U.S. auto safety regulators have opened an investigation to assess potential safety issues in certain Tesla vehicles after reports describing “phantom braking.” NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation has received over 354 complaints in the past nine months for unexpected brake activation.
The complaints are that while using Autopilot’s features such as adaptive cruise control, “the vehicle unexpectedly applies its brakes while driving at highway speeds (…) complainants report that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, at random and often repeatedly in a single drive cycle,” the report says.
After the evaluation, NHTSA will either close the investigation or move it into a next phase. If a safety-related defect exists, according to NHTSA, the agency may ask Tesla to recall and fix the vehicles.
Notoriously self-assured Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently derided NHTSA as the “fun police” after the agency informed him that yes, even Tesla EVs must make the prescribed amount and type of noise at low speeds so vision-impaired pedestrians can detect them and keep from getting hit—and no, farting sound effects are not an acceptable substitute. He has also recently tweeted that the US Government are stifling his freedom of speech.
