Tesla phantom braking follow-up
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
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Only problem is safe distance as said at 12:55.
People need to keep it. There could be car, boar or any object on road that will cause driver/car to brake. Or person could be smoking and hot piece will fall off .. whatever. Cars can brake, count on it.
Couldn't agree more. In driver safety courses you learn that the most important thing is following distance. Don't fuckin tailgate people. Pull up the Dashcam footage for that accident, would love to see the rear cam just before the event. I bet you can read the license plate of that van behind the Model 3.
I’m from Luxembourg and here it’s your fault if you slam your car for whatever in front of you. The white van doesn’t have enough distance to the tesla . If he had , this video would not existed.
@ Lucky Me3793 - Same for most states in USA. Give yourself some distance.
Sorry but if you drive normaly in the same direktion and nothing is in front. You are not thinking that the Person in front off you will brake hard as a automatic brake system. That is a stipid rule. the company which build the car should not allowed tu put it on the road before running without fails.
I had some phantom brakings, i was very suprised. Mfg Dirk
Sonja Hentrich ..“not thinking“ is not enough. Just keep distance. Distance. Distance. It‘s time for a change. Now
It is the same rule in Norway. If you drive on somebody from behind, its your fault.... but if you for instanc drive with summer tires in the winter, or rely on illegal systems.... the case might be more open...
This pretty comon rule in most eu countries. That does not mean people follow it or accept it. My Parent had to go to court in germany because somebody did slam in our back of the car. That accident was because we had to stop to let a pedestrian pass and that car that crashed in our back had safe distance but the driver did just not pay attention. In the end even with phantom breaking the white van is to blame.
In UK if you rear end someone (vehicle obviously) it is your fault no matter what the circumstances. You have to keep enough distance in case car in front brakes suddenly.
Mark Evans The same in Denmark.
Same in Spain.
ikr, my father was driving too close (not even an accident, just radar) and he got his license taken for 1 month and 250€ fee. I doubt you are allowed to drive too close anywhere at least in europe.
Agreed. It always is. Model 3 caused it but the van driver was not able to avoid a car slowing down? Only if you're tailgating / passing by. So van driver is to blaim. As the truck driver.
Incorrect. Crash-For-Cash has been taking full advantage of this and the Police and insurance companies no longer appropriate blame until this fraud is ruled out.
3 years later, and Phantom Braking is still happening in my 2022 Model Y.
wattpedalen is my new favourite word.
A fix for the phantom braking is something i really wish for as well.
To have to baysit the function by constatly having your foot ready on the accelerator voids the whole concept of AP.
It's suppose to be an aid not a constant worry.
Maybe it's worrying about what it can't see, more than you are. Better safe than sorry.
Correct, if it's more stressful, it's no help.
Agreed
Hi Bjørn, thanks for your explanation. I wanted to say that I would watch more of your videos if they were about 50% shorter. Many times I find myself watching your whole video thinking, well this information could have been shared in 8 minutes instead of 20 or so. Maybe cutting a bit more into it?
Sounds like you are applying to be the editor for his new clips channel?
Bjørn has no time for editing shiiiiiiit.
Use 1.75x
I'm watching Bjørn in 1.5x speed all the time 😁
@ FlowDesign82 - Have to agree, thank god for FFWD ⏩⏩⏩
I've personally noticed some issues with phantom braking, the biggest issue I've seen if when on highways passing a semi.
Sometimes the car will panic for a moment and the display reflects this by showing the truck in the same lane as you.
I personally believe this happens because the ultrasonic sensors don't see the truck as they see under its trailer, so with just side cameras it can't properly know the depth, or something blinding the lens for a second confuses it. :)
Thank you for talking about this, I was wondering why no one was mentioning this serious flaw in TH-cam videos. It makes autopilot and ACC unusable. I'd rather not pay for it and not have it if there was a choice (I know you can order Standard Range without autopilot through some unofficial process). I've given up hope that Tesla is going to fix it because if they could, why wouldn't they have already?
For me there is absolutely no reason, that a driver, that hits a car in front of him has no full responsibility for this accident. Because you have to drive in any circumstances, conditions or whatever, so that a save complete stop is possible. If there are any circumstances, that didnt allow this: reduce speed or widen the distance or both. period.
o.k. there is one exeption: if the car in front drives reverse and hits the car behind ;)
I've seen this happen at a junction, car was pulling out into a 60mph road and decided it wasn't safe, tried to reverse back off the main road. Unfortunately the car behind was creeping forward and they collided. It could have been a whole lot worse if the other car was much bigger and pushed it into oncoming traffic.
A few months ago I slowed down at a railway line crossing because there was a bus to my right blocking my view of the track. There was an idiot behind be who decided his crappy lifted truck could pass through solid matter and slammed into the back of me, writing off the car. Then the woman driving behind him had a similar misconception of physics and slammed into the back of him. When the cops turned up, the pickup driver claimed it was my fault. Of course the cops took a dim view of that as did the insurance and his insurance got to pay. Not my model 3 though - that came in December.
maybe but it's still extremely dangerous behaviour from the car
@@raboulhd2605 I am not sure if its dangerous. Because in a matter of unclear condition it is safer to break instead of hope and pray that nothing happens. Because when there is an accident with a non reacting autopilot the consequenting damages to life, health or the finances/insurance may and the shitstorm will be definately much more intense.
I don't agree that it is always possible to keep enough distance. When I am on the highway and I leave enough room in front of me often someone sneaks into the hole from another lane just in front of my bumper. If something happens just at that moment I have little change to avoid an accident. Am I to blame then?
Kona has done it 3 times so far. Low sun with long shadows seems to freak it out in one particular stretch of road. Also on a tight bend if cyclist or pedestrian being overtaken.
Sascha D. You don’t need lidar for that... the issue isn’t a sensor one, it’s a processing one.
@@MacGuyver85 That's a stupid assumption, if your sensor gives out garbage information aka the camera can't see shit, how can the processing work with nothing?
Redundancy with different technologies is always better. Where one fails, the other may work well.
I have had similar experience with my model 3. There are two situations that cause it to brake (but not to a complete halt). When I approach a curve at a crest the car cannot see for sure where the road is going, and if a car comes over the crest it could be interpreted as being on my side of the road. My car slows quickly in case. I know the road, and know there is no problem, but my model 3 can't cope with the ambiguity and has a moment of panic. I now either don't use the cruise control when on those roads, or am ready to give the accelerator a prod when it happens. I have had the odd reaction to oncoming large vehicles, but I have learned to drive a bit closer to the edge of the road, ie further from the centre lines. The only accidents I have had are running into animals, particularly kangaroos, so I have become wary of the side of the road and tend to drive in the centre more as a result! I am learning to give more passage distance.
The second situation is when I am on cruise control and a car turns in front of me into a side street, when coming from the other direction. In Australia this is a very common thing. It is risky, as the turning car always cuts the apex of the turn and if a car is coming out of the street there is a real danger of collision. However, as I approach this situation, although I am not at all alarmed by this manoeuvre, the car panics and brakes quite sharply. Changing the "set back" distance from the car in front on cruise control makes no difference. The software sees a car ahead suddenly dive onto my side of the road (briefly) and assumes the worst and brakes suddenly until the car clears the road ahead. So far I have not be shunted from behind, but it remains a concern.
imac1957 kangaroos are my main issue too. I generally blame them for the toilet roll shortage here in the UK. They literally jump the queues, cause chaos in the aisles, and then escape with half a dozen rolls threaded on their tails. Complete wankers, the lot of them.
Crest of hills were fixed. They came back. I know every time on one hill near me it slows 5 mph for the hill crest because it can't see.
When Top Gear tested vans, there was a discipline when they had to drive with van as close as possible to car in front of them.. Great irony to almost all van drivers trough the whole world. If in this case the deer jumped right in front of Tesla and he had to brake hardly (with or without AP), the van would crash into Tesla too.
Honestly i think your last video was spot on. I didn't read the comments as i wanted to get over to this video right after watching the last one.
Phantom braking on my Tesla Model S AP2.5 happens so often, even on a 3 lane motorway with no traffic in any lanes and no on-coming traffic, that I have given up using both autopilot and even ACC completely. It's too unreliable. Oh, and auto-wipers, don't start me on that bulls**t!
Tailgating is dangerous and illegal. 2 second minimum following distance.
Harold Walma in Norway we have a 3 second rule.
@@ghauan when I went through defensive driving in 76 we were taught 2 seconds is the closest you should be to the vehicle in front, but 3 seconds or more is the safest.
Larger vehicles (greater mass) take longer to slow down. My Nissan Versa with manual transmission stops much faster than my late wife's Buick Terraza van with automatic did, which is why it got totaled when someone pulled out in front of us.
Deceleration is really negative acceleration, and acceleration is directly proportional to mass times the square of velocity.
The fastest a human can respond is 0.5 second. The average is closer to one second. Strangely, according to the owner's manual, the 2019 Chevy Volt has 0.5 seconds for the minimum following distance on its adaptive cruise control (what?). Computers respond much faster, but that is much too close.
3 “Mississippi” distance :)
It also on navigate on autopilot suddenly in a 110km/h speed zone when passing an overpass that has a other speed limit it changes to that speed, often it’s only 40 km/h. And it hits the breaks to break down to 40.
There was a firmware update last year where Tesla added emergency lane departure avoidance and also avoidance of a car crossing into your lane, and along about this time the on-screen visualization was more likely to show oncoming cars in the opposing lane. With these updates the occurrence of phantom braking became more frequent, but it has always been there. I have seen it on the wide open road with no curves and no other cars in sight, and it tends to happen at some particular places repeatedly. The frequency of phantom braking has varied between releases--sometimes better and sometimes worse. I've had my Model 3 since August of 2018.
We had a 2019 VW Polo , hire car last year. In the three days we had it phantom braking came on three times.
Each time nothing was in front of the car. No warning just slams on the brakes. Very luckly no one was behind us.
Would I buy a car with this problem. No , NO , no . If I cannot drive a car , and look what is in front of me without
a self driving car doing it. You should not let a car drive you.
Thanks Bjorn. I agree with you about this accident and I really hope we can get a solution for the phantom breaking. It has the potential to be very dangerous. It also scares the passengers which is not good.
I have experienced phantom hard braking with no other vehicles on multi lane highway, while in auto pilot, a few times. In all cases traffic going opposite direction is not visible. I have experienced drop as much as 60km/hr
Regarding speed limit from 70 to 60, that made the van and truck getting closer than they probably were before. Also van and truck driver tend to drive so close as they see over the car in front and think they are controlling the situation.
Had the van in back of my car two times as I was slowing quite gently because I saw the van in rear mirror and pedestrian in front at few steps before getting on crossing, but the van driver tried to blame me, because "pedestrian wasn't on the the road yet and I was braking hard", although he just didn't keep distance and didn't expect I could brake on "empty" Road.
So just keep distance :)
Very interesting. This underscores one of the basic issues that I have against significant automation; it is clear than when using automation you will have a reduced attention (not none hopefully) which will increase the delay in response. One of the key parts of driver training is to train reflexes; meaning your almost thought response. Stabbing the brake pedal is one of these. Regular training is needed to be a good braker (meaning being able to stop fast without losing control. While ABS certainly solves this it creates a problem for drivers who may switch vehicles to a car that does not have it. Further I've seen many times people get mentally confused with what to do with simply slowing down with a cruise control. So all these automations to reduce driver requirements often add further complications to driving rather than simplifying it, and erode the notion that the driver must be a driver rather than just a special type of passenger.
The more you make things "fool proof" the more you'll breed more foolish fools.
Phantom breaking also happens in AP1 so there's definitely something going on in shared algorithms or NNs. It happens in the same way you describe- when passing larger trucks.
Is it always on curves, where the truck temporarily unsighted you from the road ahead?
I thought when I saw the first video that the white van was probably driving too close and too fast. The fact the Tesla was on Autopilot and might have braked slightly makes no difference to a regular driver slowing because they think something could happen in front of them. Blame the van driver, not Tesla or the Tesla driver.
If tesla detect a car too close behind it starts wash windows with overclocked preassure, so they have wet windshield and back off.
On the contrary Bjorn, you’ve done a good service in reporting this incident, (and fair play to the driver of the Tesla for admitting that the responsibility is down to the driver. I’m glad he’s ok, and it’s a valuable lesson). In the final instance, the drivers behind the Tesla, were too close, and they should know better. This should be an even bigger lesson for them. Keep distance and be prepared for eventualities...it’s part of driving tuition.
Phantom breaking has become a lot better since we got our Model 3 a year ago. Happens every few hundred km, but not more. In the beginning it was a serious problem. Now I regularly check if someone is tailgating me, and if yes I disable autopilot or try to keep him farther away using the warning Blinker a few times. This usually helps...
The truck driver who managed to stop before he hit the kids running across the road from behind the bus deserves a prize for his professionalism. He foresaw what could happen and made sure he could stop in time.
Phantom breaking is always better than not breaking for edge cases. It's up to other road users to maintain proper distance. You must always assume that something real is about to show up on the road and be ready to break for it, and those behind need to be ready to do the same.
My guess is that when a large vehicle is on approaching on the inside of a curve, such as here, the Tesla is temporary unsighted and can't tell if there is something on the road behind it. So it slows a little bit so that it is ready to emergency stop if something really is there.
Most drivers don't do this, they saw the road before it was unsighted, and they assume it will remain clear while they can't see it. Its like closing your eyes for a second, most of the time it doesn't matter. However, the Tesla, and especially the HW2.5 and 3 are operating at orders of magnitude faster rates, so they are making decisions 20 times per second, and so a second of unsightedness is long enough for them to imagine all kinds of bad things and get worried.
Hello Bjorn. You do a good job, thank you. Just watched your video ( 20 March 2020 ) re phantom braking. Our car was doing this, always in the same place on the A356 between Puente don Manuel near Velez-malaga Spain, and the next right turn, heading north. Its a moderate left bend, you could drive round it at 70mph. On the outside of the bend close to the road there is a near vertical rock face behind the crash barrier. here's also a marked 1m wide cycle lane between the road and the barrier. Frequently our MS 85D March 2016 would apply firm braking when we were heading north with no other traffic.I was seeing how auto pilot was working, learning. I don't use it on A roads any more. I also found out if I drove a bit nearer to the white cenre line it did not happen. So AP was reacting to the rock face(?) as if I was not going to drive around the bend. Our AP only brakes, no steering, I much prefer to do that myself.It has not done this on similar road layouts with no rock face. Best wishes.
Bjørn - Cars are braking because the computer “believes” it’s necessary, so whenever a car does “phantom braking” the computer sees an emergency that would require it to brake. In Teslas, that’s done until the Radar gives an “all clear. You could have the system measure the distance to the car in back & “lightly tap” the brakes to warn the person in back to back off if the car is too close.
3 years later, it’s still a major problem.
Agree that it is a universal problem. Like your example with the van and trailer, my Acura has issues interpreting the threat of the oncoming vehicle if it is closing as you presented. For a left-drive vehicle, if the oncoming vehicle is tracking from right to left across your apparent path as it traverses the curve, and the speed range is just so, I get a Phantom Braking situation and the Collision Alert can often display and braking can be applied for a moment until it reconsiders and releases.
Definitely a wake-up event, and a daunting Physics problem.
Saying that however does not change the Traffic Law universal consideration of liability of following vehicles. Stay alert while driving and maintain a safe distance.
This is a kind of balance of precision vs recall of detecting accidents. Tesla wants to identify more accidents (increases the recall) so that it losses the precision. It's neutronet definitely requires more training.
that van/truck drivers were driving too close. simple as that
There's a metal barrier on the side of the road. Many police speed radars have a limitation, where they cannot be used in such areas, because metal is causing reflections for the radar, almost doubling the speed readout.
Might be similar for Tesla's front radar causing it to see a fantom oncoming car with a very high speed.
The algorithm will do probability of large vehicle covering road marking, speed zone changing down, road bending and blind corner ahead plus the vehicle ahead slowing - could shift probability to cause phantom brake to reduce speed more rapidly. This is my opinion.
I've heard this happens quite often from a few other Tesla test drivers. The experience was bad enough that they wanted a refund for the autopilot feature, and said it almost caused accidents a few times it happened.
I drive a 2016 VW Passat (from new), use adaptive cruise control every day. Have never ever experienced phantom braking.
Rented a Tesla model X in Philadelphia in November last year. Experienced phantom braking once, and it braked HARD! Scared the crap out of me. But it didn't stop, just slammed on the brakes out of the blue in 70 mhr down to around 50.
The speed limit issue, I've experienced is rather new since late winter. I only found a few areas a couple years back with bad nav data but was fixed. It's not a hard braking like emergency collision avoidance braking. It's still enough to get someone right on your bumper if they aren't paying attention. Combine that with the truck creeping over the line to increase the braking force. It's enough to cause an issue. Odds are crazy so this has to be a 1 in who knows 100,000 chance or more?
Either way the false readings are way more than ever should be when relying on reacting faster than a human driver.
I have had phantom braking on the highway with 125 km/hr when my TM3 slammed the brakes. Luckily there was a good distance to the drivers behind me. It was not the traffic in the opposite direction causing it, because the lanes were separated by a wall. But the car has done it several times in the same spot (it is a part of my commute to work) so my guess is that phantom braking is caused by something in the road conditions.
I want to switch that "feature" off. It's wrong 60% of the time here.
I called this in the previous video "The GPS controlled speed limits are often wrong, and then the car can suddenly slam the brakes as well. Also happens when the GPS is off course. It's nothing less than shocking that a) Tesla does not have sign reading yet. b) That you can't switch it off!"
I recently learned that there's no technical reason that Teslas don't read speed signs. It's because MobilEye has a patent on reading street signs with a camera. Completely ridiculous.
This is a safety feature that's better there than not. It is saving more lives being in place than causing accidents. Reducing speed when a accident is eminent is working well just in case. Like you said yourself reducing 10 km per hour could be the difference between life and death.
Phantom braking is primarily caused by radar reflections (some objects, like a metal, can on the road in the wrong orientation, or certain bridge angles, will have high radar reflectivity and "look" like an obstacle), It's not an easy fix without very carefully augmenting camera or lidar data, to detect false positives. The good news is that Tesla is very keen on relying on the cameras more, however, we have to remember the "sky colored truck" that the Tesla camera system did not identify a few years ago, they actually went heavier on radar for emergency braking right after that, because they were relying more on the cameras at the time ... so we have more phantom braking, but less sky-colored truck hitting now ... it does seem, from the in-car visualizations that they are probably ready to start relying more on-camera data now tho.
With earlier software versions, I had phantom braking sometimes because of shadows from bridges going over the motorway. But I think that has been fixed some software releases ago...
It happens to me in a 2019 subaru legacy. Never full stop. Beeps and starts to slow. Seems road signs at night with reflective tape cause it. Happens sometimes when taking an exit and the car sees exit number sign and freaks out. I honestly did not want any of these crappy features in the car I know how to drive these are just nuisance things. Even had lane departure steer me towards a car that was stopped as I was passing it.
The recent phantom braking cases I’ve had occur when the car continues to lock on to a car that is exiting the freeway. In both cases the exiting car was completely off the freeway and on the exit ramp.
Actually as far as I know, the trucks breaks even faster than small cars due to the their wight, they have a lot more friction so they can break faster. That is something which we, the small car drivers, should be aware of and keep a bigger safe distance from heavier vehicles because even if we break at the same time we can still run into them. Regarding to this specific Tesla situation, all I can say it's that everyone should keep a safe distance, always the fault is of the one which drove from behind.
Perhaps Tesla could use the rear camera for distance of the car behind it. If too close, disable AP. I know this doesn’t solve phantom braking, but at least it’ll cut down on crashes like this.
Happens ALL the TIME in semi's. Been dealing with this issue ever since they gave computers control of our breaks. Drivers are ignored when we warn them about its potential for an accident.
I second your opinion. And in most of the countries the following car has always able to stop completely.
That near run over of the kids by a truck at 13:18 was just crazy.
And what have we learned today: if you drive behind a Tesla keep enough distance (5 seconds or more is highly recommended), you never know what can happen.
5 seconds! Can you still see it at that distance? I’m sure normal recommended stopping distance is fine
@@andrewpaulhart that's only 80 meters at 60 km/hour or 97 meter at 70 km/hour ... where the stopping distance at 60 is 45 meter and at 70 it is 56 meter., so tnat gives some margin for those with a slower reaction time.
Hi Bjorn,
My first thought was sensor interference.
A camera can easily be fooled by lens flare. With the sun at the right angle lens flare can be detected as an object by the software.
Radar distance measurement can be distributed by an oncoming vehicle with the same radar.
Ultrasound distance measurement can be disturbed by rain and motorcycle exhaust noise. It is probably a safety feature when one of the sensors detects a too high value the software jumps to an emergency stop. Does the Tesla store sensor data for evaluation after an emergency stop?
Phantom brake happened to my Model 3. I was driving 80 mph on freeway. I think the shadow of overpass of the bridge caused it. Definitely, it was not caused by changed in the speed limit. It scared the hell out of me.
Last week I was on a highway with no other cars around, approach an overpass and bam phantom breaking using acc with my model 3.
Poor example on bad truck drivers at the end there. He in fact was a hero for having insanely good reaction times.
That incident, which could very easily been a tragedy, demonstrates something completely different: Why proper bus stops is so important.
I just watched both video's and I wanted to share an experience with the automatic emergency braking, even though I realize that it is not relevant to the crash discussed here.
About a month ago, I drove through my home town when some idiot was walking on the bike path (similar situation to 7:05, he walked on the pink bits, not on the sidewalk). I was *not* using the cruise control at the time. Just before passing the guy, my Model X slammed on the brakes. My phantom braking reflex kicked in and I floored the accelerator pedal, but the car refused to accelerate until the pedestrian was out of sight. I could steer, but nothing else. Luckily, there was no traffic behind me, but this also could have given quite a crash.
I have a Seat Ibiza with emergency braking. It slammed on its breaks bring the car to a full stop. No other traffic on the road, nothing close to the car. I assumed it must have been a dog or cat running in front of the car, which I never saw. Never thought it could have been a fault.
When I have been in a Tesla Model 3 on auto pilot (not Full Sell Drive) it behaves like it is a nervous or beginner driver. It can be hesitant and slows down for things IT can see, not necessarily an inattentive or attentive driver. Going along a country road one evening the car "phantom braked" but out of interest, I looked at the dash can / sentry footage of the incident and there was actually a small muntjac deer to the left of the car that was moving along the hedge row..... One of the Tesla's many eyes saw it but I didn't.
Bjorn, driving in the rain today I noticed my N Y phantom braking. Why? I looked around fir tge cause.
Flashing yellow lights on the side of the road warning of Road Work ahead. Once past the sign and lights we continued normally.
It happened again, and again I was encountering flashing yellow traffic signal lights at an intersection.
Neither time was the braking extreme. It slowed the Y, about 10 MPH (15 KPH), and was more like using regenerative braking.
Thanks for the discussion!
It would be interesting to find out if there was a car or truck approaching in the opposite direction that caused the Tesla to brake suddenly.
In any case the van behind is at fault and should be able to stop in any situation. Don’t know the rules in Norway, maybe it’s different insurance rules?
In Norway there are rules regarding being a considerate driver. Don't cause unnescessary danger or frustration to other drivers. There is also a duty to do anything in your power to avoid a collision (if someone is driving into oncoming traffic, it is your duty to get out of the way).
The "don't cause unnescessary danger" includes not driving too close to the car in front - AND don't brake for no reason on a clear stretch of road.
The consequence of this is that the car behind is undoubtedly at fault here, but this does not clear the driver in front from fault - they can both be declared as being at fault at the same time. Insurance companies tries to pull this crap at almost every accident so that they don't have to pay anything.
My Prius Prime will phantom break when going around corners when it sees fences and/or other objects on the side of the road and mistakes them for objects in the vehicles' path.
I have got fantom braking about 6 times in my Tesla M3 2020. I have got it for 2 months now. I would say that 4 or 5 times it appenned when I was approaching an overpass and there were sunshades nearby. A couple of times, I had absolutly no clue about the reason why it did it, it is a complete mystery, and I am a bit scared I could be rear ended because of that.
Next time you're in an accident where it's your fault (and you're driving a vehicle with ADA features) just say to the police and your insurance company "it's not my fault, it's the algorithms".
It look's like the road in front of the Tesla has a right turn, so is it possible that the radar was seing a vehicule coming in that curve and thought that it was rigth in front of the Tesla that then applied the brakes ? That does not mean that following cars should not respect a safe distance. Has for the school bus kids crossing the street in blind vue, in Canada and US , school bus are all equipped with stop signs on the side that the driver activates and you are oblige to stop, so it does prevent from this type of incident.
I think better and more advanced technology might be necessary to safely reduce the ghost breaking. If Tesla could combine an ever better scene understanding and object detection with trajectory estimation over multiple video frames, the car should get a better understanding of what is going on. My understanding is that the cars simply evaluate frame by frame currently, with no understanding of the situation spanning multiple frames. So a ghost brake can be caused by a single bad detection in single frame, and I think this would be improved if objects would be tracked over time and decisions could be made based on this understanding. But then again, I'm not an expert on this, so maybe I've misunderstood something. 😄
Tailgating accidents due to slight breaking in general should be less dangerous than a collision, so in general I don’t think tailgating should disable crash avoidance. Sure it should be improved. The clearly dangerous drivers behind would certainly need crash avoidance as they’re driving too close and couldn’t adapt to a speed reduction.
I don’t drive much but with rentals (mostly Volvo but some others too) I find the crash avoidance a bit zealous and you really need a lot more margins to vehicle ahead than feels natural to a driver not used to crash avoidance. Never had a phantom where I felt it braked without any reason though.
what you are showing me if I wasn't looking right Iwould think it is a stop sign. in north america the stop signs are octagonal almost round so the a.i. still can't tell the difference between those 2 signs. so some one make a test road with signs from around the world that look like stop sign but they are not stop signs. and see what the self driving cars do!! to test were if the are stopping from these signs are not!!!
I have a 2015 Audi A3 e-tron and I find there are a couple of times when the car brakes strongly when it doesn't really need to. I am in the UK, so the opposite side of the road, but frequently when the vehicle in front is turning left and my judgement is saying it will easily clear the road in front of me before I get to it, the car decides to brake regardless. I do wonder if its like this because the detection system is slanted to the left for driving on European roads and protecting against close on coming traffic and that it hasn't been altered for driving on the opposite side of the road for the UK. But then again, I guess, if its as reactive as it is, it would be frequently causing problems from incoming traffic, so maybe that is not the case.
But I have also experienced true phantom breaking when the wind blew a couple of crisp packets in the air in front of the car (I think the car in front ran over them and the turbulence caused them to blow upwards about 1/2 metre) . I am not sure what they are made of but have a silver like interior, so appear to be plastic with a very thin metallic coat. The car just put the brakes on quite fiercely. My guess is it detected these as though it was actually was an object. Cars were following me, but fortunately were far enough back not to hit me.
My car also seems to be able to detect speed limit signs but the automatic cruise control ignores them. I would say it is frequently mistaken, or gets them wrong, often because they are twisted to a strange angle or covered by bits of hedge or trees. Certainly not accurate enough for total autonomous driving.
To little space between cars, typical Norwegian drivers, not thinking ahead. The main reason for this crash is not keeping good distance, the sudden brake didn't help there. And this happens to all cars with anti collision control, not just Teslas. Even happened few times on Volvo trucks I've driven and ones on my Nissan Leaf but it hammered the accelerator as soon as it realized that there was no danger ahead.
I think you probably know more about electric vehicles than anyone. Don’t listen to the haters.
He is far from the most knowledgeable but his camera presence and actual experience makes his input one that should be noted.
BMW i3 has this phantom braking too. It uses only the front camera in the windscreen. When the road is turning right and some car comes the i3 realized them and "thought" they are in front of the car, not in the opposite side of the road and it brakes. (annoying)
I picked up my model 3 last week. It has the 'speaker grill' underneath for the PWS (Pedestrian Warning System) but no sound. Saves me from disconnecting the cable...
In general I always favor true real life experience over what is said in the manuals, etc. For that reason I probably prefer to trust Bjorn about Teslas and Nowegian roads (but also probably German roads) than whatever other journalist or even user's manual. Yep, I'm not surprised, Bjorn was right again :)
I have experienced several AEB false positive situations with my VW Polo 2016 fitted with ACC/Front Assist. I have been able to "reproduce" the issue two times at exactly the same place. I think this is due (at least on my car) to the technology used. As it's just a radar, it's quite stupid and it can be fooled by a lot of things. In my case, when I was able to reproduce the false positive I was coming onto a roundabout which has a little road sign (maybe 1m high) just in front of the incoming lane. The road sign came into the radar detection zone, assumed it was a stopped car and determined that I was going to crash in it and performed a HARD BRAKE (wtf) as it's using the whole braking power (according to VW). The guy behind almost crashed into my car and was pissed-off. Apparently this is a known issue on VW models. I believe this could be avoided by adding video data into the process without using just radar data as it could detect that it's a road sign. Final word: Be careful my friends, if you own a car with this kind of system even it's working quite properly stay alert to protect you and people around you! :)
Regards from France ! :)
If someone crashes into the back of a Tesla that has Phantom braked I’ll wager that the person behind did not pay attention or was too close. In Britain it is very clear. If you crash into the rear of a vehicle it is presumed to be your fault. Tesla is obviously playing it safe regarding braking. This is the right thing to do.
Added my comment before watching the whole video. I see that I was right about the following van driving too close.
I think what happened is, the car slowed down when it crossed into the 60 zone. That annoyed both van and truck, so they got way too close. Then the phantom brake happened. Van hit Tesla because he was way too close, truck hit van because he was way too close. IMHO it should be the fault of van and truck drivers (even though they might argue in front of a court that the Tesla braked needlessly).
I'm having the phantom braking problem at the moment.
I can duplicate phantom braking in my Model S 70D hw1 on the same secondary road at the same spot. It happens at a point where the road curves sharply and has a slight downhill incline, just past an exit with an overpass. Not sure what confuses the software but it happens every time I have the car in AP approaching that bend. Here is the spot:
www.google.com/maps/@39.7723855,-75.5924074,3a,75y,71.93h,67.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sR3oQYJeLBF_Sgqz3c2lF0g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Complete disagreement here. I've driven > 1/2 Mio km with ACC-Systems from Mercedes and Volvo. Sometimes the Volvo thinks that a truck on the right sight of the autobahn starts to intercept and brakes gently when i'm traveling on the left or middle lane. Thats it, never seen any real phantombreaking at all.
I've driven only 2000 km with teslas an had several phantombrakings without being even close to other cars. In my opinion the tesla system is way to much focused on cameras so it interprets shadows as walls and want to emergency brake while traveling with 130km/h on the autobahn.
I've driven over 100.000 km in my Tesla, and it is clear to me that you have no idea of the difference between phantom braking and AEB "Automatic Emergency Breking".
I found out our 2013 Infiniti JX35 used to do almost a full stop when going over metal bridges or under passes. On the 2014 they calibrated the system and it went away. Wondering if it has to do with the system detecting some sort of metal somewhere or certain shape.
Emergency lane departure during normal driving is also way too sensitive.
Why does the press like to blame a Tesla autopilot and not a van driver following too closely? Also how much sleep did the van driver have? (In the US, I often see dangerous delivery drivers who are sleepy, as the go over the US limit of 11 hours of driving a day).
Sounds like the correct resolution. Still not great the way the media reported it.
I'm an Approved Driving Instructor based in the UK. Although I teach learners in a Ford Focus fossil burner, I also own a Tesla Model 3 Long Range with Full Self Driving.
Bjørn, I agree with your explanation of the situations where you can reasonably predict that phantom braking may happen, but it's not consistent is it?
Here's the problem that I have with it as a driving instructor. The moment I perceive a hazard ahead, I check the rear view mirror for proximity of following traffic. That gives me the opportunity to slow down earlier than usual and more gradually if necessary. To increase the possibility of the following driver responding in timely manner rather than reacting too late - and rear ending my vehicle.
The problem with phantom braking is that I can't necessarily predict where it will happen. So how do I know for sure exactly when to check the rear view mirror? What's more, I'm no longer responsible for the degree of deceleration when phantom braking kicks in. When it does, I find the deceleration is way harder and a good deal later than I would apply the brakes as a professional driver responsible for teaching tomorrow's full driving licence holders.
What makes the phantom braking issue particularly dangerous is people texting as they drive. On the approach to the next set of traffic lights, check your rear view mirror. Is the following driver nodding their head up and down as they follow you? Yes? Then they're texting with attendant loss of concentration on the road ahead. That's you of course. And your Tesla may ... or may not ... slam the brakes on.
Yes, it's the responsibility of the following driver to avoid running into you. However, this doesn't help when the rear end of your car has been totalled by a following driver.
So, the phantom braking issue. It's sodding dangerous until a suitable fix is sorted by Tesla. That's why I avoid using Traffic Aware Cruise Control or Navigate On Autopilot in urban areas - particularly the narrow roads encountered in most towns and cities throughout the UK. There have been too many heart stopping moments. Thank goodness we can expect a fix soon via the next Over The Air Update. Hopefully.
If it was just in urban areas, narrow roads or even single lane highways, that would be one thing, the fact that it happens on multi-lane motorways is simply inexcusable. I hope you're right but I've lost hope. This problem has persisted over countless software updates, if Tesla could fix it, it would have already.
@@Ivdag when I wrote "Thank goodness we can expect a fix soon via the next Over The Air Update" I was intending to appear ironic. Which is why my final word was "Hopefully". I don't think for one moment that Tesla will sort the phantom braking issue anytime soon.
I have had so many phantom braking incidents in town that I'd almost forgotten the motorway incidents. There was only one incident where I could have understood why it might have happened - on approach to a slip road (ramp). Embarrassingly, one of the phantom braking incidents occurred as I was passing a traffic police car near Gloucester Services on the M5. As Bjørn advised, I hit the accelerator and fortunately the traffic officer didn't respond.
As an aside, my car constantly tries to drive on the right hand side of the road on narrow streets. Someone needs to remind Tesla what side of the road we use here in the UK. Oh, and while they're at it, they should read Rule 188 in The Highway Code about breaking the law by driving through ('straight lining') mini roundabouts. It's easy enough. They can google it. I suspect that you're right. It's going to take Tesla years to sort this. And I bought the Full Self Driving option too. Sigh.
Hi, i am from Germany. My Kona EV has Phantom Bracking too. But only the Break Assist, not the Cruse Control. 2 per weak and then 4 months nothing. 🤔
When we actually think about that "they should fix it", it's actually pretty hard to actually fix with some workaround solution. Lemme see here:
1. Car phantom brakes because it thought that somebody was about to have a front collision
2. Automatic braking
3. Back camera sees that someone is about to collide
What then? Go forward? Brake less? These suggestions are bad because the car still thinks there's going to be a collision front side and that's definetly worse than back collision.
I fully understand why Tesla (and others) behave like this. There's actually no other way at the moment. Only thing how this is solved is to program the AI to understand front collision even better than before.
Human knows probably 99,9999% of the time that there's not going to be front collision. But AI is not there yet and that's why this is the best they can do without doing any worse decisions like cancelling braking or steering or anything else. Back collision is much safer and also the responsibility is always with the one who collides to the back anyways :)
Another informative video, well worth watching. Other vehicles, as you say suffer from this problem.
The news programme part also helped with my (very small) knowledge of norsk. Takk, vi ses!.
13:15 No doubt one life was saved here by the AEB system. Phantom braking events are a nuisance yes, but it’s better for the system misjudge a situation and brake 1 time too often, than 1 time too less. AEB systems have to interpret the information they are given just like drivers do, meaning that 100% correct judgement of any situation will never be possible. Why is it so hard for people to understand that?
Does the Tesla model 3 not record the cameras for later review if needed. Then it would be easy for them to prove that the car behind was too close.
Did he get dashcam footage? That should clear up any issues with lack of proper distance by following traffic- (Did the last update already include the one about automatically saving dashcam footage on honk/crash)?
try touching the brake in a zoe, while you still have the foot on the speeder and see the breaking it will do, best to do at low pseed and no car behind you :P
... very well explained, thanks
Have been driving model x for 3 years and experienced the phantom brakes quite a few times. Every time I can remember I could see the potential threat that the car detected, or it was blinded by the low sun and confused by rapidly changing shadows on the road ahead. (In which case AP should be deactivated.)
I always interpreted this behaviour as a totally correct initiation of an emergency brake, which, however, was aborted milliseconds later when AP had reevaluated the situation. In this positive perspective the phantom brakes can't annoy me, but they remind me that I'm driving one of the safest car possible as long as I have its AP activated.
What do you think, Bjorn?
This has happened to me so many times! It's very disappointing and dangerous. What's more disappointing is Tesla Service won't even acknowledge the problem and tell you it's your fault and to not use the feature(s) on the $60,000+ car you spent money on. Have you had any luck with Tesla Service in your region about this issue? Shameful of Tesla for not acknowledging a potential safety concern.
Couldn't this be solved just by ACC is warning to disable if a vehicle behind is too close, and if distance below 3 seconds, then disables the ACC? Maybe even temporarily enable coasting without regenerate to avoid the car behind gets too close.. Regen enables again when distance is > 3 seconds.
I've TH-cam documented two, distinct, phantom braking events: (1) GPS-Google Map error, and (2) driving directly into the sun. Of the two, the unexpected, GPS-Google Map problem is the worst and reproducible.
I would be happy with an audio/visual alert that the cruise control speed is different from the GPS-Google Map value so I can manually adjust it. But the automatic system tries to bring the speed down way too fast.
Yes, also had this problem when the GPS data is out of date. Sudden slowing can cause problems to cars behind before I have the chance to poke the "watt pedal".
GPS map slowdown is never a hard brake.
@@bjornnyland What do you consider a hard brake? I measured -7 kph/second.