310
Tesla’s phantom braking nightmare: lawsuits surge as drivers lose trust in Autopilot
(www.autoblog.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
310 points (99.7% liked)
News
35724 readers
3564 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I posted this in the past and it continues to be true. Autopilot is getting worse overtime. Tesla is feeding autopilot driving data into its system to learn to drive better. The problem is, it's learning its worst habits. Phantom braking, hesitation in turns, unable to keep a steady speed. Every update I try it and rarely last more than a couple miles. It's not that I want to use it, I just want to see if it's getting better or worse.
The wild thing is, turning off autopilot and using lane keep and cruise is fine. They warn you that lane keep is old autopilot so it's not as reliable, trying to urge you into using full autopilot so they can harvest more data. But that "old" autopilot was built before all the updates that made the full autopilot system unusable to me
If you're wondering, I'd like to not be driving a Tesla. But it's paid off, worth basically nothing in resale, and I got it as a CPO with free charging and autopilot for life. It costs Tesla money to keep it.
Honestly just put a bunch of anti-Elon bumper stickers on your car and keep it until the battery shits the bed, it will be worth more as scrap metal. It's costing you nothing and actively costing Tesla something.
I get the stigma of having a Tesla, but some people did in fact buy it before Elon's fascist tendencies were widely known. Its the people who buy one now after knowing how much more of a piece of shit he is that piss me off (like one of my neighbors who got a Tesla recently).
If you have a Cybertruck though, fuck you, I hope your $100k+ death trap bursts into flames after a slight pothole taking you with it. Your car is actively making the roads less safe and you knew who you were buying it from.
Very true, I wasted no time putting some stickers on to show I dessent. The dumpster trucks are really the only ones you can be sure are driven by assholes.
I'm increasingly convinced that while AI in general had a big leap forward a few years ago, since then there's some mass hysteria type effect where everyone seems convinced that it's been getting steadily better at the same rate - when I've not been able to see any of that.
I keep reading all these benchmarks that are supposedly destroyed every three months, but they never seem to turn into any noticeable improvements when I use the damn things. It's now at the stage where if someone tries to tell me otherwise I just assume they're either a bot themselves, or falling for some kind of hysteria/confirmation bias type effect.
So, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if autopilot literally was getting worse as they try forcing more data into it and getting nothing but overfit. It was already as good as it was going to be based on its fundamentals, which is to say, not good enough.
SAME! I'm doing my part to cost them money. But mine is a 2014 so only AP1 hardware. I love my autopilot. Just lane assist and TACC. I've used other lane assists and have hated all of them.
Mine isn’t. I don’t have or use “self driving”. I have used cruise control (what Tesla refers to as “autopilot”) but it is risky. My Tesla’s cruise control has slammed on the brakes on interstates at 65 MPH multiple times. I’ve stopped using it because it is so dangerous. If there had been a large truck behind me any of those times it would have been ugly.
Same experience with autopilot. How are you able to use the limited autopilot?! My single downclick on the right stick on my Model 3 takes me straight to full auto and the limited lane keeping and passing is greyed out for a year now.
I was excited to be part of the beta that was going to bring in a new era of safety with autopilot driving back when it was finally released. I stopped using it a couple years ago with the increasingly poor changes and more and more limits to options. With other manufacturers making superior autopilots and safer cars it seems pointless now.
Side note: I have always found it frustrating hearing the autopilot haters especially at the beginning (now with the bad updates I have to agree with them). They bought it expecting a fulling function system that would flawlessly get them from point A to B like Musk promised. It was a beta release for the first mass autopilot service. What were you expecting?? All these people crashing for the most part were letting the car drive. You had to treat it like a 10 year old kid was at the wheel and be EXTRA attentive to everything because you not only had to watch out for outside dangers but your car possibly wanting to take on oncoming traffic. The second autopilot chose to turn sharper or start to do anything I wouldn’t do I took over. The audio feedback they had added was a great idea too. Hearing why I took over is important to know where the defect in the system is. I’m sure they have text to speech then AI scan the data to look for enough common responses so they can focus on the bigger issues.
Elon really ruined such a great thing by going drug addled insane. My plate holders say “SORRY! Bought it before he went crazy”. I feel bad for all the engineers stuck working there who signed on excited to bring in the new era of driving. There’s still good people there which is why I’m not a huge Tesla hater necessarily but absolutely a Musk hater. I wouldn’t buy another Tesla, and the fall from innovations and safety offsets this but the one thing they did that I’m glad for is they forced other manufacturers to take EVs seriously as a mainstream option. They finally decided to dump money on the ”risky world of unknowns” that would open them up to possibly countless recalls and class action lawsuits for anything they took a chance on and got wrong. They’ve been scrambling to catch up ever since.
I dumped my Tesla stock a long time ago and suggest anyone still holding on to do the same. I feel with the more unhinged Elon becomes the more likely it is the board will replace him and his tie to brand identity will tank the stock the second it’s announced. They know this which is why they continue to hold on. Profits over everything, including safety as always.
Hey friend, mine is a gen 2 S, so the menus may vary, but when I'm in park, I can turn off the "full self driving" option. Then that lets me turn lane centering on and off. That will put you back to the one click for cruise, second click for lane keep.
I made a second driver profile, one with autopilot and one without. That lets me switch in and out quickly without needing to find a safe spot to stop the car. I hope that helps!
Omg my hero!
Mazda badge it. The guy who designed most of Tesla's line was from Mazda, it looks like it belongs on the S, 3, X, Y.
*braking.
Unless they decide to mitigate the cost you've become to them