Phantom breaking

[Battpower]

This phantom braking issue is really a dangerous problem.Hot off the press here in Norway: Three-car Chain Collision on the Europa 6 Highway due to Tesla Autopilot Phantom Braking.
(In Norwegian: Kjedekollisjon på E6 etter at Tesla på autopilot bråbremset)
"Drove on autopilot.
Police chief Anne Marie Dypdahl tells Adresseavisen (Ed: the newspaper) that it was a Tesla on autopilot that caused the collision.
- It looks like a truck was coming in a southbound direction, and that the Tesla, which came in the northbound direction with autopilot on, registered an obstacle in the road. This caused it to automatically apply full brake. As a result, the Tesla was hit by a car from behind, and the car that was driving at Tesla was hit by a truck from behind.-
- It looks like it was the autopilot mode that made the Tesla slam on the brakes. The driver did not get control.-

In UK certainly the principle is you must drive so that you can maintain safe control regardless of what traffic ahead might do.

In practice, we all assume that at least when the road ahead is clear, we don't have to allow for the car in front slamming on its brakes.

However, as with many items of news, there might be more information we don't know. Maybe the Tesla had some other failure? I wonder if 'obstacle aware acceleration' was active? If so, would stamping on the accelerator override automatic braking? This is essential information. Can the driver ALWAYS override automatic control? If not, then Tesla must also be liable if it's proven that their automatic systems created elevated risk / danger that directly caused an accident.

Any way, hopefully more details will be known eventually. My concern about AP is that it allows drivers to believe they don't need to concentrate as hard on driving, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[kskog]

Phantom braking happens seemingly at random, so it is very dangerous, especially when it suddenly brakes hard. I really don't get why Tesla is not fixing this..

 

[Battpower]

Phantom braking happens seemingly at random, so it is very dangerous, especially when it suddenly brakes hard. I really don't get why Tesla is not fixing this..

I think Tesla has some serious work to do on this. It is always edge cases that are hardest to deal with, and deciding if the car should brake hard is definitely an edge.... and the question is 'who is responsible / liable for that edge'. Perhaps it is unavoidable without lidar as you only have fixed radar and a 2D camera image to base your view of the road on. Spurious radar reflections combined with shadows on the road must surely be a hard case to detect with certainty.

Given that the current level of AP is not ready to 'self drive' (beyond being very sophisticated cruise control) I don't feel the car should ever decide to accelerate other than when it is maintaining distance with TACC and even that can be dangerous when the car approaches a junction or roundabout or the vehicle in front turns off.

Braking is a problem when it behaves outside of what other road users can reasonably expect. I think I recall that in some countries (? Holland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden? .... all guesses) it is not permitted to even dab on the brake if someone is tailgating you - maybe same country(s) as not being permitted to accelerate while being overtaken.

In any case, it needs fixing.

 

[Mike Robinson]

I agree. I rarely use my cruise control or Autopilot just because of phantom braking. It's very dangerous, and quire unnerving. That's really my only serious disappointment with my Tesla.