The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently said it has launched a preliminary investigation into about 416,000 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y produced in 2021 and 2022 because of the accidental braking of these vehicles when using driver assistance systems, a problem known in the electric vehicle community as "ghost brakes" (ghost brakes), which can become a safety issue, especially for Tesla users who use Autopilot on the highway.
Tesla's vehicles are equipped with a set of driver assistance features to make the driving experience easier, and even in cars that don't have the company's FSD Beta system, Tesla is typically equipped with a basic Autopilot that includes features that allow the vehicle to automatically brake, accelerate, and steer within the lane, while the FSD Beta is only available to owners who qualify for the program with a safety score, which allows owners to use Tesla to perform self-driving tasks on downtown streets.
According to NHTSA, it has received 354 complaints from Tesla Model 3 and Model Y owners about "ghost braking" problems with their vehicles in the past 9 months, and according to the agency's ODI documents, complaints from Tesla owners indicate that the "ghost braking" incident occurred without warning and appears to have occurred randomly, but fortunately, to date, no collisions or injuries related to the "ghost braking" incident have been reported.
The following sections of NHTSA's ODI document provide a summary of the preliminary investigation into Tesla vehicles:
The Office of Defect Investigation (ODI) has received 354 complaints that Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles will accidentally activate brakes in 2021-2022, and reports they have received over the past nine months are often described by consumers as "ghost brakes," which Tesla attributes to a suite of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) called Autopilot that are equipped with problems, Tesla said, The system will allow the vehicle to automatically brake and steer within its lane.
However, according to complaints that when using ADAS features, including adaptive cruise control, vehicles can accidentally brake at high speeds and rapid deceleration can also have random problems without system warnings, and often occur repeatedly in a driving cycle, ODI is currently initiating this preliminary assessment (PE) to determine the scope and severity of potential problems.
Tesla is currently under increasing scrutiny from NHTSA, which has been hit by its multiple investigations and recalls, and since October alone, Tesla has finally made 10 recalls of its vehicles, some of which were under pressure from NHTSA, but most of the time it was Tesla that addressed many of the recalls with free over-the-air software updates, such as disabling FSD Beta's rolling stop feature.