Unhappy with phantom braking

[Rice&Curry]

In my 2 years with MX and MY, I have had phantom braking 2 times while approaching an overpass. Both my cars have radar and as far as I understand this situation occurs mainly with stationary objects with the radar. Once reason why Tesla went to pure vision based FSD was that the. radar was returning contradicting alerts ( false +ve) compared to the vision alert. In real time at 60+ miles/hr things can get tricky in safety related situations. As for now I will let Tesla sort this out while i remain cautious while using AP on divided and lane marked highways.

 

[TAfirehawk]

I got my new M3LR on June 12, 2021 and now have almost 10,000 miles on it where 90% are highway. During this time it has become obvious when the phantom braking is occurring since I drive on the exact same road every day. Day or night doesn't matter but the major factor is if there are other vehicles in the forward vision and the road is straight. The road I drive has frequent stretches with nobody in front of me within 100-200 yards and it has become painfully obvious that no vehicles and straight road is going to result in phantom braking. I have altered my driving speed and style to test this theory and I feel very confident that my car is consistent with frequent phantom braking on empty and straight roads (going over tiny hills does it too)...it is like Tesla never tested their cars on an empty road.

It would be great if others could test my theory and see if your phantom braking consistently occurs when the road ahead is empty and straight. I know that I can be in a section of road that always causes phantom braking but as long as I keep a vehicle "in range" in front of me then it never phantom brakes.

I also feel positive it won't be addressed until the new FSD beta comes out as the engineers aren't going to spend much, if any, time on the old stuff.

 

[OldEVDude]

2021 MYLR, 6,100 miles, radarless, software 2021.4.21.3

I’ve never had phantom braking using Autopilot on an Interstate highway (just lucky, I guess), but i have had it happen while trekking on two lane back roads. I’ll be cruising at 40mph, and something causes the car to slow down to about 33. After that, it goes back to 40. It seems to happen on sunny days with trees casting shadows on the road. My assumption is that the car sees the shadows as possible obstructions, and slows down until it can figure out what’s happening. Interestingly, there is a stretch of straight road near my house where it happens almost every time (there is a slight hill, which may also explain things).

I await the next software update. (And wait, and wait, and wait…but that topic is well covered, to put it mildly)

 

[powertoold]

My assumption is that the car sees the shadows as possible obstructions,

That's interesting because AP doesn't slow down or stop for obstructions. AP pretty much only takes into consideration cones, speed signs, lane lines, and vehicles. AP with fsd also considers traffic controls. That's about it.

 

[roblab]

Mine does "phantom" braking at shadows, water running across the road, cars turning right which are clear off the marked lane. As I know when and where it's likely to happen, I pull it off AP in those spots.

It doesn't seem to do it on divided highway.

 

[KArnold]

Are you sure there's not a speed limit sign that
he car is seeing, but you're not?

I've not seen it often on my radar MS, but when I have the speed limit is mysteriously reduced. No signs.

Especially those that can duplicate, are there instances of phantom braking and we are sure this was not the case? Doesn't really matter I suppose but it would be nice to understand if we are dealing with multiple causes as someone suggested. That sounds likely.

 

[SlimJim]

Its normal.
just keep reporting. They will remove them

 

[Cubanlink]

Is Tesla ever going to mature out of beta stage? How can they even release this sort of stuff to market without thorough testing? And these people call themselves engineers? Absolutely laughable.

 

[SlimJim]

Is Tesla ever going to mature out of beta stage? How can they even release this sort of stuff to market without thorough testing? And these people call themselves engineers? Absolutely laughable.

They don’t know all of the causes so they cannot fix it for good. But No one has died from phantom braking yet.

 

[Gadlaw22]

I had the same phantom braking immediately after driving my new Model Y off the lot. Scared the heck out of me. Happened several more time on the highway, which is not safe. I called and spoke with a tech rep who told me that I needed to drive more in the left lane to calibrate the left cameras for cruise control. I’ve been doing that lately but still have phantom braking. While it’s helped reduce the number of mid-cruise braking, it still happens. I’ve also noticed my phantom braking occurs in the same stretch of highway sometimes, which I find curious. Hope it gets ironed out quickly as it can brake too fast and is not always a gradual, slight deceleration.

 

[sagittarius]

Same this has been discussed in other threads. Taking corners car will brake for no reason if there is a car object nearby, not phantom so to speak but shouldn’t be braking. Then just Thursday as an example I was driving home and the car refused to increase its speed from 54mph to 60mph where cruise control and autopilot was set. Nobody around or near me. It just holds its speed at 54. Never had that happen. I just sat there befuddled wondering what was keeping the stupid car from increasing up to set speed

We are getting near dumpster fire level with vision cars and lack of improvements and updates.

Then, the phantom braking for no reason mentioned amongst terrible depth perception while braking and stopping for slowing or stopped cars. I know city streets is coming later this year but my wife’s BMW and daughters VW handles stop and go traffic with its ACC way better than this M3 does. It is real smooth coming to a stop in traffic. And doesn’t follow 300 ft behind on its furthest setting like the Tesla. Then smash the brakes on as you look in the rear view expecting someone to hit you when it does it.

I have a MYLR vision only and you summed up all the problems I am facing exactly. Yesterday I was driving on a high way and the car refused to increase its speed from 50 mph to 70 mph (on autopilot), even though apparently there was no obstacle or car near by. I owned Audi Q7 2020, before this car and ACC on that car was so smooth, never had this random braking issues. I am really questioning myself for swapping my Q7 for this car.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

After a long period of not having any phantom braking that wasn't caused by maps issues I finally had a moderate phantom braking event due to an overhead bridge.

What's interesting about it is the bridge is under construction, but its been under construction for awhile.

I never had an issue before at this point before, but it's at a fairly busy point so it's more likely that I always had someone in front of me. If you have someone in front of you the odds of phantom braking goes way down. At least those caused by things like overhead bridges.

In future builds I'll use the bridge as a testing point to see what it does during the day light without any vehicle in front of me.

Unrelated to this they seem to have fixed the streaming issue I was having, and they totally broken the battery conditioning that happens before you reach a supercharger. Instead of pre-conditioning happening 15min (or so) before it instead it turned on an hour before.

 

[TAfirehawk]

I got my new M3LR on June 12, 2021 and now have almost 10,000 miles on it where 90% are highway. During this time it has become obvious when the phantom braking is occurring since I drive on the exact same road every day. Day or night doesn't matter but the major factor is if there are other vehicles in the forward vision and the road is straight. The road I drive has frequent stretches with nobody in front of me within 100-200 yards and it has become painfully obvious that no vehicles and straight road is going to result in phantom braking. I have altered my driving speed and style to test this theory and I feel very confident that my car is consistent with frequent phantom braking on empty and straight roads (going over tiny hills does it too)...it is like Tesla never tested their cars on an empty road.

It would be great if others could test my theory and see if your phantom braking consistently occurs when the road ahead is empty and straight. I know that I can be in a section of road that always causes phantom braking but as long as I keep a vehicle "in range" in front of me then it never phantom brakes.

I also feel positive it won't be addressed until the new FSD beta comes out as the engineers aren't going to spend much, if any, time on the old stuff.

I wanted to follow up with some more testing. Again, I drive the exact same highway every day to work and back for about 75 each way. Today on the way home I had the chance to follow a couple vehicles for the first 50 miles. I had ZERO phantom braking incidents whereas I get at least 1 every mile or so on an empty road. To top it off, as soon as the last vehicle in front of me exited, I had 3 phantom braking events in 2 miles.

I am now going to calibrate my cameras again so I can see if that improves anything...original calibration was done on very busy highways in Dallas/Ft. Worth.

 

[Alan2000]

I was wondering if the harsh emergency braking was a glitch with my car. It isn't consistent but happens about once a week. Granted I drive it hard, but it way overreacts at times slamming on the brakes. Annoying as heck. Guess no point to complain about it since it is not specific to my car.

 

[TAfirehawk]

I wanted to follow up with some more testing. Again, I drive the exact same highway every day to work and back for about 75 each way. Today on the way home I had the chance to follow a couple vehicles for the first 50 miles. I had ZERO phantom braking incidents whereas I get at least 1 every mile or so on an empty road. To top it off, as soon as the last vehicle in front of me exited, I had 3 phantom braking events in 2 miles.

I am now going to calibrate my cameras again so I can see if that improves anything...original calibration was done on very busy highways in Dallas/Ft. Worth.

The camera calibration was done on mostly empty 2 and 4 lane highways with a small stint in town. Now my phantom braking is 3-5 times per 85 miles whereas it was nearly every mile or two on empty roads...usually 20-30 per 85 miles.

So for those with frequent phantom braking, I HIGHLY recommend a new camera calibration out on the empty highway as it really made a HUGE difference for me. My original calibration was in Ft. Worth and jam packed highways.

 

[shellderp]

2 years of no issues, and suddenly I'm having phantom braking since the last update. Just slams on brakes every few minutes on empty freeway. Good job Tesla making autopilot unusable

 

[tader43]

Was on the way from LA to Las Vegas yesterday - Radarless MY LR. It decided with 0 cars on a flat open road in broad daylight to slam on the brakes from 78 -> 35. It scared the passengers of the car so much there was no more autopilot the rest of the trip

 

[tader43]

My day job is working with Vision CNNs/RNNs - there are so many edge conditions with these networks I'm worried Tesla will always be playing "whack-a-mole" as these cases come up...

 

[TAfirehawk]

Was on the way from LA to Las Vegas yesterday - Radarless MY LR. It decided with 0 cars on a flat open road in broad daylight to slam on the brakes from 78 -> 35. It scared the passengers of the car so much there was no more autopilot the rest of the trip

It is a depth perception issue. The car sees something and can't determine the distance so the algorithms tilt towards safety. I am a programmer and I understand the reasoning but I sure hope V10 fixes it or there may be a 2021 M3LR w/12,000 miles for sale very soon.

If you recalibrate your cameras on roads with few/no cars then it will be better. But in the end the Tesla cruise control is the worst of any automaker because you have to use it with your foot on the accelerator pedal.

 

[ytfsic]

I have a June 2021 Tesla Vision M3LR and my car regularly drops 5-10 miles at night and alerts for no reason (especially at night). I’m on 2021.32.21. Last night I had 5 phantom braking events within a very short period and the car behind me started honking their horn. I try to catch them fast enough but I really like relying on cruise control to lower the stress of driving. This is such a problem in my vehicle that I’m considering not driving it at night any longer and just using our Volvo that has more reliable autonomous cruise control. I believe in the electric future but I need cruise control.

Other details: I live in the PNW, there are often gently curvy slightly hilly two lane roads with trees on both sides when this is happening. It seems worse on 2021.32.21 than the 2021.4 release I used to be on. It was always bad though. And yes I’ve talked to a Tesla service technician and there is nothing wrong with my cameras.