If you follow automotive news diligently, you have certainly heard of “phantom braking”. What is this phenomenon, and is it, as it is often claimed, unique to Tesla? Answer in our article.
Tesla is regularly in the automotive news, often for the right reasons, but not always. Imagine: you are on the highway and your car brakes (or slows down) suddenly, without warning. This issue, known as “phantom braking”is the obsession of Tesla owners and there are many videos on the Internet about this problem.
Let us specify from the outset: phantom braking can occur with any car, whether electric or thermal. But this is more the case with electric models, since they are often new and therefore covered with driving aids, which are the culprits in history.
The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the U.S. Federal Highway Safety Agency, has received enough complaints about this phenomenon to launch a formal investigation in 2022. Add to that the filing of a class action lawsuit, it seems that this concern will increase further in the coming months.
What is phantom braking?
This is a problem that is only Tesla’s responsibility, but in reality, it also concerns other manufacturers, including Honda on some models in the United States and specifically 2018 and 2019 CR-Vs and Accords that can brake for no reason. The Mercedes E-Class is also singled out, as is the Volvo S60 and the Nissan Rogue. In the latter case, 750 complaints were filed with NHTSA, including 12 with a collision caused by emergency braking.
If this problem is mostly related to Tesla, it’s also because the community around the brand is very active on the Internet. This problem has been discussed for a long time, but Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, also turned a deaf ear for a long time, before he declared that would be settled in an update. Unfortunately, according to Tesla owner forums, this problem persists. Some owners even become suspicious of Autopilot after a few bad experiences.
Phantom braking is linked to a problem with the Autopilot system, a globally developed system that allows the vehicle, through blind spot monitoring, lane keeping, adaptive cruise control and emergency braking to evolve almost independently in traffic.
There are several levels of Autopilot. The car is equipped with it as standard, but customers can also opt for improved Autopilot (optional at 3,800 euros in France) which adds Autopilot navigation, automatic lane change or even car parking, and fully autonomous driving capability (7,500 euros) which includes all the functionalities of the basic Autopilot and the improved Autopilot with, in addition, recognition and reaction to traffic lights and stop signs.
Autopilot’s misinterpretation of the environment is the cause of phantom braking – a rapid, unexpected deceleration caused by Autopilot for no apparent reason. Depending on the severity of the braking (most of the time the car slows down sharply, but does not perform real emergency braking), this can bring a lot of discomfort to the passengers, and, although no such case has yet been raised, go as far as an accident if the vehicle behind you is surprised and does not brake hard enough.
As a reminder, the purpose of automatic emergency braking is to slow or stop the vehicle in the event of an imminent collision, and this safety function generally warns the driver first, then, in the absence of reaction, activates the brakes. The problem is that some Teslas (but not all) brake or slow down, sometimes at high speeds, seemingly randomly, as if something had been detected on the road.
One of the sensors would seem to identify a potential danger and, for safety, triggers braking (or slows down sharply depending on the situation) so as not to hit this danger. In reality, it is sometimes simply a shadow or a reflection on the roadway.
What cars are affected by phantom braking?
In a letter addressed to Tesla on May 4, 2022, the NHTSA specifies: “The office has received 758 reports of unexpected brake activation of certain Model 3 & Y vehicles (model year 2021 and 2022). A copy of each of these reports is attached for your information.. The letter is accessible via this link.
Figures that may seem high, but in fact, they must be even higher since all the customers who may have encountered this problem have not necessarily filed a complaint with the NHSTA. The organization estimates that the number of affected Teslas could be around 416,000, notably by correlating the number of affected Teslas in circulation and the number of reports received.
The current investigation therefore mainly concerns the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y model year 2021 and 2022. There is obviously no distinction between the Propulsion, Long Range or Performance versions. In the United States, some Tesla owners who have experienced this problem are calling on other owners to report the phantom braking issue to their dealer and to NHTSA to better understand the extent of the problem.
In recent months there have been more phantom brake issues. In any case, more of them were declared. the washington post reported earlier this year that many more owners have alerted the authorities to these infamous ghost brakes since November 2021.
And why precisely from this date? This would be due to the disappearance of speed cameras on new Teslas sold in the United States from May 2021, a measure no doubt taken to deal with the shortage of components, but hidden behind a technological advance called “Tesla Vision”.
In Europe, radars have also disappeared from new Teslas from April 2022. For Teslas already in circulation on this date, radars will be gradually put aside, to be based solely on cameras, and the Tesla system Vision. More recently, Tesla made the decision to remove the ultrasonic sensors for low-speed maneuvers altogether, to focus solely on Tesla Vision.
But, in any case, phantom braking was already taking place even without Tesla Vision, when Autopilot was also based on speed cameras. It is therefore difficult to say whether the switch to the Tesla Vision system has improved the situation or not.
And as we have seen above, other manufacturers also face the problem of phantom braking. Virtually all newer cars with overly sensitive emergency braking can experience this problem.
What are the solutions ?
The first would obviously be that Tesla, but also all the other manufacturers, correct the problem. Tesla does not really communicate on the subject and logically, some owners step up and sue the American firm.
The problem is that it seems that no magic solution is available. Indeed, by modifying the obstacle detection algorithm and therefore the emergency braking system, it means that the latter does not activate when necessary. Finally, what is more dangerous: emergency braking for nothing, or no emergency braking when necessary?
As Adriano Palao, head of driving aids at the European organization EuroNCAP, points out to the media Automotive Newsremoving phantom braking in Europe will be very difficult, “ because of the variety of infrastructures across countries“. Before adding that one of the solutions is to use many sensors, such as radars, in addition to LiDAR, cameras and machine learning trained to react to these situations”.
If Tesla uses machine learning well to improve its driving aids, this is not the case for most other manufacturers. Elon Musk’s firm has a long lead in this area. But when it comes to sensors, it’s quite the opposite. The American billionaire does not want to hear about LiDAR and proves it with the removal of radars and ultrasonic sensors. What makes it even more difficult to solve ghost braking problems?
Only time will tell, since Tesla remains convinced that the Tesla Vision system is more efficient than driving aids, based on radar-assisted cameras. A path not followed by other manufacturers, like Mercedes with the LiDAR of the EQS, or Nio and its ET7 equipped with a LiDAR, but with autonomous driving… rather hesitant as we have seen in our test.
EuroNCAP to the rescue?
In an attempt to reduce the occurrence of phantom braking, EuroNCAP wishes to better verify the behavior of driving aids during crash tests. What push the manufacturers to put the package on this part to be sure to get the five stars, a sign of the safety of a car.
Otherwise, drivers risk disabling the driving aids, due to eroded confidence in these systems. The consequences could be unfortunate, with an increased risk of accident due to the deactivation of this artificial intelligence, which is nevertheless effective as Tesla’s figures prove.
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