While driving on the highway from philadelphia to allentown using I-476 north i was driving using cruise control and the car suddenly applied brakes ( phantom braking) there was no one either in front or sides or behind me. No accident happened
2020 Tesla Model 3 brakes complaints
Page 2 of 3: complaints 11 to 40 of 48, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Driving on the freeway with the adaptive cruise control set to 78 mph. Traveling in the #1 lane, medium traffic, no vehicles in front of us for a while (in our lane or the #2 lane next to us). Roadway was dry, sun was overhead at that time of the day. Weather said it was 72 outside, so not excessively hot. While nearly cresting the top of a slight incline, the car hard-braked, taking the speed from 78mph to 58mph for no obvious reason. (Thank heavens the car behind us was following at a safe distance and was able to brake, too.) There was no debris on the roadway or any other reason why the car would need to brake. Suffice to say that we deactivated the adaptive cruise control for the remainder of the journey.
While driving on the freeway, my 2020 Model 3 “phantom braked” multiple times while using the cruise control. No autopilot for lane keeping assistance. There were no cars in front of me or any hazards. The pavement was pretty new. I was using this feature earlier in the trip with no issues then it started all the sudden with multiple incidents in a short amount of time.
While driving on the freeway I5 in central California in the middle of the day there were no cars in front of me and the vehicle went into sudden PHANTOM BRAKING mode. I was driving at 75 MPH and it suddenly went into hard braking. Extremely dangerous. The vehicle behind me had to swerve around us. We could have been killed. I was using the cruise control but NOT the Enhanced Autopilot. This needs to be fixed. We escaped severe injury or death by sheer luck
Had cruise control on and “phantom braking” occurred about 10 times on a 22hr trip from California to Oklahoma. Very scary. Car went from 80 to about 40mph in seconds. How is this even possible for Tesla to have these vehicles on the road? I’ve only had the car for 2 weeks.
The contact owned a 2020 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while pulling into the driveway and depressing the brake pedal, the vehicle failed to respond, accelerated unintendedly, broke through the garage door, and crashed into the vehicle parked inside the garage. The other vehicle moved away and damaged the garage. There was no warning light illuminated. The air bags did not deploy. The contact shifted into reverse (R), pulled out of the driveway and shifted into drive (D). The brake pedal was depressed but the vehicle failed to respond. The contact stated that he hit the curb to stop the vehicle, and the vehicle stopped. The contact stated that all the air bags then deployed. The vehicle failed to unlock. The contact rolled down the windows and cried for help until the neighbors arrived and opened the vehicle from the outside. The contact sustained bruises on both arms, and the contact's wife sustained bruises on the right shoulder and on the left leg. Both the contact and his wife received medical assistance. There was no police report filed. The vehicle was towed to a third party it was sold to. The other damaged vehicle was totaled. The manufacturer was notified of the failure, but no assistance was provided. The failure mileage was 9,600.
on July 19,2022, when I was driving on driveway, at less than 5 miles, I tried to stop to drop my wife and applied brake. Instead of brake, due to computer mal function, it accelerated & hit the garage door, broke the garage door, door fell on the car parked in the garage, damaged that car,and tesla automatically reversed. while reversing brake wasn't working too so I tried to put in drive & brake still was not working so to stop the car for safety, I hit the curb in my front yard All airbags were deloyed, inuring both of us. All doors were locked & we couldn't open any of them. We could open windshield. We shouted HELP and my neighbor came & open the door from outside so we could get out otherwise we both could be dead inside the car
When driving on a longer trip, I have repeated sudden deceleration and sometimes harsh braking when using cruise control. This has also happened in normal daytime hours with no traffic around me on rural interstates. On my last trip, I had to keep my foot on the accelerator to keep the car at a constant speed. It is unnerving to me and very scary for passengers. It has made it impossible to use cruise when I have passengers. Tesla has said there is no hardware issue and have declined to service the car.
Hard Phantom braking incident when using cruise control with no vehicles ahead or next to me.
This is the first and only time this has occurred as of today, 1/1/23. Around 11:45am EST, I was driving down a side street with no traffic coming towards me, behind me, or in front of me (and with no objects in the road). Suddenly, my brakes were aggressively applied and a warning came up on my screen saying it was the Automatic Emergency Braking that had been applied. It then released a few seconds after. I do not have the Autopilot option on my car, and I did not have any type of cruise control engaged at the time. If this had occurred in traffic for no reason it easily could have caused an accident.
This vehicle has the phantom braking issue whether you are using adaptive cruise or autopilot, and has happened at least 15 times in the past two years. Because of the sudden braking, we almost had a collision with a semi-truck coming up behind us on I-5 heading south the last time and the driver thought I was brake-checking him, making him very angry and giving obscene gestures at us for it. We reported it to the Tesla service center, and they basically said it happens, and they disclosed it in the operator manual. That is unacceptable. This is very dangerous, and lives could be lost in the circumstance where someone is following close behind. Tesla basically is saying it can happen and there is no fix which absolutely unacceptable and this car is dangerous to drive.
When using autopilot cruise control, the car will brake hard for no apparent reason. I only use cruise control on limited access highways. When this happens, I immediately disengage cruise control and drive manually. This can happen at any time. I have driven the car cross country several times, driving all day. Some days it won’t happen at all, and on some days it can happen several times. I’m concerned that if someone is close behind me, they could hit me from behind. This has been happening for the past two years
Ever since a recent software update was downloaded and installed, my Model 3's incidence of "phantom braking" events while using traffic aware cruise control/autopilot has gone up by a very noticeable degree. It has always been a known issue, however since the redundant safety systems (radar and ultrasonic sensors) on my model year vehicle were disabled by one of the recent updates, phantom breaking events that can possibly CAUSE a collision event or loss of control of the vehicle happens far more frequently. Instead of occurring once every 1000 or so miles, it now occurs two or three times every 250 or so miles, judging from performance on recent cross-state road trips. My car does not use the "Full Self Driving" package that Tesla offers.
Phantom braking when using cruise control. Happens practically daily, but most recently this morning at 9:25am.
I was driving on a deserted highway on Interstate 395 heading from LA to Mammoth Lakes. There were no cars behind or in front of us. I first put the Tesla into Auto Steering mode, and things were fine for a while. Then I experienced "phantom braking" with no warning. The car started to brake on its own, and then I disengaged auto steer and drove manually. About 30 minutes later, I put the car into simple "cruise control" and things were fine for a while. Then again with no warning, the car started to hit the brakes. I disengaged the cruise control and took over again. In both cases, there was nothing around us. The weather was clear and sunny. This shouldn't be happening. There was a recent Tesla software update where Tesla apparently discontinued its use of 'radar" for the auto steer and is only relying on the car's cameras. I don't know if this is the cause of my recent phantom braking, but this is concerning to me as it is a safety problem especially if there were any cars behind me.
The other driver hit the rear of my tesla model 3 which cause the car accelerate fast about 40-50 miles, the brake is not working either. I can not brake or slow down the car.
The car has regenerative breaking where the car is supposed to slow down when you lift your feet off the accelerator. Since a new update, some times (10%), when you lift off the accelerator the car does NOT slow down and will maintain speed. This inconsistent behavior is extremely dangerous and you don't know if the car will slow down or not. Tesla refuses to acknowledge this is an issue.
Phantom braking: While driving down the highway for no apparent reason the car brakes and one time we had a car behind us that almost hit us. This is very dangerous and Tesla need to fix this asap. This has happened multiple times since around March 2022. The passengers in the car are slammed forward without any warning. Today was the scariest because we were almost rear ended and my 6 year old granddaughter was slammed forward. This is unacceptable.
Cars computer froze and I was stuck in cruise control. Hitting the brake would not disengage. Pressing up on the stalk would not disengage. I could manually slow/accelerate the car with the brake/accelerator but after letting off the car would continue on at that speed while everything else remains frozen. No turning signal function. I was afraid to attempt to stop the car fully as it would not disengage. Screen eventually went black and reset after what felt like forever. Functions returned to normal.
My car when passing under signs or on two lane undivided roads will hit the brakes very aggressively. It’s difficult to reproduce and catches me and other drivers by surprise. The car didn’t do this during my first year of ownership, but now it happens several times a week. This will happen when using cruise control and autopilot. To me it’s rendered both features unusable.
Sporadically when driving at highway speeds, car will experience an error. Steering assist IMMEDIATELY decreases (wheel harder to turn), cruise control (if enabled) will disengage, and following Error codes appear on flatscreen : - Vehicle Hold Feature Unavailable - Tire Pressure Monitor System Fault - Automatic Emergency Braking Disabled - ABS (Anti-lock brakes) disabled - Regenerative Brakes Disabled - Steering assist reduced - Traction control disabled Unsure of which component is at fault. Tesla Service center (Norfolk VA) has pushed off appointment for more than 30 days but has acknowledged that there is an issue. SAFETY: Loss of ABS is a major safety risk to occupants. Loss of steering assist also puts driver and others at risk due to increased steering effort. Loss loss of regenerative braking also a safety risk due to the instantaneous change of vehicle braking behavior when regenerative braking switches off.
The emergency automatic brake, cruise control and auto pilot feature gets disabled frequently. All 3 features gets disabled at same time. Contacted tesla service center in decatur-GA. They are saying they cannot find the problem and hence cannot solve it. They say the engineers are looking into it, and my car needs a firmware update. No estimated time to fix these issues is given. The service center advised that the car is safe to drive! Please help. Thanks.
While driving at highway speed, the vehicle's automatic emergency braking unexpectedly activated, without cause or warning, which caused a very rapid deceleration of the vehicle. Fortunately, the traffic on the highway was light and no other vehicles were around, but this "phantom braking" had the potential for a major collision. This is the first time this has happened on this vehicle. The vehicle has not been inspected by the manufacturer and there were no prior warnings.
My car has experienced phantom braking for no apparent reason when on cruise control or auto pilot. Tesla claims to have to looked at the cars programming remotely and found no problem. I took the car to a Tesla dealer for a seat belt recall and asked them to also repair the phantom breaking. Again they said that they found nothing wrong with the car.
Countless times, while driving on a two lane highway at speeds from 45-70 mph while on adaptive cruise control, the car unexpectedly braked when a vehicle was in the oncoming lane. This became so much of a problem that I needed to keep my foot on the accelerator if there was a car or truck in the other lane. It was dangerous because a car following me could have run into me or I could have skidded on ice. This has been happening for about a week. I think it is called phantom braking.
Car will brake without any warning and with not reason to brake. Many complaints I’ve read online call this phantom braking. It has happened over ten times now and can be extremely dangerous as it will brake the car almost instantly and I have almost been rear ended because of it. Only matter of time before this happens and it results in a wreck.
automatic braking happens for no reason. Happened multiple times on freeway .
On Tuesday 2/1/2022 approximately 9:20am EST, as I was sitting in a stop-and-go traffic, as the traffic was freeing up and started moving going roughly 5 to 10 mph, the vehicle automatically applied phantom brake - with a notification of emergency braking applied. I was not on cruse control or autopilot. i was in full control of the car yet it suddenly applied the ebrakes nearly causing someone to rear end me since the traffic had started moving.
Car decides to apply brakes for no reason
There are two problems: (1) braking and (2) windshield wiper operation. (1) Braking: When driving on a highway and going by an on-ramp on the right side, without any warning, the vehicle would, al of a sudden, slam violently on the brakes, even though the cars entering the highway are nowhere near where I would be driving. This has happened repeatedly to me, creating a hazard of a rear-end collision. The Tesla Model 3 in such cases would already be in a mode that would drive itself (by me having clicked on the right stalk twice). Additionally, the car often misreads a traffic sign for a different part of the road, such as a stop sign for a side road. The violent braking would take place in such a scenario also. (2) Windshield wiper operation: I'm not sure if this would qualify as a safety issue, but the windshield wiper operation doesn't work in automatic mode. I rely on this while driving in a rainy or snowy day so that I can concentrate on the driving itself without worrying about something else to do (turning on the windshield wipers). This is problem that has plagued the car right from the beginning, and to me, it presents a safety hazard. For example, about a week ago, I drove in bad weather (snowy) on a turnpike to get to a medical appointment. The weather turned bad, and cars would pass me by, splashing water/snow onto the car's windshield. The automatic mechanism should have kicked in to help me focus on the driving, but it did not.
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