2018 TESLA MODEL 3 Complaints

PHANTOM BRAKING!!! Ever since purchasing the car in March 2018 and right up to the present, when using AUTOPILOT or more recently FULL SELF DRIVING (FSD), especially at highway speeds, the car will suddenly start significantly braking and slow down for no justifiable reason. This is dangerous enough that if the vehicle behind me is not paying attention, they could rear-end me. It’s totally unpredictable when this will occur, but it does happen frequently at highway speeds. This is a very well-known problem, but even after dozens of software update releases, Tesla has been unable to eliminate or even reduce the frequency of Phantom Braking.

The optional "Self Driving Option" we purchased for an additional $8,000 when we purchased this vehicle has never worked properly. The adaptive cruise control will brake for no reason, often multiple times per mile. It seems to be affected by shadows on the road and the vehicle mistakes these shadows for obstacles. The "Self Driving Option" will abruptly jerk the steering wheel in the direction of oncoming traffic and violently disengage. My wife and I find it to be unusable. Multiple service requests to Tesla have resulted in no actions.

On June 1, 2022, we left on a roadtrip to CA from UT. Our Model 3 kept having incidents of "phantom braking," in which the Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autopilot systems would suddenly, inexplicably cause the car to slam on the brakes, and sometimes even flash a "red" steering wheel and an alarm with a warning that there was an object ahead —when there was NOT! This happened at least a dozen times en route on Highway 95 in Nevada, and continued to happen throughout our roadtrip on other highways until we returned home one week later on June 8, 2022. I have experienced this problem several times over the past year, and numerous other owners have already submitted similar complaints to NHTSA. Indeed, the TACC and AP behaviors are now significantly WORSE than when we first took delivery of the car over 4 years ago in April 2018. It is as though the car suffers hiccups, spasms, Tourette's Syndrome without any warning. I fear that one of these times we will be rear ended by a car behind or to the side of us. I can only speculate as to why this has started to happen, but suspect it is because Tesla decided to stop using its radar sensors a year ago and now only relies on its cameras. These incidents truly frighten my wife to death, so much so that she wants me to get rid of the car. I can't say I blame her, as the problems with the car's TACC and AP systems are now making it unsafe on our highways. If Tesla doesn't restore reliable, dependable, safe TACC and AP in the near future, I will get rid of the car.

I was driving on a one way street when the car suddenly stopped. I was not at an or close to an intersection. There was a pedestrian waiting on the side of the road, standing between cars. He was not in my way. He was not even close to the vehicle. The car sounded audible warning and came to a complete stop. I believe this was the reason the vehicle stopped. This is the 2nd time since my 3 year ownership that this has happened. I provided Tesla with time stamps of the event during my service visit. They told me this is normal function of the vehicle. Just reporting this in case there is a more serious underlying issue that warrants additional investigation.

Our model 3 was purchased with Tesla’s “full self driving (FSD)” software installed in 2018. Throughout our entire ownership period, whenever FSD is active, there are specific locations known to us - mostly at certain points on freeways - where the car will “phantom brake,” in other words suddenly decelerate the vehicle very rapidly and require *immediate* driver intervention. For instance, there is a freeway interchange ramp that passes under a bridge and doglegs to the left. The car will always phantom brake about 200 feet before it reaches the bridge. This has been happening for years, and we’ve reported this defect and this specific location to Tesla many times. There are other locations known to us as consistent phantom brake triggers, but there are of course times where this occurs when we are not expecting it as well, and that’s when it’s most dangerous. We believe it may have something to do with the car’s sensors when they sense certain shapes or objects while the road is also curving slightly, as this is the most common phantom brake scenario for us. Again, this has been happening since we purchased the car in 2018. It occurs randomly at least a few times a month, and it *always* occurs in certain locations.

NHTSA forced Tesla FSDBETA to remove “Rolling Stop” behavior at clear intersections. This has caused me to be continually honked at, drivers aggressively passing my slow FSDBETA car. The decision by the NHTSA has caused my car to be more UNSAFE by impeding proper traffic flows. NHTSA should be focused on improving safety and not traffic law enforcement. This complaint is directed at the improper decision and solely on the NHTSA to lift the guidance to Tesla. As a customer I now feel my car is unsafe to drive due to your decision.

When driving on local roads and the interstate the card suddenly brakes for no reason when using auto pilot or full self driving. Sometimes it seems to be triggered by shadows from trees or other objects on the road and other times for no reason at all. I have been going 45 mph and the car suddenly braked to 30mph. I have been on the open interstate doing 70 mph when the car will suddenly and violently brake when there is a car on your bumper and this is very dangerous. If you dont keep your foot over the gas while driving and force the car to speed up it will cause an accident bc it will brake until the car is stopped probably. Somone needs to look into tesla and the phantom braking on auto pilot and full self driving. i have owned this car for almost 4 years and over the last 1 year this has gotten progressivley worse when they switched from using the radar sensor in the front to camera only vision called tesla vision. it is unsafe and im sure it's causing accidents today and needs to be investigated since Tesla cant seem to fix it.

While using the adaptive cruise control plus autopilot, car suddenly and rapidly slows to stop. At each instance, there are no cars in front of me or any other obvious obstruction to cause the car to rapidly deaccelerate. It only happens on the freeway at freeway speeds. It is shocking and unnerving. When I quickly take back the control, I can bring the car back up to speed. So far, there has not been a car close behind me to cause a rear-end collision, but that is my fear. This has happened sporadically since I got the car, perhaps ten times total. The form asks for a date, but there are multiple across years so I put the approx latest date.

I received access to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system in late 2021. In the lead-up to that access, Tesla used a series of driver scoring metrics to select which users would get access first. Consistently, my metrics for forward collision warnings would show as alarmingly high, despite never coming within remote striking distance of another vehicle. On more than one occasion, a vehicle passing in other lane or turning left but in the other lane tripped the warning. At the time this registered as a red flag but more a bug of the evaluation system than the car’s recognition software. As time with the FSD suite has gone on, and subsequently with every new update, the phantom braking problem a number of users have described has plagued my experiences. Numerous times I’ve been driving with FSD engaged on two lane roads with no cars, shadows, animals or distractions of any kind around only for the car to suddenly and rapidly decelerate. Additionally I’ve received warnings repeatedly, without explanation, that the emergency braking system is disabling itself, then the warning will clear without any indication it’s either become reactive or is still disabled. Further, I’ve noticed through the new blind spot camera feature Tesla has released that my left rear-facing repeater camera can be blinded by the flashing of the embedded turn signal in the housing - but only the left signal, the right is not. This has led to, on more than one occasion, FSD disabling itself while active with little or no warning. I’ve listed the approximate date the first phantom braking occurred, but all of these problems have been an ongoing issues for months.

I was using Enhanced Autopilot on Tesla Model 3. It breaks automatically in middle of road for no reason even when there is no object in front of it. Its a life threatening situation because the vehicle behind my car will not have enough breaking distance and time at high speeds. It happens almost every month and specially under the reflection of bridges. I complained to service center and employees just ask exact time when it occurred and if exact time is not provided than Tesla employees does not do anything to resolve the issue. Looks like Tesla is putting many lives in danger.