Tesla cars are inexplicably pushing their brakes for no reason, intimidating owners and causing more than 100 complaints to the federal government in the last three months alone, according to The Washington Post.
This is a constant problem for the car manufacturer. Last October, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the company had been forced to roll back version 10.3 of its Full Self-Driving beta software due to problems with frontal collision and phantom braking warnings.
But since then, the number of complaints about Tesla’s shutdown has risen. According to The Washington PostThe company’s analysis shows that Tesla owners’ reports of phantom braking to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have risen to 107 complaints in the last three months, compared to only 34 in the previous 22 months.
(Use of adaptive cruise control with autopilot control (as well as without automatic control), multiple episodes of severe “phantom fracture”) [sic]Where the car crashes into the breaks [sic] for no apparent reason, “wrote the owner of a Model Y in Stirling, Illinois, in a November 16 complaint. “There are no other cars around. A flat, clean open highway. ”
Another Model Y owner, who said he installed FSD in October 2021, said he “immediately” had problems with autopilot and cruise control with traffic information after installing the update, including “fake frontal collision warnings.” . “These warnings included standard warning beeps and red indicators on the driver’s display, and at one point included an unnecessary emergency stop incident when there was no obstacle in front of me,” the man wrote. “As such, I returned to driving the car in manual mode, not on autopilot,” the man wrote.
The owner of a Model 3 in San Ramon, California, reported “numerous phantom braking events when [A]drowned. This seems to be happening out of nowhere, different conditions and for no apparent reason.
The problem can be traced back to last year’s controversial decision to remove radar sensors from the new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. The decision came after Musk publicly expressed a desire to rely on power cameras for the company’s advanced driver assistance system.
Tesla has garnered intense scrutiny from safety advocates and regulators for wanting to allow its customers to test what is essentially an unfinished version of a product that Musk has long promised will lead to fully autonomous vehicles on the road. Earlier this week, the company was forced to release a software update to remove the FSD feature, which allows cars to perform “rolling stop” – a maneuver in which the vehicle moves slowly through a stop sign without stopping completely. (Mobile braking is a common driving maneuver, although it is illegal in all 50 states in the United States.)
An NHTSA spokesman said the agency was aware of the collision avoidance complaints and was reviewing them through our risk-based assessment process. This process includes discussions with the manufacturer, as well as a review of additional data sources, including early warning reporting data. If the data show that there may be a risk, NHTSA will act immediately.
During a profit talk last week, Musk identified the FSD as a “major area of focus.” FSD is a beta version of an advanced driver assistance system that controls some of the vehicle’s functions on local roads, but still requires human supervision. In contrast, autonomous vehicles are cars that can operate on public roads without any human intervention or supervision.
However, the company claims that FSD will lead to more profits in the future thanks to “higher use of our vehicles”. Musk said that since Tesla’s cars can run on their own, the company will use this ability in the robotics fleet. The goal is to make it possible for every Tesla customer’s car to double as a stand-alone vehicle that other people can welcome until the owner uses it.
Tesla said it released seven over-the-air FSD software updates during the quarter and that there are currently 60,000 vehicles running the advanced driver assistance system in the United States.
Last fall, complaints began appearing on social media about problems with some Tesla vehicles. Owners said the FSD’s 10.3 update introduced phantom frontal collision warnings, while others noticed a disappearing auto-turn option, cruise control (TACC) issues and occasional autopilot panic.
It is now clear that some owners are also filing complaints with NHTSA. Of course, the agency does not check each complaint individually. Owners shall provide a description of the problem, their vehicle identification number and other identifying information when reporting their problems to the agency.
Late last year, it was alleged that the Tesla Model Y with FSD crashed southeast of Los Angeles. No one was injured in the crash, but the vehicle was reportedly “severely damaged”. The incident was reported to NHTSA, but there were no media reports about the crash, which led some Tesla fans to dismiss the incident as fake.