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?