2022 Tesla Model S Driver Assist & ADAS Problems

Vehicle: 2022 Tesla Model S (HW 3.0) System in Question: Full Self-Driving (FSD) Capability, initially purchased (Level 1 equivalent) for $6,000, and then upgraded (Level 2 equivalent) for an additional $3,000 (Total $9,000). I. Initial FSD Purchase and Unsafe Performance (Level 1) Upon initial purchase of the FSD package, the system (what Tesla later called FSD Beta, or its precursor) consistently demonstrated unsafe and aggressive behavior that necessitated immediate driver intervention to prevent a crash. Specific Safety Concern: The system would often execute turns, both in city and highway off-ramp scenarios, with excessive speed and aggressive lateral acceleration. This erratic behavior felt uncontrolled and risky, frequently causing the driver to feel unsafe and to rapidly override the system by taking manual control of the steering wheel. Resulting Risk: The system was virtually unusable for anything beyond basic highway cruising (a feature standard on many vehicles), yet its aggressive behavior posed a safety risk on the highway when attempting lane changes or taking exits. II. Upgrade and Deterioration of Practical Safety (Level 2) I upgraded to the top-tier FSD package with the hope of receiving a safer, more functional system that matched the "Full Self-Driving" name. Instead, the system introduced new safety and usability defects: Forced Disengagement/Driver Monitoring Defect: The system's driver monitoring is overly aggressive and interferes with safe, necessary driving actions. It delivers constant "nag" warnings and requires disengagement when the driver performs a brief but necessary safety check, such as looking at a side mirror, checking over the shoulder for a lane change, or briefly glancing at the car's screen to adjust climate/radio. Safety Implication: This defect forces the driver to prematurely disengage FSD in complex traffic situations to avoid a warning/lockout, which is counter-productive to safety. I am effectively penalized for

The update that you required for Auto Steer has made the car undrivable. I get a written and audible warning IMMEDIATELY when I engage Auto Steer. Literally within 2 seconds. I always keep my hands on the wheel, lightly, while I drive on the highway. Anything short of a death grip on the wheel causes the warning to go off. However, the nag feature (after the changes you required) goes off constantly. Honestly, it's very distracting. If I look at the radio to change the channel, the warning goes off. You need to undo the changes you required. It makes Auto Steer less safe, not more.

Tesla, in multiple cars that I own, has repeatedly changed user-preferences of user-selections, without warning, or update notes, for a variety of functions. This seems to be a consequence of sloppy software coding and seems to coincide with new software releases. In recent months, Tesla has attempted to inform people of new software update functionality with ‘release notes’. However, these notes seldom, if ever, explain that a user’s preference is getting discarded (though could be restored -- if the user were aware). One example, is the operation of ‘Traffic Aware Cruise Control’ was changed from a double click of a scroll wheel to a single click. No release nor or manual page was called out to indicate the change — at least prior to this driver’s noticing and diagnosing the problem. Nor was any pop-up message explaining the new, and surprising functionality of a ‘double-click’ — which was to momentary activate and deactivate TACC. Other functions that get changed, without notice: 1) operation of automatic windshield wipers is deactivated (and set to ‘manual) — from the user-preference of ‘auto’; 2) Auto park chimes sounds are turned off — despite a user-preference setting them to 'on'. These changes to the UI, necessitating guesswork using the large glass screen, prove to be highly distracting to a driver in the midst of driving. In addition, these undocumented and un-communicated changes lead the consumer to contact Tesla and even setup ranger service to make a repair for what ends up being a sloppy manual — to the detriment of Tesla’s effectiveness of their Service Department. If Tesla cannot make the user interface operate in a coherent manner day-to-day, there is no hope that any alleged full self driving will avoid reverting to some unknown configuration on unknown time scales. Perhaps Tesla should repurpose engineers that make video games for the car to the purpose of regression testing to avoid surprises like these.

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model S. The contact stated that while reversing in her driveway, the front driver's side camera did not indicate there was a gate in the viewing area. The driver crashed into a metal gate on her property. The front bumper was damaged. There was no beeping sound while approaching the object. There were no warning lights illuminated. There were no reported injuries. The vehicle was taken to a body shop, where it was diagnosed that the bumper needed to be replaced. The rear bumper was damaged while at the body shop. The mechanic stated that the clips were missing. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The contact removed the USB and was unable to locate the incident. The manufacturer was contacted, who referred her to an approved body shop. The approximate mileage was 11,544.

"Tesla Vision" is the ADAS sensor system in the car which relies exclusively on video cameras with no LIDAR or ultrasonic sensors to measure distance. It is highly inaccurate and prone to failure. It consistently reports false warnings and fails to identify actual threats.

Phantom braking continues to be a problem. I've never had it happen in the city or in traffic. I also owned a 2015 Tesla MS that NEVER had a phantom braking problem. For me PB has always occurred on a freeway with no traffic around at all. No overpass involved. Suddenly TACC thinks it must apply the brakes. Surely at least Tesla could log this kind of event and fix it. It's aggravating for me as a driver and terrifies passengers.

When using traffic-aware cruise control at normal highway speed, on regular, clear days — including when there is no glare — the system often brakes abruptly, despite the absence of obstacles or even shadows that could be misinterpreted as obstacles. This is extremely dangerous, and it has happened (1) when there are no other vehicles on the road, and (2) when the only other vehicle on the road is directly behind me. The latter scenario is particularly dangerous. Notably, the only cruise control available is traffic-aware cruise control. There is no ‘basic’ cruise control, which means there is no way to avoid this scary phantom braking other than by not using cruise control at all. I have tried disabling all ADAS automatic braking features, yet this phenomenon still occurs. This has been occurring with all software up to date. I am scared that my car is going to kill me.

Dangerous Phantom Braking: this has occurred many times including very dangerous situations in high speed interstate hwy settings. The car will slam on the brakes for no apparent reason often with cars following closely behind. I have completely stopped using “full self driving” as it is a death trap and people will certainly die because of its use.

While utilizing the car’s cruise control (TRAAC) and the advanced autopilot features, the car brakes often, unexpectedly and without warning when there are no hazards or vehicles in its path. This is a well documented problem called “phantom braking” involving Teslas. My experiences include traveling on straight open highway with no other vehicle’ within hundreds of yards. Scary and unsafe.

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model S. The contact stated while her husband was driving approximately 70 MPH, the vehicle experienced "phantom braking" approximately 8-times in total. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact called the local dealer and made them aware of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 2,000.

The Traffic Aware Cruise Control disengaged suddenly and unexpectedly multiple times during highway driving and rapidly decelerated from 70 mph to 35 mph. This occurred several times on a clear freeway without any obstructions or any basis for disengagement and placed vehicles behind at risk due to the sudden deceleration.

Malfunctioning system: AUTOPILOT, Self Driving. The vehicle is available for inspection. We were put at RISK following having several 'NEAR MISS' incidents. None of which resulted in an accident. The 2022 Model S PLAID with less than 2,929 current miles as of this entry, while being driven in daylight & evening hours on major freeways and interstate roads in Central & Southern California while using the "AUTOPILOT" FULL SELF DRIVING (FSD) has multiple times for NO APPARENT REASON & WITHOUT WARNING suddenly 'PANIC' BRAKED the vehicle from freeway speeds to less than 30 MPH. In one instance this caused the late model vehicle following us to take immediate evasive action and swerve into the adjacent lane without warning and then the vehicle HONKED continuously at us while passing us to our left. On each of the occasions I have had to OVERRIDE the Autopilot by pressing on the accelerator pedal as soon as I realized what was happening! On other occasions when in 'AUTOPILOT' self-driving mode, the vehicle has attempted to change lanes to exit the highway without awareness of how close the vehicle was to the end of the exit lane. Again I had to OVERRIDE the Autopilot by turning the yoke back into the lane to avoid running into barriers. I had believed that because this is a 'BETA' version that these conditions were being worked on and would be corrected with a software update. I have had numerous software updates installed. The current Version is 2022.44.30.10. For this reason, I have not reported these incidents to the manufacturer or made an appointment with the Local Tesla Service Center. The problems continue even with the current software update. Until recently, I was unaware of others having these same issues or that significant injury, death, damage, have occurred. However, since being made aware of this problem, I chose to report my experiences. I will follow-up and make an appointment with the manufacturer to have the vehicle inspected.

While ADAS is engaged, vehicle occasionally suddenly breaks and disengages while the road is clear and obstruction free. This happens frequently.

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model S. The contact stated while driving at an undisclosed speed with the ADAS Adaptive Cruise Control activated, the vehicle experienced Phantom Braking with an unknown warning light intermittently illuminated. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. Neither the dealer nor the manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 2,236.

The adaptive cruise control will erroneously do a hard stop for no reason. This could cause an accident if someone is following me. The owners manual has a disclaimer / warning and Tesla states this feature is beta. They (Tesla) need to step up and fix this issue.

I have quite a few incidents with fantom breaks on my Tesla. Two night ago I almost caused accident as my Tesla breaked for no reason. Many incidents happened before in the month.

I was driving to the airport at 4:00 am in the morning. I was on C470 going past SantaFa exist and had the cruise control set to 70mph. As I was just passing the exit the cruise control setting dropped to 45mph and the car broke hard for no reason. The cruise control setting was NOT set to the actual speed. This has happened on 4 other occasions while driving on the highway. This is very scary and very dangerous to any car that might be following me. I told the Tesla service person and they said, that it is called phantom breaking and they are aware of it, and if it happens again to just control the speed with the pedal. Doesn't seem like a good solution.

We experienced between 10 and 15 Phantom braking events on Highway 395 between Carson City and Apple Valley California. We also experienced Phantom breaking a few times during the trip back along Highway 101 in California. The events occurred only when the car was in adaptive cruise control and in basic self driving. Braking was alarmingly strong in two or three cases, and could have resulted in an accident if someone had been following behind us . Other Phantom breaking was moderate to barely noticeable. These events occurred when there were no other vehicles in the immediate vicinity of the car. Some occurred with no vehicles anywhere in sight. Conditions were 100%, in daylight, no fog or dust obstruction, a brand new clean car, and no other known impacts. The car was simply being driven on a Highway with two lanes going in each Direction. In most cases the opposing lanes were separated by large medians between 50 and hundreds of feet apart. When self- driving and adaptive speed control were off there were no incidents of this phantom braking. As I mentioned before this is a brand new Tesla S. This car was received on June 30th. It was on its first road trip when these events occurred.

During our first road trip with this auto, we traveled along I-76 and I-80 on clear days; after setting the "traffic-aware cruise control" (aka adaptive cruise control), the car would brake randomly and for no apparent reason (such as approaching a car ahead of us). This happened so frequently as to make the feature useless during much of the drive. At other times during our trip, the cruise control would seem to work for a while, then start with random braking. On two-lane highways, though it didn't seem to regard oncoming cars in the opposite lane as a hazard (that's good), it still engaged in random braking when no cars were anywhere in sight. Once again, we'd just turn off the feature, as it became more of a safety hazard than having any benefit. Certainly, any cars that might have been behind us would have been endangered by unexpected braking, and had road conditions been at all slippery, such as on ice, it could have been downright dangerous. I'd rather that Tesla reverted to a "traditional" cruise control, where we can set the speed and then be responsible for managing braking situations.

Driving at 70 mph with Autopilot on, vehicle slams on brakes when approaching Semi Truck in oncoming lane. No vehicles in front or behind me. No known reason for this action. AutoSteer was not engaged.