NHTSA Complaint #11476635 — 2022 TESLA MODEL X

"phantom braking" of the tesla optical-only (no radar or lidar) adaptive cruise control. northbound on hwy 101 around Gonzales CA there is a truck stop on the west side of the highway. proper signage and lane lines enable 101 traffic to maintain 65 mph. the insufficient optical-only system hit the brakes through the intersection and caused traffic behind me to brake suddenly as if there were an obstruction. i scheduled service but this is a system that should be tested much more rigorously before delivery. the sudden braking that the system employed caused a situation where driver input was required to avoid a collision. this is inherently dangerous and is avoidable by peers' ACC systems. has not been reproduced to my knowledge. no inspection of the system. yes, there is an audible alarm that the system is braking. too little, too late. one final thought: the ACC systems of vehicles in this class use radar and/or lidar to enable sampling of the entire electromagnetic spectrum that humans can monitor cost-effectively. for some reason tesla made the insane decison to go optical-only, robbing their system of at least 10 times the data. the detriment in available data that an optical-only system has to overcome is too great to solve with nifty software. tesla's decision endangers drivers of their cars and, most importantly, others on the road.