Dateline, Düsseldorf! In a move that’s sure to ruffle some feathers at Tesla HQ, a German court has officially ruled that Tesla’s Autopilot system is “unsuitable for use” due to a long-standing issue: phantom braking. You know, that fun little quirk where your car slams the brakes for no reason.
As a Model 3 (2024) driver, I fully agree! Meanwhile I finally nailed down a little over half the instances where it might phantom brake, so I’m more prepared. A common theme is cars moving within their lane while driving next to them. Even if they don’t cross the line into my lane, the car will still brake abruptly.
Why bother having cruise control if you cannot use it comfortably and always have to rest your foot above the accelerator anyways?
This is then only regarding phantom braking. Another dangerous thing is the automatic speed adjustment of the cruise control. I have this set to “off”, but the car seems to completely ignore that setting. It happened multiple times that the car changed set speed, both up and down. Imagine driving 130 on cruise and the car sees a sign that says “90 when asphalt is wet” but it’s dry. The car thinks it’s 90 and slams the brakes.
All I want is just dumb cruise control for cruising and traffic aware cruise control in traffic jams, is that too much to ask?
While looking for my latest car, I tested a Kia Ceed. In the 10 minute test drive, it phantom braked 3 times. All the dealer about it and he said “better safe than sorry”. Ended up with a Skoda that once in a while slows down on adaptive cruise control when the car in front of me taking the off-ramp, while the motorway is turning left. Emergency braking seems to only do its think when there’s a reason - so far the car and I have slammed the break at the same time, every time there’s been a reason.
My Škoda Fabia has - in less than a year - hit the brakes twice in situations where it shouldn’t. Granted, both times someone in front slowed down to leave the lane, so it’s not “phantom” breaking, but the situation was completely safe for me, not though, for the people driving behind me. Cruise control is slowly regaining my trust, but those incidents left me alert. Normal reduction of speed is working fine though.
I have a model 3 and been driving it for 6 years now, +75K and even though I don’t have FSD, only the original Enhanced AP, I can say the phantom braking is still absolutely terrible and there’s two spots on my daily drive that it will reliably phantom brake and where this happens at least two or three times in my annual 900 mile trip.
How is that not worthy of an NHTSA recall? I wonder if they are investigating it.
Don’t mention NHTSA or else DOGE will hit that too. Only to save money of course
We sure that phantom isn’t the musk in the machine?
Looks like you’re a domestic terrorist. We might make a mistake and accidentally get you evolved in a car accident.
its all the the monkeys he used with neuralink chip.
I’m not defending Tesla or phantom braking, but German drivers could also take some lessons on safe following distance. They will ride on your ass for many km even if they don’t want to pass you.
Did you follow the Ludacris rules for left lane usage? Because I so enjoyed my time driving there and did not feel that I was tailed nearly as much as I have here in America.
Ludacris rules for left lane usage
Move bitch, get out the way?
Is there a place in Europe where that doesn’t happen? I’m riding an articulated bus tailgating someone in the leftmost lane on the motorway in Belgium right now
Well yes, you will be constantly tailgated on the left (fast) lane unless there’s traffic ahead of you.
Scoot over and let me break the speed limit in peace, or do you need me to TURN ON MY LEFT BLINKERS? (which by the way has got to be the most aggressively polite way of raging at someone in traffic)
I have only driven in 2 countries in Continental Europe, and I have mostly traveled by train otherwise. You could be right. It happens in the US but by a smaller subset of drivers. Those drivers would generally be considered assholes in the US, whereas in your example they’re probably just being Belgian.
Make elon (Tesla) accountable for accidents/deaths, and I bet they’ll either disable it or make it work (which I think is a long way off).
Expect Vance to threaten war with Germany over this
Trump’s talking about 25% tariffs on automobiles.
Not defending Tesla, but phantom braking is an issue on a lot of new cars, even without autopilot. It’s the Advanced Emergency Braking System (AEBS) that is now required in the EU. I don’t think any manufacturer has figured out a way to make it 100% reliable yet.
Yeah, my Subaru does it once in a while, although not enough to compliment. My Tesla never has
Thousands of 130kph highway kilometers in my Polestar 2 on adaptive cruise control without a single phantom braking. You are claiming things without evidence.
You literally are defending Tesla.
No, I’m saying Tesla’s system sucks, but other manufacturers also should also get their shit together because it’s a general problem.
nah, your just making things up, no other car manufacterer has as much problems as teslas, you pointed out 2 isolated instances on your part and not part of a whole recall. you’re attributing teslas problem is the same as every other automaker, not even close.
My guy, I used work for a large manufacturer up until recently. The problem is very real and we got complaints every other day. Just because there’s no recall doesn’t mean there is no problem. The Tesla thing is obviously different because they rejected the self driving application on these grounds, which only one manufacturer even offers in Germany.
We cant even get cars to not freak the fuck out and set off alarms for an iced over sensor or a pothole, those sensors have no business having control over the brakes
I wanted to ask about this: automated braking for pedestrians is a new safety requirement for new cars in the USA, which means it must be safe enough as a mature technology. Is the Tesla self-driving doing something different? Why does the automated braking for pedestrians system not have the problem of spurious braking at speed?
“which means it must be safe enough”
What makes you think this?
Because I trust the regulating authorities to be professionals and do due diligence on their new proposed regulations. This is why we have a government.
Someone who’s more knowledgeable than me might have access to the documents behind their decision to independently verify.
depends on which regulating agency you put your trust in. Laughs in American freedom where even the cybertruck is allowed on roads.
Zero phantom braking events in 2.5 years and 27k miles of Taycan ownership. Some during very low speed tight quarters parking situations, but not once on the road or at speed.
One anecdote doesn’t mean much, but is it really as much of an issue with non-Teslas as you think?
I’ve had two pretty bad events with a Ford and a Mercedes. The Ford hit the brakes at 160 km/h on the wide open Autobahn for absolutely no reason. The Mercedes did it on a more rural road and caused the person behind me to honk their horn. I figure that one might’ve been caused by the bushes growing close to the road but it still wasn’t very pleasant.
Once my subaru hit the brakes suddenly and the only explanation was the road itself. It was a quick dip and immediate climb, so maybe it was steep enough for the road to look like an obstacle
Ford made a bad car? Are you shitting me here?!
BMW i5 driver here, no Phantom braking in 30000km Autobahn
Yeeeah… No.
Volkswagen ID.7 driver here, previously Tesla Model 3.
Haven’t had a single phantom break event with the VW.
How dare they protect their citizens!
an independent expert drove a Tesla Model 3 for 600 kilometers of Bavarian highways and experienced five separate phantom braking incidents.
I’ve said it before, those cars should not be street legal.
I was at an event years ago and had the chance to talk with one of the engineers that worked on the Model X. I mentioned the QA and reliability issues with the falcon doors. He took offense to me bringing up that there were issues with the car. Dude. You’re not a good engineer if you look at the product and think it’s perfect. There will ALWAYS be something more to improve upon. If you take feedback poorly, you are refusing the help of others to improve.
I’m guessing that hyper-defensiveness is probably a survival tactic at Tesla.
That’s more than 1 brake check per hour at the speed they were testing the system at.
Yes in fact at 200 km/h it’s almost 2 per hour!!!
That’s insane. 🤪
Tesla Germany: The Phantom Menace.
