Random breaking was prevalent with driving computer 2.5, which recently upgraded to 3.0. The "phantom breaking" is more general and is very dangerous. There have been locations where the vehicle behind me almost wrecked due to my car brakes slamming on out of the blue. I looked up the issue online and found the problem has been happening for years. My wife will not ride in my car now due to the fear of an experience when this phantom breaking accused while she was with me. I am using adaptive cruise less often and not using autopilot. The downside is that the car's efficiency is reduced when not using these "smart" features.
2017 Tesla Model S driver assistance complaints
Page 3 of 5: complaints 41 to 70 of 101, newest first, as owners wrote them.
numerous incidents of phantom braking on open unobstructed highway, causing potential rear end collision. Reported to Tesla on several occasions. Currently on my 3rd MCU(media control unit). Service scheduled with Tesla but I am not optimistic since it has been a persistent issue since owning the car in 2017
The issue occurred twice over the period of the past two months, both times I was driving on highway with Tesla autopilot enabled ( It is Adaptive Cruise Control), for no apparent reason the car hit the brakes, all vehicles driving behind me had to hit brakes or change lanes to avoid Collision. Both times I created service request with tesla and got no clear answer to why its happening, first time I was told it is because the exit on map was about couple miles from car location so car had to hit brake hard and change lane to make it to exit but car never tried to change lane, it just did hard braking. 2nd time I was told it happened due to wheel alignment not being accurate. After wheel alignment was done I reached out to tesla again but so far they can not confirm or deny if tesla autopilot is safe for me to drive. I was told to use autopilot at my own discretion. Are car manufactures allowed to sell hardware or software without taking responsibility for its safety ?
The contact owns a 2017 Tesla Model S. The contact stated that he received notification of the federal safety agency Campaign Number: 21V035000 (Back Over Prevention, Visibility, Exterior Lighting) and the vehicle was taken to the local Tesla Service Center for recall repair however, upon picking up the vehicle, the center display screen turned black and was no longer operative. The vehicle was taken back to the Tesla Service Center where it was diagnosed that the computer chip that allowed the vehicle audio and radio to operate needed to be updated. The dealer informed the contact that he needed to pay out-of-pocket for the repair. The vehicle was in the process of being repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 13,715.
I was driving north on I-5 in San Diego, in the right hand lane at 11:37pm, at 70mph with the FSD autopilot engaged. Approaching a gentle left hand bend in the road I spotted a disabled vehicle in the right shoulder with its hazard lights on and the driver door open. The car was fully off the road and was not a hazard. My car suddenly applied the brakes and did a weird “shimmy” as if it was trying to decide to make a turn. The autopilot did not disengage. My hands were on the wheel the whole time so I immediately took control and disconnected the autopilot by pulling up on the bottom-left control column stalk. The autopilot relinquished control as expected. I have not experienced any previous incidents of random autopilot braking on the freeway. This particular incident did not create an unsafe situation but the sudden braking did startle me. I tried to use the vehicle’s voice recognition system to file a “bug report” right after but it didn’t work.
Vehicle automatically and unexpectedly applies brakes when using Cruise Control when no other cars are in proximity or approaching. Sometimes braking is light but other times it is a jolt that is extremely starling. Often happens multiple times within minutes. Unpredictable when it will occur. I have taken the vehicle to Tesla 3 times and they say that they know about the problem but their Autopilot is still in Beta and are not actively working on a fix. On 4/28/2022, while on a trip, there were 5 incidents between 9:51am and 1:43pm.
Tesla has announced their intent to use "Tesla Vision" instead of radar to detect forward obstacles. "Tesla Vision" is a camera-only approach. Tesla cars receive OTA (over the air) updates, and these updates cannot declined. If an OTA update changes my car so that it no longer uses the radar with which it is equipped, I will have a much less safe vehicle, one that can't detect obstacles when there is poor visibility such as in the heavy fogs, rains, and snow conditions that we often encounter here on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. the federal safety agency should forbid the use of "Tesla Vision" without radar, and should require all Tesla vehicles to be retrofitted with functional, forward-looking radar.
On several occasions, I have been doing highway driving, and my 2017 Tesla Model S suddenly brakes without warning. It happens primarily on cruise control and around curves on the highway. On a trip to Atlanta earlier this year, it happened twice. I bought the car used in 2021, and it drives very well, but the unexpected braking at high speeds is scary.
I have experienced an increase in the number of phantom braking incidents when my autopilot is engaged. It's been on hilly roads but the car would just decelerate extremely fast when nothing was there. I also had two incidences on the highway where the screens froze and I couldn't control the instrument panels or see my speed etc.
The car had multiple computer issues causing it to break unexpectedly, turn unexpectedly, avoid things that were not there unexpectedly. It was brought into the dealer multiple times, who actually viewed the error, and when they were driving it, they were involved in an auto accident. Even with the warranty, they could never fix it, and it was amazingly dangerous almost killing me several times.
The 2017 Tesla Model S we purchased has a known issue with the MCU. The MCU rewrites information in a log chip repeatedly and has been known to burn itself out after short periods of time. Tesla has agreed to replace the MCU owners when it malfunctions, but they will only do so when the chip has completely destroyed itself and will no longer boot. Ours was malfunctioning every ~40 mins...all of our screens would black out while driving. Tesla refused to replace it. Additionally, we purchased Full Self Driving from Tesla with a contract that stated "all needed equipment and software included." This was not a true statement. Those of us with the malfunctioning MCU1 were not included in the FSD program and were forced to bribe Tesla with $2500 to update our MCUs even when they were under warranty and should have been included under the FSD contract.
While the tesla “traffic aware” cruise control was engaged (part of the “auto pilot” system), the car breaked aggressively for no good reason. This has happened 4 times over the 9,000 miles I’ve driven the car, always at freeway speeds. Although no injuries or damage resulted so far, serious injury could occur if a car is following me too closely when this happens.
Additional report for same problem with DIFFERENT car. This report is not about a single incident, but rather a REPEATED problem over several years with the adaptive cruise control on 3 different Tesla cars I have owned. These cars are a 2017 Tesla S, and 2 different 2021 Tesla Y models. in each case, whenever these cars are driven on a highway with the adaptive cruise control engaged, several times during each hour of driving, the cars will rapidly brake/decelerate with no action taken to cause the situation by the driver, nor any external situations with the traffic that would justify them. With the Tesla regenerative braking, these deceleration events are so extreme that it would be easy to imagine an accident with a car following closely behind. Indeed, with these situations occurring with no warning and extreme braking they are quite frightening to the passengers traveling in the car. During the most recent occurrence, I noted the exact day and minute of it's occurrence, and filed a service request with the local Tesla office. Even with the exact time of this event, the service center was unable to find anything wrong with the car. The Tesla service center attributed this issue to problems with the Autopilot and Full Self Driving software, but none of my cars have had this optional software-only the software which came standard on each of these cars. While otherwise appreciating the good characteristics of these cars, this unexplainable deceleration problem is what caused me to sell the prior 2 models before purchasing this latest model Y, hoping that this problem would not recur. It is worth noting that I have owned several other make and model cars with comparable adaptive cruise control, yet this situation never occurred even once on any of these other makes of cars.
Four separate issues to report: 1.) multiple instances of car braking while in self-drive mode. This has included driving at high speeds on highway and having vehicle slam on brakes nearly causing an accident. I took over as I was paying attention on all occasions. 2.) While is self-drive mode and a lane widens, car veers to “middle” of wide lane. This does not act in a way a normal driver would. 3.) Issues with middle screen stopping or resetting during driving. This was a reported recall issue and I did get the recall taken care of. Issue still persists. Tesla has not been responsive in getting this resolved. 4.) Recent issue with main screen panel behind steering wheel resetting while driving. Vehicle maintained operations, but I could not see speed or change gears while driving. This has happened before. Tesla updated CPU, issues persists.
Driving with autopliot engaged. I was in the left lane of a two lane highway when another car entered the highway to my right and car suddenly slammed on the brakes. i disengaged the autopilot. It happen several more time, so it is now a function I no longer use unless the highway is empty. I believe is was a $1000 option.
2/23/2022. Driving on highway with Tesla autopilot on and speed set to 65 MPH. Car was suddenly braking without any obstacle in front. Good thing that car behind me was quite a distance away, and I also noticed it slowed down immediately after seeing my car slowed down. This happened just after my Tesla model S with latest firmware update last week. The new firmware version is 2021.24.28. This is the first time I engaged autopilot after the firmware update.
I experienced the "Phantom Braking" phenomenon while driving on freeways. It has happened 3 or 4 times in the last year or so. I did not see any obvious reason for the car to have slowed down dramatically because there wasn't a car in front of me at such instances. it occurred while Autopilot was engaged. It has happened on different freeways (I-680, I-880), traversing in different directions and at different times of the day.
Ever since I purchased this car I have suffered from Phantom Braking when using Cruise Control. As a result, I am unable to use any of the advanced Autopilot features. I spent $10,000 for something that has never even begun to work. Phantom Braking occurs seemingly at random, with no vehicles in front, nothing on the road and no overpasses or shadows. I try every few months to see if anything has improved, most recently in January on 101 north of Petaluma. The car suddenly braked, freaking out my passenger. I only try it when no other vehicles are around, so that I am not rear-ended when it happens, after some very scary near-rear-ending events early on. I have reported this problem to Tesla on MANY occasions but after being told "it is a known problem" I have given up reporting it. Is it repeatable? Yes, just drive on cruise control. Safety risk is being rear-ended. Has the problem reproduced by service? No, has it been confirmed, Yes. Has it been inspected by Tesla? Yes Warnings prior to the failure? No
The contact owns a 2017 Tesla Model S. The contact stated that on three separate occasions while driving at highway speeds with cruise control engaged, the vehicle would suddenly brake on its own. The contact was uncertain if any warning lights would appear on the instrument panel prior to the failure. The service center nor the manufacturer had yet to be notified of the failure. The contact stated that he was able to document the exact time that the latest failure occurred on the vehicle. The vehicle had yet to be repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 48,000.
The brakes have engaged while driving at high speeds (perhaps on about a half dozen occasions) when using either the adaptive cruise control or auto pilot, at a time when there were no road hazards or other cars in the forward or side vicinities. The braking that occurred was severe - a hard braking if you will. On two occasions, this same kind of braking occurred at the same point on a certain freeway that I was traveling on. This braking also occurred once while driving on a city street at low speeds with auto pilot engaged. The dates in which these incidents occurred were all in 2021. The only specific time frame I remember was in July 2021
On at least three (3) separate occasions, my Tesla has automatically slammed on the brakes. Once it happened while driving on Hwy 101 in high speed traffic flow. I was passing a right side on-ramp and I believe the Tesla got confused when it saw a car approaching the highway from the merge lane on my right. One time it happened on Hwy 101 in a construction zone marked 55mph. Perhaps the auto drive cameras got confused by the poorly marked road and lack of lane markings as traffic merged. One of the times it happened in Santa Barbara on State St, in a 35 mph zone. In each of the above cases, *I was not in autodrive*. I was subscribed to Beta software updates, but after these scary incidents, I discontinued Beta and went back to Standard updates.
Since Tesla has disabled the radar, and went to vision only, my car is a nightmare to drive on autopilot or FSD on two lane roads at night. Phantom braking, numerous times it has went onto the shoulder thinking an oncoming car a 1/4 away was in our lane, twice it even went into the oncoming traffic lane. Never did this when radar was enabled. My car has radar but they turned it off in software update
Multiple times during our drive experienced random braking and alert sounds going off. Had wife and dog in the car which were also jolted forward due to the sudden braking in the middle of the freeway. Clear weather (post-rain) in night conditions.
My Tesla Model S has emergency braked several times on a divided highway when I was driving at about 65 mph. This has happened multiple times over the last 4 years. Sometimes it happens when I drive under a bridge overpass. Sometimes it happens if the camera sees roadwork equipment on the side of the road - no where near I'm driving. When this happens I'm always afraid someone is going to rear end me. I no longer use any of the self-driving features on my Tesla and do not enable the emergency braking option. I don't trust it.
My Tesla suddenly brakes, without any input or action by me, on the highway without warning causing me to take corrective action to avoid being rear ended. My wife refuses to drive with me. She feels unsafe in the car. I have submitted complaints to Tesla multiple times. The frequency of sudden braking has decreased but it still exists
When in Full Self Driving mode, on the highway going on an overpass.... the vehicle suddenly applies the brakes. Imagine going from 70 mph to 40 for no reason. I discussed with Tesla, they said the vehicle is reading the speed limit from the road below the overpass. Very unsafe.
My 2017 Tesla modes S has had a phantom braking for nearly five years. It usually occurs when the car is in cruise control and falsely identifies a vehicle (usually on the front right side) that isn't there. The sudden and rapid braking is disconcerting at best and dangerous at worst. Fortunately, I have not had an accident due to this sudden and inappropriate behavior. I have supplied this information to Tesla several times including dozens of "bug report" which is sent directly to Tesla when the incident occurs. Tesla has never fixed the problem.
While on I65N, traveling at full speed on cruise control but not auto drive, the vehicle automatically applied the brakes. There was no apparent reason to brake. There were no cars in front or to either side and nothing on the road. We slowed quickly and abruptly, throwing everyone in the car forward. The slowing was so fast and so extreme that we were almost rear ended by the semi behind us. If he had not been able to move partially into the right lane and us into the left, he would have hit us at 70 mph. This is not the first “phantom braking incident ” that we have had but it definitely is the most dangerous one.
While driving on the highway at 65mph on autopilot, the car brakes very aggressively without any obstacles obstructing my path. Clear road ahead and I got from 65 to 50 very quickly and for no reason. I won't accelerate back to 65, but again the car was aggressively braking me back down to 50mph. It begins to look like in brake checking the driver behind me and they become upset and drive aggressively around me. This has happened so many times, I've lost count. I'll fill out a single incident report, but this has been happening for the past couple of years. I know you guys are getting a lot of complaints about this issue so I wanted to let you know about another vehicle having the same problem.
In the last couple of months the incidences of random braking have increased. Usually this has been on the freeway when using adaptive cruise control and often when there are no other vehicles around. However last week I was driving manually (no cruise control or “self driving”) on a two lane road. My foot was on the accelerator pedal, and had been since the last stop light about a half mile before, when the car suddenly and vigorously applied emergency braking. I immediately pushed the accelerator to the floor to avoid being rear ended, but the car continued braking almost to a standstill before I had control again. There were no vehicles in front of me, however there were vehicles in the oncoming lane. They were not near the center line. I turned off the automatic emergency braking at that time because I felt it was dangerous to leave it active. I would additionally state that Tesla has a habit of rearranging the touch screen so that you no longer know where to find certain controls and is dangerous because it’s then necessary to take your eyes off the road to figure out how it works now. Finally, I’ve been driving Tesla vehicles since 2016 and I love them. I paid for the “full self driving” option years ago and a “beta” version became available a few months ago. This is not ready for prime time. If I wanted thrills I would go to an amusement park. Even more basic things like auto lane change often don’t work because the cameras are constantly getting blinded when the sun is low in the sky. Here in the north that is a good part of the day during the winter. I don’t see how their system can ever be made to work with the existing hardware. I wish there was a way to go back to a firmware version that worked better instead of them always tinkering with it. I feel like a guinea pig
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