Phantom braking is where AP sees a shadow or a lorry or a moon in the third house of aquarius and suddenly brakes.. whether it's a big problem depends on your expectations of AP and the roads you regularly drive on.. for me it hasn't been that major apart from the odd occasion.

With the new FSD code it should become a thing of the past as it's going to be taking into account more information and on top of that it'll become much more capable.. that's the thing with teslas, they get better the longer you have them... any other car will only ever do what it does the day you buy it, bugs and all.

btw. Elon is something of an optimist. It's best to take a lot of what he says with a large grain of salt..

 

Hmm so it is a thing and can happen, it hasnt been fixed and if your vigilant should not cause a problem. Sorry not the answer I was hoping for but thank for the advice, appreciated.

 

I have had my M3 for almost a year. Phantom braking used to happen quite regularly as described by posters above. With each software release it has got a little bit better but it still happens. You learn to anticipate the things that the car may struggle with. For example I don't bother to use traffic aware cruise control on roads where there are parallel parked cars. If you are on a road and a lorry is coming towards you around a slight bend, be prepared to override. If there are lots of shadows on the road, be prepared.

 

TACC and AP are not designed to be used on anything other than "highways", ie dual carriageway or motorways. There is no way it is designed to be used where there are parked cars.

I just did a 670 mile round trip from Livingston to Northampton. I do not have FSD so I used TACC on the way down. Itwas way less reliable than ACC on the Skodas I have driven in the past and ProPilot I have used on the leaf. Every truck I passed it braked slightly meaning I had to override it by pressing the accelerator. There are so many trucks on the M6 it meant I might as well have been driving manually. Then there were 6 occasions after dark when the car decided with nothing in front of it to execute a full on emergency stop. I was able to override this but only after I'd been thrown forward into the seat belt by the force of the braking. After the 6th case of "submit bug report, phantom braking" I gave up and just drove manually. The safest thing is to basically assume the model 3 has no form of cruise control.

Just drive manually. It's disappointing on such an expensive car in 2020 but it's just not safe in my experience.

 

Don't think I've yet had any real totally random phantom braking. All the occasions I've had it brake hard (when a human driver wouldn't) have all so far been predictable or I've learnt to know what it might not cope with and be on my guard to press the accelerator. The thing that's really bugging me at the moment is the recent update that defaults to speed limits based on speed limit signage rather than sat nav map data (or whatever it used before). it's sometimes getting the speed limits wrong because it's spotting a sign into a side residential street or something else, which in turn messes up the Autopilot. So I occasionally might find it slowing down to 30 in a 60 zone, it certainly happens more often than I experienced previous speed limit sat nav map data being wrong or not up to date

 

Wow! Wow! Thats a revelation shall I shan't I spend minimum £40k on a potentially dangerous car?
I am retired but with vast experience, hgv, driving around the world in all types of vehicles, in all weathers etc etc my favourite "gadget" cruise control, I appreciate you could just turn it off! But Ive just spent £40k.
Ok time for a rethink!!!
Just when I thought I had it all sorted, back to the drawing board, or maybe an ice car for a couple of years till this gets sorted, meaning new cars with bugs, new cars with dangerous bugs and lack of infrastructure, oh well!

 

Wow! Wow! Thats a revelation shall I shan't I spend minimum £40k on a potentially dangerous car?
I am retired but with vast experience, hgv, driving around the world in all types of vehicles, in all weathers etc etc my favourite "gadget" cruise control, I appreciate you could just turn it off! But Ive just spent £40k.
Ok time for a rethink!!!
Just when I thought I had it all sorted, back to the drawing board, or maybe an ice car for a couple of years till this gets sorted, meaning new cars with bugs, new cars with dangerous bugs and lack of infrastructure, oh well!

Our Kona does it when cars are parked on the side of the road as did the Ioniq. So I think the tesla is no worse. As said above you get used to when to and when no to use it and when to expect it to beak. We have a M3 on order. We took a 1 hour test drive before ordering and used the standard autopilot on city, motorway and A roads and it behaved itself. I think even ICE cars with the same tech will do the same.

 

I've done hundreds, probably at this point thousands of miles on AP and really it's not that bad at all. Mostly on a motorway you just relax. Outside motorways and major A roads, it's not that great but neither is it supposed to be.. it's not designed for them (that's what the FSD rewrite is trying to address).

You get used to knowing when you might need to intervene ahead of time.. it's just another driving skill.

TACC is in an odd position. Technically it's just AP with the autosteer switched off, but it's also very useful in traffic queues, and some roads that AP would struggle with. You get a feel for when it's likely to be a help.

Remember these are all driving aids, they're just there to make life easier. Don't sweat it if they don't help in a particular situation, just take over.

 

TACC is in an odd position. Technically it's just AP with the autosteer switched off, but it's also very useful in traffic queues, and some roads that AP would struggle with. You get a feel for when it's likely to be a help.

I can see where Tesla is going with all this, and I understand why they make certain decisions... but right now I would really like a non TACC CC option that I can easily engage while driving for times when I know the car isn't going to cope with TACC. In other words I would like to be able to go: Manual -> Cruise Control -> TACC -> AP.

Thinking further on this, I would prefer to see more work go into lane changes than TACC right now. I realise that the lane changes suffer from UK/EU regulations at present... but it is very frustrating having to take over because the car doesn't want to start or complete a lane change. Lane changes issues make me disengage AP far more often than phantom braking.

 

If you liked the Tesla, don't let Phantom Braking put you off.

One of the great things about Tesla is that they are constantly improving the software, and they are very aware of phantom braking. It will be sorted.

I never had any dangerous situation because of it, and I don't get it all that often. And I use Autopilot A LOT.

 

If you're a bit worried about people behind plowing into you or getting upset at you slamming your brakes on like you're brake checking them, something of this nature might help

 

That says it all

 

I use AP on motorways and dual carriageways and have not really had any issues with phantom braking. The M3 is very safe and I highly recommend it.

 

I've had it but more of a heavy regen than emergency braking. It' doesn't put me off using it.