What 434 owners told NHTSA about the 2020 Tesla Model 3 Bev

Phantom braking issue. Cruise control set at 68mph. Medium freeway traffic at 7pm. Noticed disabled car ahead on the shoulder. No danger. As we approached the car, my car went into a panic stop as if it thought a collision was ahead. Car braked and skidded. I was able to regain control and accelerate and avoid a rear end collision. No waring or repair issues

NHTSA ODI 11495336

"Phantom braking" issue. When car is in autopilot or enhanced autopilot mode (an upgrade I purchased after I bought car), will brake suddenly and firmly at high speed for no apparent reason. Until September 2022 car would very occassionally brake too easily in autopilot mode (perhaps 3 times in two years), but it was not sufficiently forceful or frequent to cause alarm. However, on 9/26/22 and 9/30/22 during daytime driving car violently braked on highway at least 6 times over approx 500 miles of driving. Fortunately, these incidents caused no damage, collision, or injury. There was little additional traffic on the road at the time. However, items in car, and two cats in carriers on back seat were thrown forward and displaced, and the incidents were very frightening. When I realized this was happening in autopilot modes, I stopped using feature completely and have not since. At 11/19/22 service appt for issue at Alhambra Tesla dealer I was told this was a "known issue" with no current solution; however, I was told that the more I used autopilot and hit accelorator during phantom braking, the faster car would "learn" not to do this. Given that taking the risk of continuing to use autopilot at all poses a serious risk of injury, I am truly shocked at the suggestion that I continue to use this feature and essentially train my car not to be dangerous. Via Tesla app I gave information and dates to Tesla prior to service appt and was told that they would attach vehicle log to file for service visit.

NHTSA ODI 11494405

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

NHTSA ODI 11494222

phantom braking/slowing. Also, please do what you can to stop deployment of FSD by the end of 2022. Not only is the car and drivers not ready for it, the infrastructure is not as well. In addition, the 100% reliance of cameras for auto aware CC and FSD is absolutely flawed. Tesla must add radar—better yet, LiDAR—to their vehicles irrespective of FSD but, absolutely for FSD if they insist on pushing it before drivers, infrastructure, and the vehicles are ready for it. My opinion, FSD should never be allowed on any vehicles—maybe by the 22nd century…

NHTSA ODI 11493332

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.

NHTSA ODI 11492497

Phantom braking when using cruise control. Happens practically daily, but most recently this morning at 9:25am.

NHTSA ODI 11492151

Traveling on a clear, dry highway on a sunny morning and once again the next day we experienced phantom braking. This occurred three times in two days. In all cases we were traveling at 75mph and were using the adaptive cruise control. In all cases there were reflections in the road from the heat mirage or from something far down the road. The car acted as if it saw something in the road and braked sharply. The driver had to accelerate to override the braking.

NHTSA ODI 11491841

This vehicle has frequent episodes of phantom braking at highway speeds. No obstacles, stop lights or other vehicles in proximity

NHTSA ODI 11491689

Last March we drove to Tampa Florida and on 3 occasions using cruse control the car came almost to a stop felt like I hit brakes very hard. each time we were in the middle of a highway with no cars around us. I called Tesla they said do report a bug. The weird thing is each time it was at dusk. I just read an article and thought to report it. I am not sure if Tesla reported it. It has not happened in the last 6 months but very scary when it happens.

NHTSA ODI 11491531

Phantom braking has occurred numerous times on cruise control. No cars or other objects nearby. Set up appointment with Dealer but the service dept said they are aware of the issue and at this time nothing can be done.

NHTSA ODI 11491416

While in cruise control the car baraked excessively on a straight 4 lane divided highway even though there was no other vehicles in front, to the side or coming on the opposite direction. This happened on 101 north of Paso Robles

NHTSA ODI 11490999

I had 2 incidents of "phantom braking" in the vehicle this past week. I was just in cruise control, and the roads were in good condition, visibility and skies were clear, there were no cars in front or behind me, and we were cruising about 70 mph. In 2 cases, the car just slowed by itself for a few seconds and then I disengaged the cruise control. In 1 other cases, the car made an abrupt braking from 70 to about 40 mph. I disengaged and then did not use cruise control any longer. I've been told by Tesla service that the car's "radar" feature was replaced/disengaged in lieu of Tesla Vision, which apparently is in "beta" phase. In any event, this should not be happening, especially in just basic cruise control under ideal road conditions.

NHTSA ODI 11489733

While driving on an open highway using the Tesla Auto Pilot (Adaptive Cruise Control, NOT Full Self Driving), we experienced 3 separate instances of unexpected braking. In each case, we were on flat terrain with no vehicles in front of us for hundreds of yards. The weather was sunny and warm with few clouds in the sky. We were driving westbound between 10am and 1pm at the time of the incidents. During the first incident, the vehicle began to brake sharply and violently enough to startle, awake and scare a sleeping adult passenger in the front passenger seat. From memory, the braking rapidly dropped our speed by 15-20 mph. Thinking it was a simple glitch, I attempted to re-engage the system two more times and the same type of behavior occurred each time. I drove the remaining hours of our drive without engaging Auto Pilot. After researching the issue following the drive, I learned of the "phantom braking" issue many customers have reported. We then reported the issue to Tesla and created a service appointment to check out the vehicle. Tesla responded back that the ran a full remote diagnostic and the vehicle has no hardware issues reported by any sensors and said the service appointment was unnecessary because there was nothing to look at.

NHTSA ODI 11489830

Car randomly apply brakes when no obstacle present while Auto Pilot is engaged. Also gives a lot of false collision warnings.

NHTSA ODI 11489164

Driving on cruise control (not autopilot), in the following conditions: on an interstate highway with all lanes in the traveling direction clear, no obstructions and no traffic to the front or to either side of the car, on a straight road with no bridge or on or off ramp in front of the car, daylight and no rain or or other participation, the car can unexpectedly and without warning aggressively brake. If the driver does not immediately regain control of the speed (by pressing the accelerator, or turning off the cruise control) the braking has caused the speed of the car to go from 75mph to 30mph. Unlike other Tesla accident avoidance features, the braking occurs with no indication that an obstruction is being avoided. I have owned the car since it was new and until Saturday 8 October 2022, the adaptive cruise control worked as expected. Since that Saturday (less than a week) the braking has occurred several times. Each time it required a sudden depress of the accelerator pedal to recover speed control of the car. The first photo I've attached shows a screengrab of the moment of one deceleration on Monday 10 October saved as a dashcam video. As you can see there is no obstruction and no other traffic around the car at the time. The second photo is a snapshot of the chat session I had with Tesla service where they claim that this behavior is caused by a curve, off ramp, a bridge, a two lane road. As you can see in the first photo, none of this is the case.

NHTSA ODI 11488872

The contact owns a 2020 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving 75 MPH with the cruise control activated, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. The vehicle was not diagnosed nor repaired by an independent mechanic or dealer. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and informed the contact that a technician would inspect the vehicle at the residence. The failure mileage was 26,498.

NHTSA ODI 11487981

Autopilot has repeatedly slowed down very quickly and suddenly on multiple occasions over the past year for no reason on a completely clear road. It’s the same “phantom braking” issue as described in this article: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-phantom-braking-nhtsa-750-complaints/

NHTSA ODI 11487926

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.

NHTSA ODI 11485749

The forward collision warning censor gives an absurd number of false positives. I have Tesla insurance, and the insurance rate is HEAVILY affected by forward collision warnings. Nearly every day, one is triggered with -nothing- in front of me. I mean empty road ahead. Or, a car is about 7 car lengths ahead of me, they begin to slow down to make a turn, begin their turn, and nearly exit the lane. Without slowing down, and still 3 car lengths ahead, I get an angry forward collision warning and a major increase in insurance with -zero- risk of accident. It seems to happen most frequently at low speeds

NHTSA ODI 11485577

The car has randomly braked multiple times, for no reason at all. Maybe shadows or mirages?

NHTSA ODI 11480428

On or about June 15, while driving my TeslaI received a notification from my Tesla that the automatic Emergency Braking was disabled. There were also notifications that Autosteer was unavailable, and so was cruise control. I made an appointment with a Tesla repair center for repairs to the car under warranty. My initial appointment was postponed to enable remote diagnosis. On July 6 I brought my car to a Tesla repair center. After looking at my car, Tesla informed me that the car had no then current alerts or faults. They "were able to confirm this is known firmware characteristic. Tesla is working to to resolve this in a future firmware update." It's not clear to me what they are saying and whether this was a false positive from the firmware error reporting system or a transient fault that they could not reproduce. In any event, the fault reporting and the failure of Tesla to repair its firmware for a 2 and 1/2 year old car is a concern to me.

NHTSA ODI 11476066

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.

NHTSA ODI 11473267

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.

NHTSA ODI 11472462

The Tesla lane assist and adaptive cruise control failed while I was driving on the highway (I-295 in DC). I have not paid for the full self driving, so I was using the autopilot every Model 3 uses by default. The car skidded into the barrier on the side of the highway and tore up the back left tire and scraped the car. Autopilot was engaged but the car didn’t slow into the turn. I started to slow it down manually by down clicking the knob on the steering wheel, but it lost control even though autopilot was on the entire time. I’ve driven on autopilot on that highway hundreds of times. Autopilot always slows down on its own going into a turn. I was paying attention and am a very attentive driver. But autopilot normally would never have a problem with a turn like that, so I didn’t want to hit the brakes or do anything to disengage autopilot at the last second. I thought that would make things worse. I took over manually once it hit the barrier, obviously. At that point, I kept it from veering back into the other lane so that it would not hit the car next to me. Normally, there is more traffic ahead of me when I drive in that lane at that point on 295, so autopilot slows down because there are cars directly ahead of me. In this case, there were no cars ahead, so the autopilot didn’t reduce speed until later than normal. But I have been using Tesla autopilot for almost 3 years. It normally works quite well. The issue here seems to be that the autopilot does not see far enough ahead. Even though a sharp turn was coming up, it did not slow down at all until it was very close to the turn in the highway. The reason I am reporting this now is that Tesla ignored me when I reported it. I brought it in for service, and it cost me $1500 for Tesla to repair the wheel after the crash. But Tesla didn’t investigate the failure by the autopilot, or pay for it. And I saw on the news that you are investigating autopilot failures, so I thought you should know about this one too

NHTSA ODI 11470987

On 6/18/2022, nearly all visual based safety and convenience features of my car ceased to function randomly. I was given errors/warnings on the screen that cruise ("autopilot") control was unavailable and that automatic emergency braking was unavailable. I drove the vehicle manually to my destination, and after sitting overnight, it magically all worked again. Software on the car at the time was 2022.16.1.1. I am filing this compliant because since obtaining this vehicle in March of 2022, the "autopilot" system has been a constant area of concern. Tesla really needs to get this system working, or perhaps be forced to reduce its functionality (like just have a normal speed based cruise?) until its ready.

NHTSA ODI 11470734