2026 Tesla Model Y Speed Control & Cruise Problems

It was snowing and I was driving slow. About 8:40am, Feb 6th, 2026, I got a "One pedal driving disabled" alert just for a moment, then tried to stop before an intersection because a signal was turning to red. However, break didn't work and I had to enter the intersection under a red signal. Fortunately, there was no car in front of me, also a car coming from the side didn't notice signal changed. No accident, but very very scary. On Dec 6th, I also got an alert "One pedal driving disabled" and even after I released an accelerator pedal, speed didn't slow down. I reached Tesla on Feb 6th, but the service scheduled 4 weeks later. It's not safe to drive at all, thus, I will try to have them to check my vehicle asap.

Vehicle equipped with Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised v 14.2) software exhibits unsafe automated following behavior. The system maintains following distances that are too short at steady speeds, including behind stable lead vehicles with no braking or traffic disturbances. Tesla’s own Safety Score system flags this behavior as “following too closely,” indicating elevated collision risk. However, the driver has no available control to adjust minimum following distance or impose safer headway while using FSD This represents unsafe autonomous tailgating behavior with loss of driver control authority over safe following distance, creating increased risk of rear-end collision and hazardous automated driving conditions. Tesla offers several controls (Sloth, Chill, Standard, Hurry, and MadMax) modes, none of which solve the issue if the driver in front is driving the speed limit. My car under FSD will crowd (or tailgate) the front car regardless of the mode. In one instance, I was following a car under FSD in sloth mode and it made the car in front of me pull over just to get me off their tail.... this is certainly now how I wish to drive, and don't want my car driving this way. Failure mode: automated headway policy dominance, lack of driver override, unsafe autonomous following distance.

Tesla self driving detects and sets a speed limit and displays it as a speed limit icon. I used self driving to exit my driveway, which turns onto a dirt road with a speed limit of 15 MPH. Near the bottom of the driveway self driving suddenly reset the speed limit from 10 MPH to 55 MPH. The car then accelerated abruptly shortly before the turn onto the dirt road. There is no mechanism for overriding the speed limit the Tesla self driving automatically selects. It is clear that the speed of the vehicle is adjusted according to the speed limit that Tesla self driving selects. Before I could regain control of the vehicle I was almost into the field opposite the driveway. The inability to re-set the automatically selected speed limit is dangerous. The speed limit has spontaneously reset to 55 MPH on two other occasions, and the vehicle spontaneously speeded up.

Vehicle equipped with Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised v 14.2) software exhibits unsafe automated behavior due to removal of driver speed control. The system infers speed limits and driving speed without allowing the driver to set a safe maximum speed. In residential neighborhoods with children, pedestrians, and shared social spaces, the vehicle drives at model-inferred speeds that are socially and physically unsafe. Driver is unable to impose a lower safe speed limit without disengaging. Tesla removed previous option for driver to adjust speed. In a state park campground, the system failed to detect a posted 15 mph speed limit and inferred a 55 mph limit. The vehicle accelerated to unsafe speeds on narrow, pedestrian-heavy roads, with no driver ability to cap speed while under FSD. This represents a loss of human override authority and unsafe autonomous system behavior, creating pedestrian hazard and safety risk. Failure mode: automated speed inference dominance, map prior misclassification, lack of driver override, unsafe autonomous acceleration in pedestrian environments.

See attached document for complaint.

Incident date 11/27/25 Incident Location: CA State highway 101between San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles. Driving Conditions: Daylight/dry roadway. Description of Safety Defect / Complaint: During a single approximately 400-mile highway road trip, while using Tesla’s Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) feature enabled, the vehicle abruptly and forcefully applied the brakes on at least six (6) separate occasions without any apparent cause. On each occurrence: • No vehicle ahead was braking or decelerating, • No vehicle was merging or cutting in front of my vehicle, • No stationary or moving obstacles (including overpasses, road signs, or debris) were present in or near the travel lane, • The forward roadway was clear and unobstructed for a considerable distance. These sudden, un-commanded braking events were severe enough to cause significant deceleration, requiring me to immediately intervene by pressing the accelerator pedal to override the system. Due to the frequency and unpredictability of these phantom braking events, I no longer feel safe using Traffic-Aware Cruise Control or any Tesla advanced driver-assistance features that rely on the same sensor suite and software. I am filing this report because repeated uncommanded braking in highway traffic constitutes a serious safety hazard that could lead to rear-end collisions, particularly when closely followed by other vehicles or commercial trucks. Additional Information (if applicable): • Software version at time of incident: v12 (2025.38.9 fe 714a33a545) • Full Self-Driving Capability package: No. Enhanced Autopilot: No. • Any dashcam or Sentry Mode footage available: No I request that NHTSA investigate this recurring phantom braking issue in Tesla vehicles equipped with Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autopilot systems.

My car installed update v12 (2025.38.8.7) last night. This morning I was driving to work using autopilot when alarms sounded, the hazard lights turned on, and the screen flashed a warning that I had to take over immediately. The message included a note that autopilot had failed due to a "systems error." The navigation and visualization screen froze, went blank, and took 10 minutes to come back on. I asked Tesla to roll back the update and they have told me that they cannot do that. I came very close to crashing into a concrete guard rail as the car was going around a turn when the system failed.

The latest version of Tesla FSD software does not let me fully control my speed. You can switch profiles or stop using Full Self-Driving, but you cannot set the speed to what you want. In the last version, you could use the right scroll wheel to increase or decrease the speed. Now that shifts profiles but even that does not give you control over what exact speed you are driving

The newest FSD update v14 as of 10/23/25 took away the ability to manually limit the speed limit. Full Self Driving profiles are fixed, and the limits are invisible to me as the driver. The all except the Sloth fixed profiles can cause the speed to go 15 miles an hour over the limit unexpectedly which can cause arrest. There is also some very concerning random breaking now in the middle of empty roads where there might be a slight bump during the dark morning hours. The lack of manual speed control also is an issue when the expected speed limit is wrong in the system. In a 20 mile an hour neighborhood the car thinks it is 25 and can never drive compliant to the speed limit even with the Sloth profile. This is a dangerous oversight.

Upon purchase of the vehicle, unlike previous models and versions of the software - the vehicle’s speed limit control was incapable of being set - instead, using FSD, you had to select from percentage based offsets - which were frequently ignored and would still go much higher or much lower than the percentage value set. The owner of the vehicle was unable to say limit to only 10 over the speed limit; instead it was percent based and not reliable. In addition, more than a third of the time - the speed limits in the infotainment system did not match the posted speed limits. Sometimes, in the middle of a highway - it would randomly go from 55 to 25, posing a significant threat hazard when using the FSD or cruise control system (which is something Tesla charges extra for access to) causing the vehicle to immediately decrease speed when other vehicles behind are getting up to speed and not expecting a vehicle to randomly slow down excessively. Additionally, when you manually override the speed limit control, or the system does, the user interface hides this limit so the driver is unaware of what limit of speed it is set to. These issues were already bad enough, but just yesterday my vehicle was pushed a software update that dramatically reduced the performance of FSD, and now I am unable to manually control the speed limit at all in FSD. This was a regression from purchase, when a scroll wheel at least allowed me to manually set the speed limit or correct it when it was wrong. Now, that feature has been removed and instead there’s a duplication of FSD profiles (left/right on the right scroll wheel does the same as scrolling up/down). And continuing this trend, the driver is incapable of seeing what the speed limit is set to because it’s hidden from the user interface. In addition, the driving behavior for FSD has significantly regressed from before the update. Cruise control’s most basic functionality should be to set a speed limit. Now this feature has been removed.

The contact owned a 2026 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while depressing the brake pedal to attempt to stop at a stop sign, the vehicle failed to respond as intended. The contact mentioned that when attempting to make a left turn, the steering wheel seized and became difficult to maneuver, and the vehicle crashed into a curb and merged into a landscaping facility. The contact was able to shift the vehicle into neutral, then reverse. The vehicle began to work as intended, and he looked out of his rearview mirror. He could see smoke coming from the rear passenger side, and he heard an abnormal noise coming from the rear passenger tire. No warning lights illuminated. A dealer was contacted. The vehicle was towed to a dealer to be diagnosed; however, the diagnosis was unknown. The contact mentioned the dealer, and insurance deemed the vehicle a total loss. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and offered no assistance. The approximate failure mileage was 4,900.

While driving along a few roads using Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC) or AutoPilot (AP), the car will suddenly brake for no reason at all. Speeds reduced from 75 to 50 in 2 seconds. Had there been a car close behind me, we may have collided. I am able to reproduce this on several other roads as well. I have not yet reported this to the manufacturer, but a review of internet forums shows this to be a relatively common occurrence among owners. They refer to this as Phantom Braking.