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2022 Model Y with FSD. I use Autopilot 50+ miles a day, and use it 98% of the way on trips from San Diego to SF. It infrequently phantom brakes, and more often

by silax 4y ago

2022 Model Y with FSD. I use Autopilot 50+ miles a day, and use it 98% of the way on trips from San Diego to SF. It infrequently phantom brakes, and more often brakes hard and late and sometimes people think I'm brake-checking them. It also is annoying slow to recover back to cruise speed from a slow down. Also if you're in the right lane when the two right lanes merge- it is totally unreliable, I've been sandwiched between an 18-wheeler and the gutter. But that said, once you learn the quirks it is extremely predictable and robust. I have used it on snowy mountain roads in Tahoe, a sandstorm at Salton Sea, and thousands of highway miles. If you have the minimum distance set to 2 or 3 car lengths, you should not be complaining about late and hard braking- that's the setting you chose. The phantom braking is annoying but infrequent, and you can quickly override it with an accelerator tap. My suggestion to Tesla would just be to have a debug button where you can report and elevate the past 10 seconds of driving.

chinathrow 4y ago
> It infrequently phantom brakes, and more often brakes hard and late and sometimes people think I'm brake-checking them. And you're still using this car? Why exactly?
- dylan604 4y ago
  Because the rest of us are just crash test dummies. Nothing to see here, carry on.
- 0des 4y ago
  Clout, social signaling
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  Average people are acceptable sacrifices on the altar of technology worship.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>My suggestion to Tesla would just be to have a debug button where you can report and elevate the past 10 seconds of driving. Wait, do you think that Tesla are actually obtaining all driver video and manually adjusting the model based on reports like this? I've seen a lot of fanatics with no technology background claim this, but I'm...skeptical to say the least.
- dmead 4y ago
  yea why not? watch the automation day presentation from 2019. they're pretty clear about how much telemetry goes home in order to re-train the networks.
- Delphiki 4y ago
  My understanding is that the driving logs are only sent to Tesla when you take your car in for service. In addition, I imagine not a lot of people use the bug report feature, so most of the phantom braking in the logs and footage aren't even identified/used.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  They claim to do a lot of (spooky) automatic data collection, including camera footage.
talove 4y ago
I have a 2021 Y with FSD and more or less echo the I've got about the same sentiment. It's nice use it, but does weird stuff. A recent update seems to have resolved many of the FSD issues. It no longer phantom breaks at flashing yellow intersections, and a few stop signs for diagonal merging roads. And btw, they certainly have the data whether or not you report it.
jjulius 4y ago
>But that said, once you learn the quirks it is extremely predictable and robust. I feel like a self-driving vehicle is one of those areas where nobody should have to "learn the quirks".
- lin83 4y ago
  It's honestly like a black mirror episode. "I have to have maintain a mental model of how my black box ML car AI will act so I don't die or kill other road users... and it can be updated daily."
  - jerlam 4y ago
    Autopilot in aircraft have a similar problem, which led to the Air France Flight 447 crash in 2009. The airspeed indicators froze over, the autopilot switched from "normal law" to "alternate law", and the pilots failed to understand that the autopilot's protection from stalling no longer applied. They did not have enough training (or were too confused) to fly without the help of automated aids and flew the plane right into the ocean. Boeing's planes were known for having fewer of these automated aids and thus required more skill to fly the plane, but the 747-MAX debacle threw cold water on that idea.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      Of course, (unlike some commenters in this thread) the air travel industry thankfully had the good sense to look at autopilot on balance rather than fixating on a single fatal accident (or in the case of Tesla's Autopilot, the mere possibility of a fatal accident). The salient question isn't whether or not an autopilot allows for any fatalities, but rather whether or not it reduces fatalities relative to manual piloting/driving.
    - kewrkewm53 4y ago
      Yep, autopilot is a good helper but a bad master. In the air there's a lot more space and fewer objects to avoid than on the roads, yet nobody has managed to build a perfect autopilot that could really replace pilots in every situation. I remain skeptical that we'll ever see one in any dimension, let it be air, sea or land.
yupper32 4y ago
If it often brakes hard and late to the point that people think you're brake checking them, then you shouldn't be using it. They don't think you're brake checking them, you ARE brake checking them. Stop being dangerous on the road. This isn't a game.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >They don't think you're brake checking them, you ARE brake checking them. This is the important part. Doesn't matter what the intent was, the fact of the matter is that the people behind you nearly rear-ended you because of your car's actions. And you, as the driver, never know when you might piss off the wrong driver - brake check the wrong person and suddenly you're in trouble with someone who might not care if you say, "But my car did it, not me! Honest!".
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    I would do pretty bad things to any person who would severely harm or kill my kids for example, and no amount of blaming car electronics or recent update would change that...
    - ericbarrett 4y ago
      My first thought was, what if it's a sheriff, police officer, or state patrol? Now you've got a couple nights in the county lockup, a reckless driving charge (this can be a misdemeanor or felony depending on the severity), and $thousands in towing and impound fees.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        I don't think abrupt braking constitutes reckless driving (maybe it varies by location), and it seems like it would be pretty easy to fight by claiming you saw a deer/etc in the road. If the cop says he didn't see it, you respond with some variation of "unsurprising because you were following me too closely to see anything else". Of course, none of this absolves Tesla from fixing their software.
jeroenhd 4y ago
> It infrequently phantom brakes, and more often brakes hard and late and sometimes people think I'm brake-checking them. Honestly, it sounds to me like this technology should be made illegal until it's fixed. "Infrequently" isn't good enough, especially if it brakes as aggressively as you say. I want self driving to succeed, but Tesla's self-driving tech is just too immature to use on public roads.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 4y ago
  This comes down to the actual risks. The real question is has it actually caused any accidents?
  - ec109685 4y ago
    And has it prevented any?
    - Retric 4y ago
      While the erratic behavior of Tesla’s autopilot might cause other drivers to be more cautious are them, I don’t think you should count this in Tesla’s favor. Imagine if every self thriving car company started adding code to scare other drivers, that would definitely have unwanted side effects.
      - ec109685 4y ago
        No, I mean by having this feature of lane keeping and cruise control saved lived overall.
        throwaway894345 4y ago
        Probably. Tesla Autopilot gets in about 90% fewer accidents per hundred million miles than US drivers. It would be shocking if this didn’t manifest as lives saved.
bruce343434 4y ago
>It infrequently phantom brakes >more often brakes hard and late >people think I'm brake-checking them >if you're in the right lane when the two right lanes merge- it is totally unreliable >I've been sandwiched between an 18-wheeler and the gutter >once you learn the quirks it is extremely predictable and robust You're taking it better than I would be
- zozin 4y ago
  It's just standard Tesla fanboy cope. The bottom line is that Tesla is shipping out alpha/beta software to the masses and relying on the masses to absorb the risks of crashing, causing accidents, dying, etc. in order for Tesla to iterate and possibly improve its software. I own an 2022 Model 3 Performance, so I'm not just talking out of my ass. Autopilot is unnerving to use. The car itself is just an appliance devoid of any emotion or character; the exact opposite of a performance focused driver's car. I plan on selling it very soon. Juxtapose Tesla's Autopilot with BMW's Driving Assistant Professional (I also own a BMW X5 PHEV Hybrid). I drove from Chicago to Oklahoma and back with all the autonomous features engaged 95% of the drive and it was an incredibly relaxing experience. Lane change works and doesn't cost an extra $10K (you need FSD for a simple lane change otherwise you effectively need to disengage AP, change lanes, and reengage AP), zero phantom braking (the BMW has radar...), the eye tracking camera works great (no falling asleep at the wheel vs. Tesla's interior camera which does not even work and the steering wheel tracking can be defeated with a tennis ball), and best of all there's fully autonomous driving (no need to look at the road) if stuck in traffic on a highway and you're going less than 40MPH (i.e., bumper-to-bumper traffic where most accidents tend to happen). The fact is that Tesla is not shipping game-changing software, and I would strongly argue that it's not even shipping out the best software in the business. It's a hyped up car with hyped up features peddled by a hype man. I would not be surprised if Tesla is not even a top 5 or 10 EV seller in 2032.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    The only part that matters the fanboys is the marketing. It's even apparent in the way it's haphazardly named.
  - 4y ago
bink 4y ago
This sounds dangerous enough that I'd reconsider even driving the vehicle. I have a 2019 model 3 and I've experienced phantom braking twice. Both times I was on the highway with autopilot enabled and was passing a truck that cast a shadow over my lane. After the first experience I refused to even use autopilot for months afterwards. Just recently I was driving in the right lane of a suburban road (with no assisted driving features enabled) and some trees on the curb cast a shadow over my lane and the car absolutely freaked out with collision warnings. Thankfully I was accelerating so it didn't force me to stop, but at this point I'm seriously considering going with another vehicle. Having the car scream at you as you're driving down the road is nerve wracking.
- kitsune_ 4y ago
  It boggles my mind that people would continue to use a car that randomly breaks without their input.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I mean, plenty of people drive dangerously anyway. I'd rather most people brake abruptly than drive 20mph above or below the flow of traffic, weave dangerously, pass on the shoulder, run red lights, fall asleep, drive drunk, etc. If they get in a car that's merely "too cautious", that's a pretty big net win for society.
  - VirusNewbie 4y ago
    I have a 2019 and I've used autopilot extensively and i've never had it break when it shouldn't. I've had it beep at me erroneously maybe twice, so I think this is something in the settings that is causing the issue.
    - vardump 4y ago
      The "settings" might be about where you're driving. Certain locations might be more prone to make AP see things.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
loceng 4y ago
I'm surprised a debug button isn't already in existence? Maybe it's there if you're a beta tester?
- plutonorm 4y ago
  it is there and that is why I question the veracity of the above post. All FSD drivers are part of the beta program and they all have report button.
  - Delphiki 4y ago
    Phantom braking is not exclusive to FSD, so the vast majority of people who experience phantom braking do not have a report button.
brtkdotse 4y ago
Autopilot sounds about as safe as driving while intoxicated, which makes Autopilot users massive egoists.
- sorokod 4y ago
  i have a bunch of adjectives in mind, most not usefull but perhaps this one: "subjects of lawsuits"
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I’m sure you wouldn’t make a claim like this without some data to back it up. Please share with us the crash rate for autopilot versus the average US driver, so we can see what your idea of “intoxicated driving” looks like!
zardo 4y ago
> If you have the minimum distance set to 2 or 3 car lengths Does it use the same distance at all speeds?
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  No. It doesn't use distance but time. At 70 mph on cruise control in my 2015 Model S (AP1.5) the distance to the car in front is considerably more than three car lengths.
fosk 4y ago
Brake checking is an exclusively American thing. I can’t recall anybody in Europe brake checking anybody in the 20 years I drove there, across all countries (Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, etc), people just get out of the left lane naturally, and who cares if somebody goes faster? I will never understand this hostile tension in US roads.
- closewith 4y ago
  Just Google video search for "brake check insert EU country" and you'll find plenty of examples.
- lttlrck 4y ago
  In Germany you're more likely to get "reverse brake checked" - with an M5 3cm from your rear bumper signaling to pass... :-)
throwaway894345 4y ago
2022 Model Y with regular Autopilot. Phantom braking is rarely an issue on divided highways; however, it's definitely an issue on highways without generous medians. If a semi is coming the other direction (especially over a hill) it will panic and slam on the brakes more than half the time (this has been the case since we bought the car in November). I've also had problems with the shadows cast by bridges and adjacent buildings as well as changes in road surface (e.g., the boundary between a section of road that was recently resurfaced to an older section of road). Further still, the problems seem to be worse in dim light or at night (it also insists on running the brights even when they're not necessary for a human, and even if it means blinding oncoming traffic) where it will occasionally phantom brake even on an empty divided highway. Moreover, sometimes it decides to abruptly drop the cruise control set point speed from 75mph to 40mph (even though it knows the speed limit is 70mph) which results in abrupt deceleration (not sure if this is the same as phantom braking or not). Additionally, if you interrupt a phantom brake by manually accelerating, it often won't resume speed until it has decelerated to whatever it thinks its "safe speed" was at the time of the perceived danger, even if the perceived danger is well-past. So if you were going 60mph when it got spooked by a shadow and manually compensated for the phantom braking, when you let off the accelerator the car will still slow down to ~30mph even if you're a quarter mile past the shadow. This is all frustrating, but the most frustrating thing is that I don't even know for sure what the car's reasoning process is--why does it sometimes sporadically set the speed to 30mph below the speed limit on a busy highway? What threat is it perceiving when it phantom brakes? > and more often brakes hard and late ... If you have the minimum distance set to 2 or 3 car lengths, you should not be complaining about late and hard braking- that's the setting you chose. I disagree here. As a human driver, I can prefer to follow someone "closely" (pretty sure I could fit 3 or 4 cars into Tesla's "2 car lengths"), but that doesn't mean I wait until I'm that far from them before I begin decelerating. There's no reason fundamental reason Autopilot can't do the same. > It also is annoying slow to recover back to cruise speed from a slow down. Fully agree. I think this pisses people off behind me more than the brake checking. > The phantom braking is annoying but infrequent I suspect this depends on what share of your driving is on divided versus two-lane highways.
progfix 4y ago
I find your attitude terrifying. I am glad you can handle your car now, but there are many thousand people driving those cars and they might not know how to deal with those "bugs". I am curious, are you currently holding Tesla stock?
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  Honestly it’s wild that so many people on this forum are making arguments about theoretical accidents that could happen when Autopilot has billions of miles driven and gets in 80% fewer accidents than the average US driver. The idea that we have to wait for Autopilot to be perfect means accepting hundreds of thousands of millions of accidents (including thousands of preventable deaths) that could be avoided. I find that attitude terrifying.
Delphiki 4y ago
2018 Model 3 with Enhanced Autopilot. I took a weekend trip from LA to Phoenix a few months back. I was in the left-most lane for a majority of the trip, and had ~10 phantom braking occurrences each way. It seemed to think the shadow of a car in the adjacent lane (where the shadow fell well into my lane) was something that needed to be avoided. It also doesn't infrequently highlight a car in an adjacent lane (or even exiting the freeway) as the lead car and slam on the brakes. I have follow distance set to 7 and it still slams the brakes way later than comfortable.
- qsdf38100 4y ago
  Would you still recommend Tesla after these experiences?
  - Delphiki 4y ago
    I like driving, so I don't mind not using Autopilot as frequently as I have the opportunity to. And it's the most fun and best car I've driven. But honestly I hesitate to recommend it. Not because it isn't a great car, because it is, but because I'm growing more skeptical of Tesla as a whole in the past year: - extremely delayed timelines (Roadster, Semi, Cybertruck, etc) - focus on some robot thing - FSD vaporware/false promises - Elon's general immaturity - frequent price changes - supply chain shortages - etc It all adds up and I can't help but wonder if Tesla's initial market advantage is waning. I'm not sure there's another competitor that's caught up to them, but it isn't as clear cut as it was just a couple years ago.
- hetspookjee 4y ago
  It surprises me that even after all of tha you still consider using autopilot and seem to have accepted the phantom braking as a way of life.
  - Delphiki 4y ago
    I mean, I pay full attention while the car is on autopilot, keep both hands on the wheel, and my foot over the pedals. Sure, that particular trip was pretty annoying, but my daily commute (~80 miles roundtrip) rarely, if ever, has any phantom braking occurrences, so I don't know that I would call it a "way of life".
gwbas1c 4y ago
> Tesla would just be to have a debug button where you can report and elevate the past 10 seconds of driving They do. Push the microphone button and say "Bug Report."
- qsdf38100 4y ago
  Lol. Tesla is really just beta testing in production. When software companies do that we say it’s bad. When Tesla dies this it’s ground breaking innovation. When my internet browser crashes no one dies.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    It’s because people are bad at reasoning. You don’t ban Autopilot for being imperfect, you ban it if it’s less safe than the average driver. However, Tesla’s crash rate is on the order of 10x better than the US average—assuming that carries over to the fatality rate pretty linearly, it would mean we could save 36k of the 40k lives lost each year to traffic fatalities if Autopilot were ubiquitous and mandatory. The idea that we should just sacrifice thousands of people until Autopilot is flawless is abhorrent and foolish.
solarkraft 4y ago
> My suggestion to Tesla would just be to have a debug button where you can report and elevate the past 10 seconds of driving. AFAIK they automatically collect data on disengagement.
silax 4y ago
Damn, lots of strawman rage in the responses. Remember that I'm still gripping the controls and looking out the window. I don't allow the system into any kind of corner case unless I am the only one on the road. Letting the computer attempt to drive straight on the highway while a practiced and skeptical driver is ready to take over does not feel like a blatant compromise of public safety. Every incident I've encountered was very easy to handle, with lots of margin for reaction. Hopefully everyone practices this kind of regard for others while still allowing emerging technology to have a path for safe testing in the real world.
remuskaos 4y ago
> But that said, once you learn the quirks it is extremely predictable and robust. I'm sorry, but this sounds like Stockholm syndrome to me. You admit that the car you're driving behaves unpredictably if you don't know it's quirks. But it still sounds like you're defending it. This would be intolerable for most other cars, of not outright dangerous. I'm not trying to attack you, so I'm sorry to be this direct: Why are you still keeping this anti-feature enabled? This sounds really dangerous.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  It’s strictly safer than other cars. Autopilot’s accident rate is one per every 4.3 million miles versus 1 per 480 thousand miles for the non-Tesla US average. Autopilot is nearly 10x safer than the average US driver. It’s really a bummer to see how many commenters are making strong statements informed by neither data nor experience. This whole thread is well below this forum’s normal level of discourse.

by silax 4y ago

chinathrow 4y ago

> It infrequently phantom brakes, and more often brakes hard and late and sometimes people think I'm brake-checking them. And you're still using this car? Why exactly?

dylan604 4y ago
Because the rest of us are just crash test dummies. Nothing to see here, carry on.
0des 4y ago
Clout, social signaling
nathanaldensr 4y ago
Average people are acceptable sacrifices on the altar of technology worship.

itsoktocry 4y ago

>My suggestion to Tesla would just be to have a debug button where you can report and elevate the past 10 seconds of driving. Wait, do you think that Tesla are actually obtaining all driver video and manually adjusting the model based on reports like this? I've seen a lot of fanatics with no technology background claim this, but I'm...skeptical to say the least.

dmead 4y ago
yea why not? watch the automation day presentation from 2019. they're pretty clear about how much telemetry goes home in order to re-train the networks.
Delphiki 4y ago
My understanding is that the driving logs are only sent to Tesla when you take your car in for service. In addition, I imagine not a lot of people use the bug report feature, so most of the phantom braking in the logs and footage aren't even identified/used.
solarkraft 4y ago
They claim to do a lot of (spooky) automatic data collection, including camera footage.

talove 4y ago

I have a 2021 Y with FSD and more or less echo the I've got about the same sentiment. It's nice use it, but does weird stuff. A recent update seems to have resolved many of the FSD issues. It no longer phantom breaks at flashing yellow intersections, and a few stop signs for diagonal merging roads. And btw, they certainly have the data whether or not you report it.

jjulius 4y ago

>But that said, once you learn the quirks it is extremely predictable and robust. I feel like a self-driving vehicle is one of those areas where nobody should have to "learn the quirks".

lin83 4y ago
It's honestly like a black mirror episode. "I have to have maintain a mental model of how my black box ML car AI will act so I don't die or kill other road users... and it can be updated daily."
- jerlam 4y ago
  Autopilot in aircraft have a similar problem, which led to the Air France Flight 447 crash in 2009. The airspeed indicators froze over, the autopilot switched from "normal law" to "alternate law", and the pilots failed to understand that the autopilot's protection from stalling no longer applied. They did not have enough training (or were too confused) to fly without the help of automated aids and flew the plane right into the ocean. Boeing's planes were known for having fewer of these automated aids and thus required more skill to fly the plane, but the 747-MAX debacle threw cold water on that idea.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    Of course, (unlike some commenters in this thread) the air travel industry thankfully had the good sense to look at autopilot on balance rather than fixating on a single fatal accident (or in the case of Tesla's Autopilot, the mere possibility of a fatal accident). The salient question isn't whether or not an autopilot allows for any fatalities, but rather whether or not it reduces fatalities relative to manual piloting/driving.
  - kewrkewm53 4y ago
    Yep, autopilot is a good helper but a bad master. In the air there's a lot more space and fewer objects to avoid than on the roads, yet nobody has managed to build a perfect autopilot that could really replace pilots in every situation. I remain skeptical that we'll ever see one in any dimension, let it be air, sea or land.

yupper32 4y ago

If it often brakes hard and late to the point that people think you're brake checking them, then you shouldn't be using it. They don't think you're brake checking them, you ARE brake checking them. Stop being dangerous on the road. This isn't a game.

jjulius 4y ago
>They don't think you're brake checking them, you ARE brake checking them. This is the important part. Doesn't matter what the intent was, the fact of the matter is that the people behind you nearly rear-ended you because of your car's actions. And you, as the driver, never know when you might piss off the wrong driver - brake check the wrong person and suddenly you're in trouble with someone who might not care if you say, "But my car did it, not me! Honest!".
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  I would do pretty bad things to any person who would severely harm or kill my kids for example, and no amount of blaming car electronics or recent update would change that...
  - ericbarrett 4y ago
    My first thought was, what if it's a sheriff, police officer, or state patrol? Now you've got a couple nights in the county lockup, a reckless driving charge (this can be a misdemeanor or felony depending on the severity), and $thousands in towing and impound fees.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      I don't think abrupt braking constitutes reckless driving (maybe it varies by location), and it seems like it would be pretty easy to fight by claiming you saw a deer/etc in the road. If the cop says he didn't see it, you respond with some variation of "unsurprising because you were following me too closely to see anything else". Of course, none of this absolves Tesla from fixing their software.

jeroenhd 4y ago

> It infrequently phantom brakes, and more often brakes hard and late and sometimes people think I'm brake-checking them. Honestly, it sounds to me like this technology should be made illegal until it's fixed. "Infrequently" isn't good enough, especially if it brakes as aggressively as you say. I want self driving to succeed, but Tesla's self-driving tech is just too immature to use on public roads.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Retric 4y ago
This comes down to the actual risks. The real question is has it actually caused any accidents?
- ec109685 4y ago
  And has it prevented any?
  - Retric 4y ago
    While the erratic behavior of Tesla’s autopilot might cause other drivers to be more cautious are them, I don’t think you should count this in Tesla’s favor. Imagine if every self thriving car company started adding code to scare other drivers, that would definitely have unwanted side effects.
    - ec109685 4y ago
      No, I mean by having this feature of lane keeping and cruise control saved lived overall.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        Probably. Tesla Autopilot gets in about 90% fewer accidents per hundred million miles than US drivers. It would be shocking if this didn’t manifest as lives saved.

bruce343434 4y ago

>It infrequently phantom brakes >more often brakes hard and late >people think I'm brake-checking them >if you're in the right lane when the two right lanes merge- it is totally unreliable >I've been sandwiched between an 18-wheeler and the gutter >once you learn the quirks it is extremely predictable and robust You're taking it better than I would be

zozin 4y ago
It's just standard Tesla fanboy cope. The bottom line is that Tesla is shipping out alpha/beta software to the masses and relying on the masses to absorb the risks of crashing, causing accidents, dying, etc. in order for Tesla to iterate and possibly improve its software. I own an 2022 Model 3 Performance, so I'm not just talking out of my ass. Autopilot is unnerving to use. The car itself is just an appliance devoid of any emotion or character; the exact opposite of a performance focused driver's car. I plan on selling it very soon. Juxtapose Tesla's Autopilot with BMW's Driving Assistant Professional (I also own a BMW X5 PHEV Hybrid). I drove from Chicago to Oklahoma and back with all the autonomous features engaged 95% of the drive and it was an incredibly relaxing experience. Lane change works and doesn't cost an extra $10K (you need FSD for a simple lane change otherwise you effectively need to disengage AP, change lanes, and reengage AP), zero phantom braking (the BMW has radar...), the eye tracking camera works great (no falling asleep at the wheel vs. Tesla's interior camera which does not even work and the steering wheel tracking can be defeated with a tennis ball), and best of all there's fully autonomous driving (no need to look at the road) if stuck in traffic on a highway and you're going less than 40MPH (i.e., bumper-to-bumper traffic where most accidents tend to happen). The fact is that Tesla is not shipping game-changing software, and I would strongly argue that it's not even shipping out the best software in the business. It's a hyped up car with hyped up features peddled by a hype man. I would not be surprised if Tesla is not even a top 5 or 10 EV seller in 2032.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  The only part that matters the fanboys is the marketing. It's even apparent in the way it's haphazardly named.
- 4y ago

bink 4y ago

This sounds dangerous enough that I'd reconsider even driving the vehicle. I have a 2019 model 3 and I've experienced phantom braking twice. Both times I was on the highway with autopilot enabled and was passing a truck that cast a shadow over my lane. After the first experience I refused to even use autopilot for months afterwards. Just recently I was driving in the right lane of a suburban road (with no assisted driving features enabled) and some trees on the curb cast a shadow over my lane and the car absolutely freaked out with collision warnings. Thankfully I was accelerating so it didn't force me to stop, but at this point I'm seriously considering going with another vehicle. Having the car scream at you as you're driving down the road is nerve wracking.

kitsune_ 4y ago
It boggles my mind that people would continue to use a car that randomly breaks without their input.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I mean, plenty of people drive dangerously anyway. I'd rather most people brake abruptly than drive 20mph above or below the flow of traffic, weave dangerously, pass on the shoulder, run red lights, fall asleep, drive drunk, etc. If they get in a car that's merely "too cautious", that's a pretty big net win for society.
- VirusNewbie 4y ago
  I have a 2019 and I've used autopilot extensively and i've never had it break when it shouldn't. I've had it beep at me erroneously maybe twice, so I think this is something in the settings that is causing the issue.
  - vardump 4y ago
    The "settings" might be about where you're driving. Certain locations might be more prone to make AP see things.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago

loceng 4y ago

I'm surprised a debug button isn't already in existence? Maybe it's there if you're a beta tester?

plutonorm 4y ago
it is there and that is why I question the veracity of the above post. All FSD drivers are part of the beta program and they all have report button.
- Delphiki 4y ago
  Phantom braking is not exclusive to FSD, so the vast majority of people who experience phantom braking do not have a report button.

brtkdotse 4y ago

Autopilot sounds about as safe as driving while intoxicated, which makes Autopilot users massive egoists.

sorokod 4y ago
i have a bunch of adjectives in mind, most not usefull but perhaps this one: "subjects of lawsuits"
throwaway894345 4y ago
I’m sure you wouldn’t make a claim like this without some data to back it up. Please share with us the crash rate for autopilot versus the average US driver, so we can see what your idea of “intoxicated driving” looks like!

zardo 4y ago

> If you have the minimum distance set to 2 or 3 car lengths Does it use the same distance at all speeds?

kwhitefoot 4y ago
No. It doesn't use distance but time. At 70 mph on cruise control in my 2015 Model S (AP1.5) the distance to the car in front is considerably more than three car lengths.

fosk 4y ago

Brake checking is an exclusively American thing. I can’t recall anybody in Europe brake checking anybody in the 20 years I drove there, across all countries (Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, etc), people just get out of the left lane naturally, and who cares if somebody goes faster? I will never understand this hostile tension in US roads.

closewith 4y ago
Just Google video search for "brake check insert EU country" and you'll find plenty of examples.
lttlrck 4y ago
In Germany you're more likely to get "reverse brake checked" - with an M5 3cm from your rear bumper signaling to pass... :-)

throwaway894345 4y ago

2022 Model Y with regular Autopilot. Phantom braking is rarely an issue on divided highways; however, it's definitely an issue on highways without generous medians. If a semi is coming the other direction (especially over a hill) it will panic and slam on the brakes more than half the time (this has been the case since we bought the car in November). I've also had problems with the shadows cast by bridges and adjacent buildings as well as changes in road surface (e.g., the boundary between a section of road that was recently resurfaced to an older section of road). Further still, the problems seem to be worse in dim light or at night (it also insists on running the brights even when they're not necessary for a human, and even if it means blinding oncoming traffic) where it will occasionally phantom brake even on an empty divided highway. Moreover, sometimes it decides to abruptly drop the cruise control set point speed from 75mph to 40mph (even though it knows the speed limit is 70mph) which results in abrupt deceleration (not sure if this is the same as phantom braking or not). Additionally, if you interrupt a phantom brake by manually accelerating, it often won't resume speed until it has decelerated to whatever it thinks its "safe speed" was at the time of the perceived danger, even if the perceived danger is well-past. So if you were going 60mph when it got spooked by a shadow and manually compensated for the phantom braking, when you let off the accelerator the car will still slow down to ~30mph even if you're a quarter mile past the shadow. This is all frustrating, but the most frustrating thing is that I don't even know for sure what the car's reasoning process is--why does it sometimes sporadically set the speed to 30mph below the speed limit on a busy highway? What threat is it perceiving when it phantom brakes? > and more often brakes hard and late ... If you have the minimum distance set to 2 or 3 car lengths, you should not be complaining about late and hard braking- that's the setting you chose. I disagree here. As a human driver, I can prefer to follow someone "closely" (pretty sure I could fit 3 or 4 cars into Tesla's "2 car lengths"), but that doesn't mean I wait until I'm that far from them before I begin decelerating. There's no reason fundamental reason Autopilot can't do the same. > It also is annoying slow to recover back to cruise speed from a slow down. Fully agree. I think this pisses people off behind me more than the brake checking. > The phantom braking is annoying but infrequent I suspect this depends on what share of your driving is on divided versus two-lane highways.

progfix 4y ago

I find your attitude terrifying. I am glad you can handle your car now, but there are many thousand people driving those cars and they might not know how to deal with those "bugs". I am curious, are you currently holding Tesla stock?

throwaway894345 4y ago
Honestly it’s wild that so many people on this forum are making arguments about theoretical accidents that could happen when Autopilot has billions of miles driven and gets in 80% fewer accidents than the average US driver. The idea that we have to wait for Autopilot to be perfect means accepting hundreds of thousands of millions of accidents (including thousands of preventable deaths) that could be avoided. I find that attitude terrifying.

Delphiki 4y ago

2018 Model 3 with Enhanced Autopilot. I took a weekend trip from LA to Phoenix a few months back. I was in the left-most lane for a majority of the trip, and had ~10 phantom braking occurrences each way. It seemed to think the shadow of a car in the adjacent lane (where the shadow fell well into my lane) was something that needed to be avoided. It also doesn't infrequently highlight a car in an adjacent lane (or even exiting the freeway) as the lead car and slam on the brakes. I have follow distance set to 7 and it still slams the brakes way later than comfortable.

qsdf38100 4y ago
Would you still recommend Tesla after these experiences?
- Delphiki 4y ago
  I like driving, so I don't mind not using Autopilot as frequently as I have the opportunity to. And it's the most fun and best car I've driven. But honestly I hesitate to recommend it. Not because it isn't a great car, because it is, but because I'm growing more skeptical of Tesla as a whole in the past year: - extremely delayed timelines (Roadster, Semi, Cybertruck, etc) - focus on some robot thing - FSD vaporware/false promises - Elon's general immaturity - frequent price changes - supply chain shortages - etc It all adds up and I can't help but wonder if Tesla's initial market advantage is waning. I'm not sure there's another competitor that's caught up to them, but it isn't as clear cut as it was just a couple years ago.
hetspookjee 4y ago
It surprises me that even after all of tha you still consider using autopilot and seem to have accepted the phantom braking as a way of life.
- Delphiki 4y ago
  I mean, I pay full attention while the car is on autopilot, keep both hands on the wheel, and my foot over the pedals. Sure, that particular trip was pretty annoying, but my daily commute (~80 miles roundtrip) rarely, if ever, has any phantom braking occurrences, so I don't know that I would call it a "way of life".

gwbas1c 4y ago

> Tesla would just be to have a debug button where you can report and elevate the past 10 seconds of driving They do. Push the microphone button and say "Bug Report."

qsdf38100 4y ago
Lol. Tesla is really just beta testing in production. When software companies do that we say it’s bad. When Tesla dies this it’s ground breaking innovation. When my internet browser crashes no one dies.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  It’s because people are bad at reasoning. You don’t ban Autopilot for being imperfect, you ban it if it’s less safe than the average driver. However, Tesla’s crash rate is on the order of 10x better than the US average—assuming that carries over to the fatality rate pretty linearly, it would mean we could save 36k of the 40k lives lost each year to traffic fatalities if Autopilot were ubiquitous and mandatory. The idea that we should just sacrifice thousands of people until Autopilot is flawless is abhorrent and foolish.

solarkraft 4y ago

> My suggestion to Tesla would just be to have a debug button where you can report and elevate the past 10 seconds of driving. AFAIK they automatically collect data on disengagement.

silax 4y ago

Damn, lots of strawman rage in the responses. Remember that I'm still gripping the controls and looking out the window. I don't allow the system into any kind of corner case unless I am the only one on the road. Letting the computer attempt to drive straight on the highway while a practiced and skeptical driver is ready to take over does not feel like a blatant compromise of public safety. Every incident I've encountered was very easy to handle, with lots of margin for reaction. Hopefully everyone practices this kind of regard for others while still allowing emerging technology to have a path for safe testing in the real world.

remuskaos 4y ago

> But that said, once you learn the quirks it is extremely predictable and robust. I'm sorry, but this sounds like Stockholm syndrome to me. You admit that the car you're driving behaves unpredictably if you don't know it's quirks. But it still sounds like you're defending it. This would be intolerable for most other cars, of not outright dangerous. I'm not trying to attack you, so I'm sorry to be this direct: Why are you still keeping this anti-feature enabled? This sounds really dangerous.

throwaway894345 4y ago
It’s strictly safer than other cars. Autopilot’s accident rate is one per every 4.3 million miles versus 1 per 480 thousand miles for the non-Tesla US average. Autopilot is nearly 10x safer than the average US driver. It’s really a bummer to see how many commenters are making strong statements informed by neither data nor experience. This whole thread is well below this forum’s normal level of discourse.