NHTSA Complaint #11432109 — 2021 TESLA MODEL 3

The vehicle will suddenly brake with no discernible obstacles when advanced cruise control is engaged. We experienced multiple “phantom braking” events during an 800+ mile road trip (round trip) last week, which was so frequent and unpredictable that autopilot and autosteer (Tesla’s terms) are unsafe to use. The first half of our trip was on two-lane highways and the car would brake heavily on clear roads and triggered two emergency accident avoidance events when large pickups were approaching in the opposite lane (screen showed a vehicle in red in our lane, audible alarms + heavy braking). The braking was so sudden that we were almost rear ended twice. We chose a different route to return home on a divided interstate, hoping that the TACC system would work. It did not. The car would brake dramatically when we went over a small rise, there was a vehicle in our lane at a significant distance (.5-1.0 mile), or sometimes completely unpredictably. During these events, our speed would drop suddenly more than 20mph. It is an unsafe system to use in even light traffic.