brakes" rather than "slows down a lot."
Related to option 5, I've attached an interesting video. It shows a car slowing from 69 to 47 in a few seconds. That's pretty dramatic, and I don't think I've seen anything like that. Here are two observations:
1. He's going 69 MPH on a two-lane road. Similar roads around here rarely have a limit higher than 55. Could that be relevant.
2. At 1:39 in that video, the car slows from 63 MPH to 48 MPH. He says that the car "almost tries to come to a full stop."
Here's another video in which the driver calls it "maybe" phantom braking, yet the speed only dropped from 90 km/hr to 87 km/hr:
.
Another where car slows from 66 to 57 and the driver says "the car just slammed on the brakes."
What do you think explains why some see phantom braking and others do not?