2026 Tesla Model Y: adaptive cruise control problems

Filed Oct 12, 2026 · Acceleration, Driver assistance · CO

While driving on Colorado state highways with Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (and/or Autopilot) engaged, the vehicle repeatedly and unexpectedly decelerates rapidly from highway speeds of 75–80 mph down to approximately 45 mph. This occurs with no vehicles, obstacles, or other hazards visible ahead that would justify the slowdown. The deceleration is abrupt and feels aggressive. It has happened on multiple occasions during normal highway driving. I am forced to immediately override the system by pressing the accelerator to regain speed and avoid creating a hazard for traffic behind me. The issue occurs even in clear conditions with good visibility. This sudden braking creates a significant safety risk of being rear-ended by other drivers who are not expecting a vehicle to drop 30+ mph without warning. I have experienced this repeatedly and am concerned it is a safety defect with the vehicle’s cruise control / driver-assistance system. The problem occurs specifically when cruise control is active and does not appear to happen in the same way when I am fully controlling the throttle manually.

Filed Jul 28, 2026 · Driver assistance · 100 miles · CA

The contact owns a 2026 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving approximately 55 MPH with the cruise control engaged the vehicle lost automotive power. No warning lights were illuminated. The failure had occurred on several occasions. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and had received similar complaints; however, there was no fix available for the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 100.

Filed Jul 17, 2026 · Driver assistance · IN

On many occasions in the year we have owned our Tesla Model Y, we have experienced sudden, unexplained braking while using the Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC) feature. We have experienced several near-misses of cars or semi tractor trailers rear-ending us. These incidents were avoided by quick reaction of the Tesla driver to override the TACC. I have documented several incidents using the dash camera on the car and have assembled a spreadsheet of times and places of occurrence that correspond to the videos. One Tesla service representative dismissed my complaint by saying the feature is working as designed, so nothing further was done. A representative at a different dealership acknowledged that it is a known characteristic in the current firmware and they expect it to be addressed in a future software update. As I said, we have been experiencing this for over a year. It is a clear safety hazard, not only for the Tesla driver and passengers, but also for any vehicle following who has to react to the sudden, unexpected braking.

Filed May 24, 2026 · Acceleration, Driver assistance · IN

Adaptive cruise control slams on the brakes at highway speed alleging “curvature assist” on flat, straight roads. Dealer replaced firmware and problem persists. Defect appears to be inherent to adaptive cruise control

Filed Apr 22, 2026 · Driver assistance · CO

I have been a user of Tesla's "Full Self Driving" technology for four years. In one of the last major updates, the company removed the ability of the driver to manually set a "cruise control set point" to maintain a safe speed. Instead, they employed a new system with five "drive profiles," which included "sloth," "chill," "standard," "hurry," and "Mad Max." The problem is that only two of those stay anywhere near the speed limit. "Sloth" will go the speed limit, "Chill" is about 2 mph over the speed limit, "Standard" is about 7 mph over the speed limit, "Hurry" is 12 mph over the speed limit, and "Mad Max" is probably 15-17 mph over. Sloth and Chill will remain in the right lane, rarely passing another vehicle, but all the others will include lane changes. And all of these profiles DO NOT MAINTAIN A SAFE FOLLOWING DISTANCE. Users have been complaining about the cars tailgating, sometimes as close as 3 car lengths at 70 mph. However, sometimes conditions necessitate slower speeds...like Work Zones. I live near Denver, and I-70 has a work zone that will be in existence until 2029. The car doesn't recognize the 45 mph speed limit, bouncing back and forth between 45 and 65. FSD must be disengaged completely to follow the 45 mph speed limit. Which brings up the other problem. In many areas, THE SPEED LIMITS ARE WRONG. In Texas, there are areas where the speed limit is 70, and the car thinks it's 55. In New Mexico, the speed limit is 70, but the car thinks it's 60. THERE IS NO SPEED PROFILE THAT WILL MAINTAIN THE LEGAL LIMIT. Tesla also has a mechanism that's supposed to allow users to report problems, but some of these I've been reporting for over three years. They refuse to tell us where we can update the information (Grok says "HERE," Tom Tom, Open Street Maps), and they are NOT fixing the speeds on the maps.

Filed Apr 14, 2026 · Driver assistance · TN

The standard cruise control is extremely dangerous. The problem is what I hear is called ghosting. When driving using cruise, and there are no other vehicles nor any other objects such as animals or humans. The car will suddenly decelerate almost to the point of a complete if not overridden by manual takeover. I am under the impression that this is intentionally be done by Tesla, so that you will subscribe to their full self driving service. This can and WILL cause accidents in traffic.

Filed Apr 14, 2026 · Driver assistance · NY

Driving using Autosteer feature at 65mph on expressway, attempted to change lanes which caused the cruise control to suddenly turn off causing the car to begin braking hard with traffic behind it. Tesla’s new Model Y has combined the lane keeping and cruise control so if the lane keeping turns off the car suddenly brakes hard from the regenitive brakes. Lane keeping and cruise control should be two separate controls to prevent this issue.

Filed Dec 19, 2025 · Driver assistance · CO

When in self driving mode, which activates the adaptive cruise control, it is not possible to set the following distance. The following distance automatically selected by Tesla self driving is much too close to the vehicle in front of me. Tesla has removed the ability to set the following distance. It follows at approximately 2 seconds behind the car in front of me, regardless of my vehicle speed .... at 80 MPH 2 seconds is not enough time for a driver to react. Following distance should be controllable by the driver. Taking away this ability deprives a driver of driving within their own limitations.

Filed Dec 8, 2025 · Brakes, Driver assistance · TX

On several occasions, my Tesla Model Y has braked for no reason while using Traffic Aware Cruise Control as well as when using Autopilot. I can re-create this situation on the same parts of the highway. The sudden, uncommanded stopping creates a hazardous situation with the cars being me as I may get rear ended. At this point, I do not feel safe using Autopilot or TACC. I submitted a ticket to Tesla but they declined to work on it.

Filed Nov 28, 2025 · Acceleration, Driver assistance · CA

Incident date 11/27/25 Incident Location: CA State highway 101between San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles. Driving Conditions: Daylight/dry roadway. Description of Safety Defect / Complaint: During a single approximately 400-mile highway road trip, while using Tesla’s Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) feature enabled, the vehicle abruptly and forcefully applied the brakes on at least six (6) separate occasions without any apparent cause. On each occurrence: • No vehicle ahead was braking or decelerating, • No vehicle was merging or cutting in front of my vehicle, • No stationary or moving obstacles (including overpasses, road signs, or debris) were present in or near the travel lane, • The forward roadway was clear and unobstructed for a considerable distance. These sudden, un-commanded braking events were severe enough to cause significant deceleration, requiring me to immediately intervene by pressing the accelerator pedal to override the system. Due to the frequency and unpredictability of these phantom braking events, I no longer feel safe using Traffic-Aware Cruise Control or any Tesla advanced driver-assistance features that rely on the same sensor suite and software. I am filing this report because repeated uncommanded braking in highway traffic constitutes a serious safety hazard that could lead to rear-end collisions, particularly when closely followed by other vehicles or commercial trucks. Additional Information (if applicable): • Software version at time of incident: v12 (2025.38.9 fe 714a33a545) • Full Self-Driving Capability package: No. Enhanced Autopilot: No. • Any dashcam or Sentry Mode footage available: No I request that the federal safety agency investigate this recurring phantom braking issue in Tesla vehicles equipped with Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autopilot systems.

Filed Nov 20, 2025 · Acceleration, Driver assistance · MI

When using cruise control (traffic aware cruise control and autosteer) the car acts dangerously and stops for no reason. I've been driving on open roads with no traffic in front of me on regular roads, the car will slam on the brakes and it causes the people behind me to need to slam on their brakes as well. I feel like I'm going to get into an accident constantly... I was on the freeway and no one around in front of me and the car slammed on the brakes to almost a stop on a 70 mph speed limit road. Today the same thing occurred in high traffic on a 55mph road, luckily the driver behind me wasn't to close and was able to stop in time ... There is no option to use regular cruise control or disable enough features to prevent this from occurring... It's incredibly terrifying. If they can't do traffic aware cruise, there should be the option to do regular cruise... And it shouldn't require passing Tesla $8000 for full self driving to be able to drive your car at a speed without the that of being rear ended. This feels like extortion... I've submitted feature requests to Tesla, talked to their bot about fixing this and I've currently been on hold for almost an hour without any response. This dangerous tech is unacceptable!

Filed Oct 22, 2025 · Acceleration, Driver assistance · OH

Upon purchase of the vehicle, unlike previous models and versions of the software - the vehicle’s speed limit control was incapable of being set - instead, using FSD, you had to select from percentage based offsets - which were frequently ignored and would still go much higher or much lower than the percentage value set. The owner of the vehicle was unable to say limit to only 10 over the speed limit; instead it was percent based and not reliable. In addition, more than a third of the time - the speed limits in the infotainment system did not match the posted speed limits. Sometimes, in the middle of a highway - it would randomly go from 55 to 25, posing a significant threat hazard when using the FSD or cruise control system (which is something Tesla charges extra for access to) causing the vehicle to immediately decrease speed when other vehicles behind are getting up to speed and not expecting a vehicle to randomly slow down excessively. Additionally, when you manually override the speed limit control, or the system does, the user interface hides this limit so the driver is unaware of what limit of speed it is set to. These issues were already bad enough, but just yesterday my vehicle was pushed a software update that dramatically reduced the performance of FSD, and now I am unable to manually control the speed limit at all in FSD. This was a regression from purchase, when a scroll wheel at least allowed me to manually set the speed limit or correct it when it was wrong. Now, that feature has been removed and instead there’s a duplication of FSD profiles (left/right on the right scroll wheel does the same as scrolling up/down). And continuing this trend, the driver is incapable of seeing what the speed limit is set to because it’s hidden from the user interface. In addition, the driving behavior for FSD has significantly regressed from before the update. Cruise control’s most basic functionality should be to set a speed limit. Now this feature has been removed.