2021 Tesla Model 3 Brakes Problems

I drove into my neighbor’s driveway to drop her off. As I slowed down and applied the brakes to stop, the car failed to respond. It continued forward, running over the flower and plant pots at the edge of the driveway, crossing the backyard, and finally colliding with the trees and bushes at the rear of the property. All airbags deployed, and the vehicle was damaged beyond repair.

On [XXX] at approximately [XXX] on [XXX] in Oakland, CA, I was intending to park the car on the street at the curb. As I started to pull to the side of the road to park, the brake suddenly fully engaged, bringing the car to an immediate complete stop. My foot was not on the brake at the time. There were no obstructions of any kind in the road or in front of the vehicle. No warning sounds, messages or lights were activated before, during or after the incident. The incident caused no injuries, because of the low speed at the time, just a sudden jerk forward. However, if the event had occurred at a higher speed, some kind of injury would have been likely. I am also reporting the incident directly to Tesla. There has been no testing or inspection of the vehicle. The vehicle will be made available for inspection or testing if requested. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

Tesla ADAS detects non existent objects and issues collision alerts and phantom brakes randomly if there is no cars in front of the Tesla, braking abruptly and almost getting me into rear end accidents. Tesla ADAS freaks out when making lane changes randomly, shaking violently and giving the driver and its passengers a fishtailing simulation. Auto wiper triggers randomly while it's sunny, distracting the driver and forcing an interaction on the center console to stop it. Auto wiper cannot be turned off as it reengages upon using Tesla ADAS. The rear view camera lags. It stutters and shows me a delayed view. Compounded by the Model 3's very small rear view mirrors and side mirrors, this is incredibly dangerous as I have no way of gaining sufficient visibility of the back of the car. Tesla service told me this is all normal.

Major phantom Braking at 70mph on interstate 5, 4 times the brakes slamed on as if yo had done an emergency stop from 70mph to 20mph fortunately we were not rear ended as I had my son and grandchildren in the car. The car was in cruise control on each occurrence I finally had to stop using it for fear of a major accident

My Tesla Model 3 Phantom Brakes when using Cruise Control, particularly in the morning when the road is clear, no cars or obstacles in front or behind me. The NHTSA KNOWS THIS IS A PROBLEM AND I HAVE PREVIOUSLY MADE THIS COMPLAINT. I contacted Tesla to no avail. They did nothing. WHY HASN'T THE NHTSA DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS ISSUE. THIS IS DANGEROUS AS AN ACCIDENT IS WAITING TO HAPPEN.

“Phantom Braking”. Driving on the interstate approximately 75 mph using cruise control, auto steer, not auto pilot. Within a span of three hours today we experienced at least six episodes of the car emergency braking for apparently no reason. Immediately going from 75 to 40 mph. Thankfully no one was close behind us. We finally stopped using the cruise control. Now afraid to use it at all.

My car is braking hard while I'm on the highway. It's happened on this trip 7 times already. In one of braking, My wife almost got rear ended

When vehicle is in cruise control or autopilot the car will suddenly brake without warning. It will do this numerous times and could cause an accident if a vehicle is following close behind.

While on Autopilot, the car suddenly phantom brakes when there is no risk of any collision ahead. This has happened multiple times on high speed highways. Within 1 hour, this happened 5 times and caused near-collisions with the car following my car.

I was driving Tesla on the freeway using adaptive cruise control at 65 miles per hour and the car suddenly brake and the sped jumped from 65 to 20 in seconds. It was scary. There was no one in front of nothing in the road to cause that to happen. It did say on the screen something about visibility. I had to take control of the car after. It has happened several times before. When I spoke with Tesla they said it’s a safety feature and it only happens when you pass certain cities. I find that hardly true

While using cruise control on a cross country drive, there have been numerous instances of phantom braking in my Tesla Model 3 SR+ (2021). This has been occurring during both day and night driving on the highway, at speeds of 65-75mph. It appears to happen most frequently when there’s a slight up-hill on the highway followed by a slight downhill and then phantom brake, but there have been instances on flat highway road at night with phantom braking taking place.

I have had the car for about 1.5 years. In the last week it has started to have phantom braking where on a clear, flat road with no traffic, it suddenly has hard braking and slows from about 65 mph down to 40-50 mph. This has occurred when operating on Autopilot with the cruise control and autosteer on. There is a risk of a rear collision with this sudden braking. There was no warning. I do not have Full Self Driving.

Driving in empty highway, no cars in front of me for great distances, on cruise control, the car would all of sudden perform hard braking. It happened many times in the course of two 6 hour drives over a weekend and I couldn't figure out what scenarios were predisposing to this. I also tried out autosteer (not autopilot) and it did it in autosteer too. It was very hard braking, not just disengaging, and so I just drove without cruise control because it is too dangerous and risks getting rear-ended because I am braking without warning and for no reason.

Twice in October 2022 (18th and 20th), my vehicle decelerated suddenly during cruise control with no impediments in the road (i.e., phantom breaking). The breaking on the 20th was akin to slamming on the breaks, and both occurred at freeway speeds. I did *not purchase Tesla's self-driving feature. The vehicle also on the 18th tried to steer around an object that did not exist in the road while I turned onto a freeway on-ramp. I reported all three incidents at that time to Tesla for servicing of the vehicle. It is unknown whether any "repair" was actually done to eliminate phantom breaking (I no longer use Tesla's cruise control in similar traffic conditions which were at the time crowded outside of the carpool lane I was using).

While using my Tesla's Full Self Driving (FSD) feature (Navigate on Autopilot) on a recent road trip through West Texas, the vehicle, on multiple occasions, would automatically brake while cruising at speeds of 80 mph (speed limit was 75 mph), which consequently dropped the vehicle's speed over 20 mph within seconds. The result was being forcibly slammed forward with such a jarring, unexpected force that would have easily slammed me as the driver and my front seat passenger into the wind shield if we were not wearing our seatbelts. This happened multiple times on the trip. The only way to recover was to depress the accelerator and forcefully hold on to the steering wheel until the braking system released and control was returned to the driver. If this had occurred on a crowded highway rather than on the open spaces of the West Texas interstate system, I am convinced there would have been a rear impact collision. This "phantom breaking" as Tesla claims, is a serious issue that will no doubt lead to fatalities if not corrected. This issue manifested without warning and with no alerting. The issue can be easily reproduced and the component has yet to be inspected by any 3rd party. I fear people will die because of this issue until it is resolved. Thanks, Sean Merino

My Tesla slowed from 70 to 50 on the freeway in under two seconds for no apparent reason while on autopilot. There was a concrete barrier a few feet away on the shoulder, which I had been driving next to for about a quarter mile before the incident. There was no other traffic within 50 yards of me.

This incident happened last summer, 2022 but I recently read that it is happening to many other people and thought I should report it. I was driving on Hwy 71 south in the Cincinnati area with the ADAS with the cruise control and auto steering in operation. All of a sudden the brakes slammed on with me not doing anything to cause it. There were no cars behind me and I touched and released the brake pedal and it went back to a normal driving mode. I don’t believe I hit a pothole or bump on the highway. I did not report it to Tesla.

When driving on the highway in adaptive cruise control, our vehicle all of a sudden breaked which slowed the car down dramatically. There was nothing around us that would have caused the car to automatically apply the breaks. This happened multiple times in a single drive on both Autopilot and Adapative Cruise Control. Luckily, no one was directly behind us when this happened so no collision was caused, but had someone been directly behind us we would have been hit. The vehicle has not been inspected by the manufacturer, insurance or police. The breaking was very random, and we had to tap the brakes to take control and hit the gas to get the car back to highway speeds. We have stopped using cruise control and autopilot after seeing this is a known issue and an investigation is ongoing. It is extremely concerning that this "phantom breaking" happens without warning and at random when there is nothing around the vehicle to cause it to apply the automatic breaking system. This is a safety issue on the road.

I had 2 phantom braking incidents one one trip today. The situation was similar- a car broken down on the shoulder. In both cases i slowed down and moved a bit left to give them room. I had cruise control on but as I braked, it came off. In both cases, once I passed the cars, the Tesla brakes hard. In one case I was almost rear ended by the guy behind me. In both cases, i was in full control of the car and was slowing down and giving way. The phantom braking occurred as I was abreast or past the hazard - in other words, too unnecessary and too late to help anyway. It scared the heck out of me - twice. The car is unsafe at any speed

When on Autopilot (Traffic-aware cruise control), the vehicle will brake suddenly and severely when cresting a hill that the cameras in the car cannot see over, if there is no other traffic in front of the car for the Autopilot cameras to reference against. This is most notable and disturbing on inter-city freeways in the western U.S. such as eastern Oregon or Nevada, where the freeways are rolling. This behavior (braking when cresting a hill with no vehicles visible in front of the car) is quite repeatable. The vehicle is a 2021 Tesla Model 3 with "Tesla Vision," i.e. cameras only with no radar. It is not possible to turn off the "traffic aware" element of Tesla's cruise control. If the Tesla interface had a toggle to turn off "traffic aware" so that it had conventional cruise control (i.e. the vehicle will simply hold the chosen speed regardless of surroundings), that would be helpful and in many ways safer. Ideally, though, they would reprogram the Traffic Aware Cruise Control so that it can handle cresting a hill.