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.
an independent expert drove a Tesla Model 3 for 600 kilometers of Bavarian highways and experienced five separate phantom braking incidents.
I’ve said it before, those cars should not be street legal.
It’s not just the phantom breaking, it also 30% failure rate at 4 year safety checks in Denmark, and higher average accident rate than any other car.https://opentools.ai/news/tesla-model-3-inspection-failures-spark-concerns-in-denmark
These are not just anecdotal incidents, but a proven systemic problem throughout the design of Tesla cars.
Blinkers that are Inconvenient in maybe 10% the cases you use them, may be a minor thing, until you have an accident because of it!That’s more than 1 brake check per hour at the speed they were testing the system at.
Yes in fact at 200 km/h it’s almost 2 per hour!!!
That’s insane. 🤪
Expect Vance to threaten war with Germany over this
Trump’s talking about 25% tariffs on automobiles.
How dare they protect their citizens!
Tesla Germany: The Phantom Menace.
Make elon (Tesla) accountable for accidents/deaths, and I bet they’ll either disable it or make it work (which I think is a long way off).
I’m not defending Tesla or phantom braking, but German drivers could also take some lessons on safe following distance. They will ride on your ass for many km even if they don’t want to pass you.
Is there a place in Europe where that doesn’t happen? I’m riding an articulated bus tailgating someone in the leftmost lane on the motorway in Belgium right now
Well yes, you will be constantly tailgated on the left (fast) lane unless there’s traffic ahead of you.
Scoot over and let me break the speed limit in peace, or do you need me to TURN ON MY LEFT BLINKERS? (which by the way has got to be the most aggressively polite way of raging at someone in traffic)
I have only driven in 2 countries in Continental Europe, and I have mostly traveled by train otherwise. You could be right. It happens in the US but by a smaller subset of drivers. Those drivers would generally be considered assholes in the US, whereas in your example they’re probably just being Belgian.
We sure that phantom isn’t the musk in the machine?
Not defending Tesla, but phantom braking is an issue on a lot of new cars, even without autopilot. It’s the Advanced Emergency Braking System (AEBS) that is now required in the EU. I don’t think any manufacturer has figured out a way to make it 100% reliable yet.
BMW i5 driver here, no Phantom braking in 30000km Autobahn
Volkswagen ID.7 driver here, previously Tesla Model 3.
Haven’t had a single phantom break event with the VW.
Zero phantom braking events in 2.5 years and 27k miles of Taycan ownership. Some during very low speed tight quarters parking situations, but not once on the road or at speed.
One anecdote doesn’t mean much, but is it really as much of an issue with non-Teslas as you think?
I’ve had two pretty bad events with a Ford and a Mercedes. The Ford hit the brakes at 160 km/h on the wide open Autobahn for absolutely no reason. The Mercedes did it on a more rural road and caused the person behind me to honk their horn. I figure that one might’ve been caused by the bushes growing close to the road but it still wasn’t very pleasant.
Ford made a bad car? Are you shitting me here?!
Yeeeah… No.
We cant even get cars to not freak the fuck out and set off alarms for an iced over sensor or a pothole, those sensors have no business having control over the brakes
You literally are defending Tesla.
No, I’m saying Tesla’s system sucks, but other manufacturers also should also get their shit together because it’s a general problem.
I wanted to ask about this: automated braking for pedestrians is a new safety requirement for new cars in the USA, which means it must be safe enough as a mature technology. Is the Tesla self-driving doing something different? Why does the automated braking for pedestrians system not have the problem of spurious braking at speed?
“which means it must be safe enough”
What makes you think this?
Because I trust the regulating authorities to be professionals and do due diligence on their new proposed regulations. This is why we have a government.
Someone who’s more knowledgeable than me might have access to the documents behind their decision to independently verify.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh wait, you’re serious? Let me laugh harder!
Watch any court interview/hearing/testimony with any tech CEO by the government, its hilarious how bad the questions are. The geriatrics making laws don’t understand any tech newer than the 70’s or 80’s.
