I have experienced the now well-documented "phantom braking" problems with my 2021 Tesla model Y. This happens on long trips when I use "Traffic-Aware Cruise Control." The problem seems to occur most often at the crest of a hill, especially if there is a guard rail.
2021 Tesla Model Y brakes complaints
Page 5 of 7: complaints 101 to 130 of 181, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Since buying the car 6/30/21 the automatic emergency braking has activated >300 times not once was it appropriate. We have had the car back to Tesla Service twice to repair the problem with out any improvement. It is only by luck that we have not had an accident. This is not an effective safety feature and it is increasing the likelihood of an accident. If Tesla cannot fix this it should be forced to deactivating the system
For the last few software updates and for a few months the vehicle will phantom brake and apply aggressive stopping in traffic for no reason when using cruise control, autopilot, or full self driving. Instances have occurred which has nearly caused us to be rear-ended by other vehicles. Additionally the car will turn aggressive when using passing lanes. We have experienced instances where the car will turn into a short right turn lane at highway speeds unexpectedly and then require immediate intervention or the brakes will be applied very hard. These situations are repeatable and occur frequently for no reason.
Vehicle brakes randomly at highway speeds while utilizing ADAS. Brakes hard and fast without warning.
The cruise control of Tesla is majorly defective after taking out the Ladar component as it is entirely dependent on cameras. Sudden or phantom braking has been so bad that sometimes I avoid using it. My most recent episode happened last weekend as I was driving at a two way country highway at 50mph to get to the interstate. I was headed south between 9 to 10am. The sun was on my left (east) and there was a truck approaching on the opposite lane. When the truck passed (I guess it cast a huge shadow as it blocked the sun on my left) the car slammed on the brakes. There was no warning. Luckily there were no cars behind immediately behind me, otherwise we would have been rear ended in a possibly fatal accident.
While using the ADAS the Tesla had several incidents of phantom braking. We would be going 80 and it would slam the brakes on and take us to 50. It did it several times on a drive from Dixon,CA to Flagstaff, AZ. There were no cars near or anything remotely concerning on the road at the time the incidents took place. We called Tesla and reported and they could find no codes or system issues.
We have noticed an increase in phantom Braking while using cruise control and/or auto pilot. Prior to November it would happen randomly and only on single lane highways. Now it happens every time we try to use cruise control. It is very dangerous as we may be rear ended it stops so fast with nothing in front of us. We have reached out to Tesla more than one time and they just suggest we disengage use if cruise control if we experience this random phantom braking. We have reported this is not rare or random it’s constant and every time we attempt to use this product we paid $10,000.00 for. We are not safe with this braking and Tesla basically says they are working on it.
While driving from Tucson to Denver the vehicle suddenly decelerated and/or braked no less than hundreds of times with varying rates--sometimes just a couple miles per hour and other times more than 30 miles per hour. These events were generally on a divided interstate highway with clear visibility, flat, straight roads without precipitation and oftentimes without another vehicle within 1/2 mile or more. These events even happened 3 times within 3-4 minutes while I was speaking to Tesla roadside service trying to disable all sensors/interventions. More than once there was a vehicle behind me at highway speeds that thought I was "brake-checking" them and would anger them and cause them to honk and give me a few finger symbols (road rage)... there was no reason for the car to suddenly brake; no cars merging or in front of me other than light vehicle traffic in the opposite direction of the DIVIDED interstate. I asked several times if there is a way to turn off all the "assistance" (unsafe interference) and just have it function as a normal cruise control without "traffic aware" and other automatic braking features--but the answer was no. I am not exaggerating when I say this happened hundreds of time during my trips. I always turned off the speed control when the roads were curving because I knew that it would suddenly brake during a mountain pass curve and upset the vehicle--make it difficult to control, and potentially cause an accident at high speed for NO reason. My risk tolerance is fairly high, I have been driving cars with "Eyesight" and radar speed control and advanced safety features for over 10 years and have never felt less trusting or less safe than I do now in my Tesla Model Y. I think Tesla should disable the "safety" feature until they can resolve the issue--I believe it will cause accidents even when someone is fully aware of its sudden, random braking issues. I have many video clips/pics of when the events occurre as Tesla asked me to record.
While driving 50-55 mph down a two lane highway, with adaptive cruise control in place, the vehicle suddenly slowed and signaled a front collision by beeping. It was terrifying as there was nothing in front of us. It was a clear day and we were lucky that there was no car behind us, as it could have easily caused an accident. We are now not wanting to use our cruise control or the autopilot that we purchased for this vehicle, until more is understood about the cause.
Phantom breaking occurring. Started Immediately after taking delivery of the Tesla. Usually occurs with auto steer activated. Has become progressively worse and now occurs while only using cruise control. I have had close calls on dozens of occasions, mainly with people almost rear ending me due to the sudden severe breaking. Occurs with no other vehicles on the road. Is worse when on 2 lane roads with or without approaching vehicles, on shaded roads and occasionally when raining. Has been occurring Since delivery on 5/28/21.
Car will suddenly brake hard when a pickup truck or semi truck is in the oncoming lane at highway speeds when adaptive cruise is engaged. This happens nearly every time a larger vehicle is in the oncoming lane, mostly only on two lane highways. Will also [XXX] occasionally brake for apparently no reason with adaptive cruise on. Tesla service knows of this problem and claims there is no fix. The hard braking happens every drive multiple times and nearly causes us to get rear ended by following cars. INFORMATION Redacted PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6).
I was on a road trip and no less than 20 times over 10 hours, my car when standard cruise control was set, the car applied the brakes HARD for me without any warning. It went from scary to nearly resulting in a rear-end collision. The cause ranged from absolutely no reason except for maybe a slight dip in the highway(? weird) to oncoming traffic - standard, nothing close to an emergency situation. I had ALL auto features disabled and was just using the set speed feature. I've submitted a service request but the next appointment is in two weeks and in the meantime, I'm frankly scared to drive the car. It happened at 70 miles per hour and immediately dropped me down to 40 on the highway and I just about had to take a break from driving I was so shaken. It also happens on local backroads when I have the feature set to just 35 miles per hour.
Vehicle engaged full automatic braking inappropriately while driving around 55 miles per hour on a two-lane Oregon highway. No traffic in front of me or any debris in road.
44E east of Joplin car braked hard while on autopilot. Pressing the accelerator would override but as soon as you let up it would hard brake again even though the car was below the cruise control speed
The contact owns a 2021 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving at various speeds, the vehicle suddenly experienced “Phantom Braking”. There was no warning light illuminated. The contact would depress the accelerator excessively to avoid a crash whenever the failure occurred. The contact had informed the manufacturer of the failure, however the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 1,000.
Frequent phantom braking events occur without warning in cruise control and range from light braking to very hard braking. This especially occurs on two lane roads and occasionally on four lane roads and rarely on freeways, but it does occur. For example, we recorded approximately 14 phantom braking events within 20 minutes on US 191 North in Utah (2/12/22), and 28 phantom braking events on US 6 in Utah (2:46 pm to 4:37 pm on 2/17/22). The "hard" braking occurs without warning and rapidly reduces speed by about 20 mph, which is extremely dangerous especially with traffic from behind when traveling the posted speed limit of 65 mph. The majority of observed phantom braking events will reduce speed from 5 to 20 mph. Phantom braking has occurred the entire time we have owned the vehicle (8/21)
While adaptive cruise control is enabled, the car will hard brake at random. The screen doesn't indicate why the car is randomly braking, not are there any other indicators as why or when this will happen. This occurs most often while going around corners, up hills, or when traffic is oncoming in the other lane. This happens on standard roads and highways - although highways are a little better as long as the opposite bound lane is separated by a wide median. Contacted Tesla support December 16, 2021 in which their reply was that "the car is learning... apply constant pressure to pedal in order to override braking system". I did try that for a couple of months, and instead of hard braking, it is a little gentler, but then I run the risk of going over the speed limit as constant pressure has to be applied ontop of whatever the cruise control is set to. Not too mention this defeats the purpose of having cruise control.
When car was in "traffic aware cruise control" on open highway it has multiple times unexpectedly braked hard when there were no vehicles or objects in front of it. Once there was a car behind me so I had to accelerate hard to avoid being rear ended. Once it may have been reacting to an oncoming truck in the opposite lane.
While using the adaptive cruise control on the highway, the car abruptly slowed down from approximately 70 mph to less than 55 within a few seconds before I was able to push the gas petal and reaccelerate. This has happened 3 other times in the last several weeks and I am now afraid to use the cruise control. Whereas no accident occurred, if it happened when another car was following me closely, it could have easily resulted in a crash. Each time this has happened, there were no other cars nearby so I don’t know what the car ‘saw’ and was reacting to. The date entered below for the incident is the most recent occurrence.
While I’m adaptive cruise control or Autopilot the vehicle has phantom braking which occurs. Vehicle will slam on the brakes for no apparent reason.
On a cross-country trip from Washington, DC to Oklahoma City on Feb 5th and 6th (Saturday and Sunday) I tried to use the "adaptive cruise control" for the first time. Terrifying. The car would be driving along at 80mph, and then it would suddenly slam on the brakes, seemingly without provocation... with a 30-35mph sudden deceleration (absolutely nobody/nothing in either of the lanes in front of me). This was not while using the "full self-driving" feature, as I did not pay the extra $10k for this functionality, only the adaptive cruise control. Another very disturbing thing was that when the adaptive cruise control was enabled, it would not allow me to turn off the windshield wipers... and every so often the wipers would just start frantically wiping despite only a small bit of rain hitting the windshield (again, disturbing, as it is very startling when it happens out of nowhere). Needless to say, after this happened 5 or 6 different times over these two days, I turned off adaptive cruise control and kept it off. Tried to contact Tesla service, but they kept dodging the issue so I stopped trying.
Car braked for now reason when the entire roads in front was clear and there was a car behind me. It was a hard brake which scared me and my family. That was very very close to being in an accident. Need compensation from Tesla for going through such an incident after paying so much money for the car.
Multiple phantom braking incidents using cruise control on 2 lane roads when there is no hazard
Car slams on brakes at inappropriate times. Ex: 1. When a car makes a left turn across my travel lane several blocks away. 2. When a vehicle moves into my travel lane, going the same direction, several blocks in front of me. 3. For no reason I can discern. Cars behind me often honk. Could easily rear end me. Thankfully hasn't happened. You are welcome to inspect it. Don't think service center has tried to replicate the braking. No accident so not reports. Just very scary, thankfully. No warning lamps, etc. Anticipating question about dates, happens randomly, but pretty frequently. At least weekly. Speed also variable. Sometimes 35, sometimes 70, and in-between
While using adaptive cruise control on I-25 making round trips between Albuquerque and Ft Collins, I have experienced numerous (dozens) phantom braking events. They are so frequent that I have stopped using adaptive cruise control. Almost all of these events occur when there is no traffic and no discernible reason for braking. In many cases, my first response is to look in the rearview mirror since I'm worried that if someone is behind me it would cause an accident since the stop is very unexpected. To date, there has not been a close call. The stopping varies between slight hesitations causing 1-2 MPH decrease to dramatic decreases of over 20 MPH. I have made numerous 'bug reports' using my voice in the car immediately after many of the events. I also scheduled a service call but was told that they examined the software and could find no problem. There is no warning of an impending braking event.
Phantom braking has occurred multiple times randomly when autopilot and cruise control are activated.
The car randomly brakes hard when the cruise control is on. It’s intolerable on roads with a lot of tree shadows or even clouds.
When using autosteer or adaptive cruise on I5, our car performed a phantom brake that cause the truck behind us to nearly flip over in order to miss hitting us. We were not in the lane by the divider, there were wide open lanes in front of us to the left and right by half a football field and no overpasses at the time. We slowed from 69 to about 39 before I could correct the braking. This happens so often we do not feel safe using the cruise control at all.
Per previously reported cases, by Tesla Y suffers from “phantom braking” when I am using adaptive cruise control at highway speeds. In general it will decrease up to 20MPH very suddenly. This is always in response to a falsely detected hazard; it will sometimes do the same when passing a vehicle that has exited an off ramp and has break lights on but is no longer in my lane of traffic. in general i drive with maximum 5-6 car lengths in my adaptive cruise control and this should not be happening. This has been an intermittent but ongoing issue through 2021; have not experienced in 2022 but have not done a lot of high way driving. Scares the heck out of my passengers. Love the car but please fix the software or it will be my last Tesla.
The contact owns a 2021Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving at approximately 72 mph on autopilot when the vehicle suddenly activated the braking system. The contact took the vehicle off of autopilot mode causing the vehicle to function correctly. The contact had not informed the dealer. The vehicle had not been diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware. The approximate failure mileage was 7,000.
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