Assist problems of the 2023 Tesla Model Y - part 2

Tesla purposely disabled sensors to warn when close to objects (curb, other vehicles, garage door opening & wall). I wasn’t informed that there will be no parking assist feature indefinitely when I spoke to sakes dept. Tesla says it is still developing cameras to replace sensors. I had a 2015 Tesla, which had these warnings. Before that I had a2002 Jaguar with park sensors. It is not new. Because of lack of reliable sensors, I am afraid to use any of Tesla’s driver assistance features. I was told by service manager that sensors only “see” a few feet, while cameras can see infinitely. This is doubtful. But at this point, I have neither. In fact, when parking in tight places, “infinite” camera vision would be useless. Seeing that I’m inches away from an obstacle is useful. I have been told that when a car comes in for Tesla service and still has sensors, the sensors are removed without the owner’s knowledge.

Car braked aggressively and unexpectedly on highway in full traffic with autopilot (lane keeping cruise control) for no reason. Car in front was over 10 car lengths away and not slowing. Almost caused collision with car behind me but I took control immediately and hit accelerator. Night time driving - approximately 530pm on route 64/1 headed west in raleigh nc. My car is “vision only”. Extremely unsafe.

On the freeway with auto steer and adaptive cruise control on. I experienced 3 phantom breaking incidents over the last two weeks. The car suddenly drops in speed about 10-20 mph before I can catch it and turn off cruise control and accelerate back to the right speed. It’s super dangerous. We live in wa where it rains a lot and our car was delivered without any ultra sonic sensors. This was a big issue for me because we didn’t get a lot of the features I was expecting and they told me it would be fixed with full vision eventually. I think it’s false advertising since the test drives and a lot of things that sold me on the car were not there when I got mine. The breaking problem could easily cause crashes for us and is a big safety risk.

Autosteer mode, while generally helpful and which I use daily, abruptly brakes hard and/or pulls hard to the right when its computer program misinterprets a mere shadow as a threat. While I am sure your organization already knows this well. I believe this has strong potential to cause a driver to over-react and lose control of the vehicle. Addition of a radar sensor as an input to the existing algorithm similar to the chevy bolt for separately assessing/confirming this perceived threat could resolve the problem in milliseconds and preclude this risk. Understandably, Tesla management as judged this acceptable since adding this capability would raise its cost and reduce its market share in the increasingly competitive ev market. But as a former systems engineer and general manager manufacturing aviation autopilot computers, I strongly disagree and remain concerned about its potential to cause a serious/fatal crash. Thus, I offer another voice pressing for reconsideration by your public safety organization.