Adaptive Cruise Control problems of the 2022 Tesla Model S

Vehicle: 2022 Tesla Model S (hw 3. 0) system in question: full self-driving (fsd) capability, initially purchased (level 1 equivalent) for $6,000, and then upgraded (level 2 equivalent) for an additional $3,000 (total $9,000). I. Initial fsd purchase and unsafe performance (level 1) upon initial purchase of the fsd package, the system (what Tesla later called fsd beta, or its precursor) consistently demonstrated unsafe and aggressive behavior that necessitated immediate driver intervention to prevent a crash. Specific safety concern: the system would often execute turns, both in city and highway off-ramp scenarios, with excessive speed and aggressive lateral acceleration. This erratic behavior felt uncontrolled and risky, frequently causing the driver to feel unsafe and to rapidly override the system by taking manual control of the steering wheel. Resulting risk: the system was virtually unusable for anything beyond basic highway cruising (a feature standard on many vehicles), yet its aggressive behavior posed a safety risk on the highway when attempting lane changes or taking exits. Ii. Upgrade and deterioration of practical safety (level 2) I upgraded to the top-tier fsd package with the hope of receiving a safer, more functional system that matched the "full self-driving" name. Instead, the system introduced new safety and usability defects: forced disengagement/driver monitoring defect: the system's driver monitoring is overly aggressive and interferes with safe, necessary driving actions. It delivers constant "nag" warnings and requires disengagement when the driver performs a brief but necessary safety check, such as looking at a side mirror, checking over the shoulder for a lane change, or briefly glancing at the car's screen to adjust climate/radio. Safety implication: this defect forces the driver to prematurely disengage fsd in complex traffic situations to avoid a warning/lockout, which is counter-productive to safety. I am effectively penalized for.

The update that you required for auto steer has made the car undrivable. I get a written and audible warning immediately when I engage auto steer. Literally within 2 seconds. I always keep my hands on the wheel, lightly, while I drive on the highway. Anything short of a death grip on the wheel causes the warning to go off. However, the nag feature (after the changes you required) goes off constantly. Honestly, it's very distracting. If I look at the radio to change the channel, the warning goes off. You need to undo the changes you required. It makes auto steer less safe, not more.

Car without obstacle will without warning execute a hard slowdown/stop. We have received the latest ota update and have disabled auto steering and fsd. These unplanned stops are incredibly dangerous when driving in traffic. They charged a substantial fee to enable fsd and we are afraid to use it which sucks but the fact that basic cruise control is so dangerous is criminal.

Tesla, in multiple cars that I own, has repeatedly changed user-preferences of user-selections, without warning, or update notes, for a variety of functions. This seems to be a consequence of sloppy software coding and seems to coincide with new software releases. In recent months, Tesla has attempted to inform people of new software update functionality with ‘release notes’. However, these notes seldom, if ever, explain that a user’s preference is getting discarded (though could be restored -- if the user were aware). One example, is the operation of ‘traffic aware cruise control’ was changed from a double click of a scroll wheel to a single click. No release nor or manual page was called out to indicate the change — at least prior to this driver’s noticing and diagnosing the problem. Nor was any pop-up message explaining the new, and surprising functionality of a ‘double-click’ — which was to momentary activate and deactivate tacc. Other functions that get changed, without notice: 1) operation of automatic windshield wipers is deactivated (and set to ‘manual) — from the user-preference of ‘auto’; 2) auto park chimes sounds are turned off — despite a user-preference setting them to 'on'. These changes to the ui, necessitating guesswork using the large glass screen, prove to be highly distracting to a driver in the midst of driving. In addition, these undocumented and un-communicated changes lead the consumer to contact Tesla and even setup ranger service to make a repair for what ends up being a sloppy manual — to the detriment of Tesla’s effectiveness of their service department. If Tesla cannot make the user interface operate in a coherent manner day-to-day, there is no hope that any alleged full self driving will avoid reverting to some unknown configuration on unknown time scales. Perhaps Tesla should repurpose engineers that make video games for the car to the purpose of regression testing to avoid surprises like these.

Phantom braking continues to be a problem. I've never had it happen in the city or in traffic. I also owned a 2015 Tesla ms that never had a phantom braking problem. For me pb has always occurred on a freeway with no traffic around at all. No overpass involved. Suddenly tacc thinks it must apply the brakes. Surely at least Tesla could log this kind of event and fix it. It's aggravating for me as a driver and terrifies passengers.

When using traffic-aware cruise control at normal highway speed, on regular, clear days — including when there is no glare — the system often brakes abruptly, despite the absence of obstacles or even shadows that could be misinterpreted as obstacles. This is extremely dangerous, and it has happened (1) when there are no other vehicles on the road, and (2) when the only other vehicle on the road is directly behind me. The latter scenario is particularly dangerous. Notably, the only cruise control available is traffic-aware cruise control. There is no ‘basic’ cruise control, which means there is no way to avoid this scary phantom braking other than by not using cruise control at all. I have tried disabling all adas automatic braking features, yet this phenomenon still occurs. This has been occurring with all software up to date. I am scared that my car is going to kill me.

We had the adaptive cruise control, turned on and the car braked violently on I 90 in washington state heading east. The brakes slammed on so hard that the tires screeched. We were in the fast lane and it was fortunate that no one was directly behind us or there would’ve been a serious accident. It happened again about 5 miles later, but not as violently.

While utilizing the car’s cruise control (traac) and the advanced autopilot features, the car brakes often, unexpectedly and without warning when there are no hazards or vehicles in its path. This is a well documented problem called “phantom braking” involving Teslas. My experiences include traveling on straight open highway with no other vehicle’ within hundreds of yards. Scary and unsafe.

Sudden braking while using adaptive cruise control. Multiple “phantom braking “ incidents during a long road trip.

The traffic aware cruise control disengaged suddenly and unexpectedly multiple times during highway driving and rapidly decelerated from 70 mph to 35 mph. This occurred several times on a clear freeway without any obstructions or any basis for disengagement and placed vehicles behind at risk due to the sudden deceleration.

Malfunctioning system: autopilot, self driving. The vehicle is available for inspection. We were put at risk following having several 'near miss' incidents. None of which resulted in an accident. The 2022 Model S plaid with less than 2,929 current miles as of this entry, while being driven in daylight & evening hours on major freeways and interstate roads in central & southern California while using the "autopilot" full self driving (fsd) has multiple times for no apparent reason & without warning suddenly 'panic' braked the vehicle from freeway speeds to less than 30 mph. In one instance this caused the late model vehicle following us to take immediate evasive action and swerve into the adjacent lane without warning and then the vehicle honked continuously at us while passing us to our left. On each of the occasions I have had to override the autopilot by pressing on the accelerator pedal as soon as I realized what was happening! on other occasions when in 'autopilot' self-driving mode, the vehicle has attempted to change lanes to exit the highway without awareness of how close the vehicle was to the end of the exit lane. Again I had to override the autopilot by turning the yoke back into the lane to avoid running into barriers. I had believed that because this is a 'beta' version that these conditions were being worked on and would be corrected with a software update. I have had numerous software updates installed. The current version is 2022. 44. 30. 10. For this reason, I have not reported these incidents to the manufacturer or made an appointment with the local Tesla service center. The problems continue even with the current software update. Until recently, I was unaware of others having these same issues or that significant injury, death, damage, have occurred. However, since being made aware of this problem, I chose to report my experiences. I will follow-up and make an appointment with the manufacturer to have the vehicle inspected.

Driving midday on interstate 90 at 78 mph. The car was in cruise control. Four passengers. No other cars in front of me. Luckily there were no cars directly behind me. The car violently slammed on the brakes. My passengers thought I had hit a dog. Very scary. I am glad no one was hurt. But it is dangerous. I think the car had a recent software update. I have heard that the phantom braking issue can be worse right after a software update.

Recurring uncommanded firm phantom braking for no apparent reason. At risk of being hit from the rear. Driver & passengers frightened & panicked. It has occurred a number of times but cannot be reproduced at will. Vehicle inspection has not been performed. Dealer says it's a software issue. No warning lamps, messages or any other symptom prior to event. Event has recurred multiple times.

While adas is engaged, vehicle occasionally suddenly breaks and disengages while the road is clear and obstruction free. This happens frequently.

I was driving my Model S from oregon to texas, 14-16 Sep. The car was new, picked up on 31 Aug. I had the car in autopilot when I was on the highway on the drive to texas. In the first two days I had four incidents of "phantom braking" at highway speeds, as high as 80 mph. There was not a lot of traffic those first two days and the conditions were dry so there was little risk to others and the car stayed straight during the braking. However it's not hard to imagine scenarios where unexpected braking at high speeds could be a problem, such as during wet or dusty road conditions, driving into a high speed turn with other vehicles nearby, etc. The vehicle has not been inspected but the incident has been reported to the dealer and I am awaiting guidance.

The adaptive cruise control will erroneously do a hard stop for no reason. This could cause an accident if someone is following me. The owners manual has a disclaimer / warning and Tesla states this feature is beta. They (Tesla) need to step up and fix this issue.

While driving with traffic aware cruise control engaged and set at 55 mph the car did a hard break to an almost complete stop in the middle of the lane for no apparent reason. This occurred at least two times and both times there was no traffic in front of me. The road was a two lane highway. There was oncoming traffic and cars behind me but no cars in front of me. The breaking was so hard on both occasions and it startled me and caused me to veer off the road in the first instance . The car behind me had to break suddenly as well. After the second occurrence I disengaged the tacc as it seemed to be sensing the oncoming traffic.

I have quite a few incidents with fantom breaks on my Tesla. Two night ago I almost caused accident as my Tesla breaked for no reason. Many incidents happened before in the month.

I was driving to the airport at 4:00 am in the morning. I was on c470 going past santafa exist and had the cruise control set to 70mph. As I was just passing the exit the cruise control setting dropped to 45mph and the car broke hard for no reason. The cruise control setting was not set to the actual speed. This has happened on 4 other occasions while driving on the highway. This is very scary and very dangerous to any car that might be following me. I told the Tesla service person and they said, that it is called phantom breaking and they are aware of it, and if it happens again to just control the speed with the pedal. Doesn't seem like a good solution.

We experienced between 10 and 15 phantom braking events on highway 395 between carson city and apple valley California. We also experienced phantom breaking a few times during the trip back along highway 101 in California. The events occurred only when the car was in adaptive cruise control and in basic self driving. Braking was alarmingly strong in two or three cases, and could have resulted in an accident if someone had been following behind us . Other phantom breaking was moderate to barely noticeable. These events occurred when there were no other vehicles in the immediate vicinity of the car. Some occurred with no vehicles anywhere in sight. Conditions were 100%, in daylight, no fog or dust obstruction, a brand new clean car, and no other known impacts. The car was simply being driven on a highway with two lanes going in each direction. In most cases the opposing lanes were separated by large medians between 50 and hundreds of feet apart. When self- driving and adaptive speed control were off there were no incidents of this phantom braking. As I mentioned before this is a brand new Tesla s. This car was received on June 30th. It was on its first road trip when these events occurred.

I just completed a round trip from minneapolis to oregon. During cruise control, the vehicle frequently suddenly braked at highway speeds for no apparent reason. This was extremely dangerous a few times. I have put in a service request with Tesla.

During our first road trip with this auto, we traveled along I-76 and I-80 on clear days; after setting the "traffic-aware cruise control" (aka adaptive cruise control), the car would brake randomly and for no apparent reason (such as approaching a car ahead of us). This happened so frequently as to make the feature useless during much of the drive. At other times during our trip, the cruise control would seem to work for a while, then start with random braking. On two-lane highways, though it didn't seem to regard oncoming cars in the opposite lane as a hazard (that's good), it still engaged in random braking when no cars were anywhere in sight. Once again, we'd just turn off the feature, as it became more of a safety hazard than having any benefit. Certainly, any cars that might have been behind us would have been endangered by unexpected braking, and had road conditions been at all slippery, such as on ice, it could have been downright dangerous. I'd rather that Tesla reverted to a "traditional" cruise control, where we can set the speed and then be responsible for managing braking situations.

Phantom braking: I was driving northbound on the I-5 highway south of sacramento, California using cruise control and traveling at the 70 mph speed limit on September 14, 2022. At approximately 2:50 p. M. , I moved from the right lane into the left lane by using the turn signal to execute the lane change. Once in the left lane, the car immediately began violently applying the brakes. There was a car behind me that appeared as if it was going to rear end me. I pressed on the accelerator pedal which allowed me to regain control over the vehicle and avoid being hit by the vehicle behind me. The weather was clear and visibility was excellent. There was no apparent reason for the emergency braking system to become operative.

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model S. The contact stated while driving 35 mph in inclement weather with no other vehicles nearby, the vehicle came to an abrupt stop. The contact stated that the brakes were applied without driver input. The contact stated that the emergency stop message was displayed during the failure. The contact stated that on another occasion, while driving 45 mph, the vehicle suddenly stopped. The contact had since stopped using the forward collision avoidance: adaptive cruise control. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was approximately 50,320.